ABC turns to Sawyer, Gibson

ABC NEWS has drafted network heavyweights Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson to fill in on the evening newscast for their injured colleague Bob Woodruff, who was wounded in a roadside explosion in Iraq on Sunday.

Sawyer and Gibson -- who currently anchor “Good Morning America” along with Robin Roberts -- will take turns substituting for Woodruff for the next few weeks, joining his “World News Tonight” co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas, ABC News President David Westin said Wednesday. Other ABC correspondents and anchors will be called upon to pitch in at times as well.

Network officials said they need two anchors on hand to handle all the requirements of the newly expanded broadcast, which includes a daily 3 p.m. webcast and two late editions for West Coast viewers.

“We remain committed to taking ‘World News Tonight’ forward with the two anchors that are required for what we want to accomplish,” Westin said in an e-mail to ABC staff. “With Diane and Charlie, we can do just that as we wait until Bob can take his chair back.”

It remains unclear how Woodruff’s injuries will affect his ability to return to the newscast, however. Doctors have indicated that he has a substantial recovery in front of him.

While conscripting the two veteran broadcasters will help bolster the newscast’s standing in the short term, the move also upends the stability of the second-place morning program, the news division’s most profitable show. Since doing both newscasts in one day would make for extremely long work days, Gibson and Sawyer may not appear on “Good Morning America” on the same days they are anchoring “World News Tonight.”

The move comes as an unsettling form of deja vu for ABC, which was forced into a similar juggling act last spring when anchor Peter Jennings was diagnosed with lung cancer. At the time, Westin asked Gibson to join Vargas and Woodruff in substituting for Jennings. The morning anchor pulled a double shift until Labor Day, when ABC officials decided the workload was too much.

After Jennings died in August, Westin wanted to appoint 62-year-old Gibson to serve for a short time period as the senior anchor along with Woodruff and Vargas, both in their mid-40s. But Westin could not persuade Gibson to take the job for just a two-year stint, and so he instead named Woodruff and Vargas as the program’s new anchor team.

The two, both still relatively unknown, officially took over the post just a month ago. ABC was in the midst of building a new set designed around the two-anchor format and developing a promotional campaign for them when Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were wounded as they traveled with U.S. and Iraqi troops.

On Wednesday, Westin said both men, who were transferred to the Bethesda Naval Medical Center on Tuesday, are getting better. Vogt, whose wounds were less severe, “continues to make excellent progress,” while Woodruff is expected to be slowly brought out of sedation and off a breathing tube in the coming days, the network reported.