Adjusting to the ins and outs of the anchor chair
Charles Gibson is still getting used to the idea of being in charge.
The veteran newsman has plenty of experience anchoring ABC’s evening newscast -- he’s been filling in since at least 1998 -- but when he officially took the helm of “World News Tonight” at the end of May, he found it required some adjusting.
As a substitute anchor, “it was a little bit like being a grandparent: You could play with the baby and enjoy it and have a terrific time, and if you screwed up, you were always going to be able to give the kid back,” he said on a recent afternoon, leaning back in a chair on the set in the bustling newsroom. Now, “if I screw it up, I’ve got to fix it. And that’s at this point more profound than I thought it was.”
For one thing, the program’s staff now looks to him for the final word on what should go in the broadcast. Gibson -- a product of Quaker education who still occasionally attends worship meetings -- said he’s more accustomed to that faith’s tradition of group decision-making.
“In meetings, we’re sort of sitting around and I think we’ve reached consensus and everybody turns to me and says, ‘OK, what are you going to do?’ ” he said. “And that’s a little bit antithetical to me. I’m beginning to find out that one guy is more equal than others.”
After nearly two decades of handling the lighter fare of “Good Morning America” and faithfully serving as a backup player for longtime anchor Peter Jennings, the 63-year-old has been thrust into a new role as the face of ABC News. The network is running a new ad campaign trumpeting Gibson as “your trusted source,” and morning show producers are preparing a celebration of his years on “GMA” that will air June 28, his last day on the program.
“Life has changed in ways that I still don’t understand,” said Gibson, who is still co-hosting the morning show three times a week through this month. “There’s a qualitative difference, and I’m still not sure I know what it is.”
He didn’t have much time to ponder the question on a recent afternoon. Hours earlier, terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi had been killed in a U.S. airstrike, and Gibson had to cut the conversation short to interview an Army general in Iraq.
As he strode to the set, the anchor -- who just days earlier had been engaged in an extensive segment on potty training on “GMA” -- paused and chuckled wryly. Reporters used to want to talk to his morning co-host, Diane Sawyer, not him, he noted. “And now I’m too busy because I’ve got to go talk to a general in Iraq. Talk about a qualitative difference.”
One element colleagues don’t expect to change: Gibson’s straightforward, avuncular demeanor. Decidedly old-fashioned, the newsman dismisses the current angst in the industry about the need for a new anchor model for modern audiences, saying flatly that his job is simply to deliver the best summary of the day’s news.
“One of his great talents is an ability to connect in an authentic way that’s not a calculation or made-for-TV event,” said Ben Sherwood, the outgoing executive producer of “GMA.” “He’s a great interviewer, and he cares a lot, and the audience sees that. The audience also knows when Charlie doesn’t care for a particular guest or when he’s not enthused about a particular segment or story. That’s the way he is -- it’s right out there.”
A smaller viewership
It remains to be seen whether Gibson can help boost the audience of second-place “World News Tonight,” which has shrunk by around 900,000 this season. So far, he’s anchoring only four nights a week while pulling double duty in the morning.
During his first two weeks in the post, the broadcast drew a little more than 7 million viewers on average, according to Nielsen Media Research, down from the 7.5 million who tuned in the last week Elizabeth Vargas served as anchor.
But for the staff of “World News Tonight” -- whiplashed by Jennings’ death and the wounding in Iraq of one of his successors, Bob Woodruff -- Gibson’s appointment has meant the much-needed arrival of a steady presence behind the desk.
“It’s a big relief,” said executive producer Jon Banner. “It is nice to be back in the game and to be really out there, not only to do what our job is every night and to provide people with what happened but to have somebody to compete with.”
Gibson, who joined ABC in 1975, admits he had always quietly contemplated the evening news post from afar, with little hope of getting it.
“I had never expected to do this job,” he said. “Peter was going to be anchor for life.”
But the loss of Jennings and the sidelining of Woodruff changed everything.
Gibson, who had been passed over for the evening news post last fall in favor of a two-anchor team of Woodruff and Vargas, self-deprecatingly refers to himself as “a creature of circumstance.”
But he had some leverage in securing the job this time: He was seriously contemplating retirement when his “GMA” contract ended next year, a prospect that appears to have kept Sawyer -- who also had interest in moving to the evening -- from lobbying for it herself.
“You can’t be in journalism and not think how wonderful it would be to anchor the evening news,” Sawyer said. “But I would and could never do that if it meant losing Charlie Gibson from the network.”
Still, Gibson’s move to “World News Tonight” has meant serious ramifications for “GMA,” which is going to be left without a male co-anchor just as executives had hoped to take on NBC’s “Today,” which lost Katie Couric to CBS last month.
“It’s bittersweet,” said Robin Roberts, “GMA’s” third co-anchor. “It’s hard to lose somebody who you love so much. But I would be really petty if I said, ‘That just messed up things for us.’ ”
The network -- which was about to launch a promotional blitz for Woodruff and Vargas when the former was seriously hurt just weeks into their tenure -- is now trying to capitalize on Gibson’s reputation as a steady hand in a new marketing campaign. The message: that after more than three decades at ABC, Gibson is an elder statesman who offers more perspective than 49-year-old Couric or NBC’s 47-year-old Brian Williams.
“He’s been there. Seen it. Brought us the world,” intones a new spot running on the network that features clips of Gibson on foreign assignments and interviewing Presidents Bush and Clinton. “In times like these, it’s important to trust the source.”
For his part, Gibson demurs when asked what he will bring to the post that is different from his competitors.
“It’s not so much me; it’s the fact that they’ve gone to someone who’s part of the woodwork,” he said. “I can bring something of a steadying presence to what has been a very disrupted news division.”
Gibson said he has no plans to make substantial changes to the newscast. A former White House correspondent, he’s a “political junkie,” so Washington news will likely get substantial play, as will international news, he said.
While the Woodruff-Vargas pairing was premised on having an anchor constantly in the field, Gibson said he’s not persuaded that a traveling anchor adds much to coverage, aside from bringing attention to a story.
“When you fly into a story and you’re there for eight hours and then you’re all of a sudden on the air, you’re not necessarily a complete expert on that story,” he said.
The longtime ABC newsman dismisses the recent debate about whether it’s time to move beyond the “voice of God” anchor as “silly.”
“I understand there’s a natural inclination to want to personify the newscast,” he said. “But this is a competition between three news departments. You’ll learn a lot from tonight’s newscast, and that’s because we’ve got really good people doing this program, not necessarily because you’ve got me.”
In fact, Gibson -- who can be almost terse when asked about himself -- practically beamed when discussing correspondents like Martha Raddatz, who had broken the news about Zarqawi’s death early that morning.
“I’m so glad -- I’m crazy about her,” he said, wearing the unembarrassed grin of a proud father. “I’m fronting the broadcast that she does. That’s really cool.”