Despite a Fox News item last week by gossip columnist Roger Friedman, it's ABC News' Charlie Gibson, not Diane Sawyer, who is likely to get the nod to anchor "World News Tonight" while Bob Woodruff
recovers from the serious wounds he sustained in Iraq. It's thought that Sawyer, with her solid credentials and ambitions to move to the prestige of "World News Tonight," badly wanted the job. But
ABC wasn't eager to remove her from her morning hosting duties at "Good Morning America"; that show makes the network a bundle, and disturbing the chemistry of the ayem team could upend the whole
thing. Nevertheless, "Good Morning America"'s Gibson had already been offered "World News Tonight" once and turned it down, saying he didn't like the deal. That left the door open for Sawyer, and
many thought she'd waltz through it. Instead, say reports, she was quietly pitching Gibson--again--behind the scenes. "The great irony of that whole thing," one ABC News staffer says, was "as the
rest of the world was talking about how she was lobbying to get the job for herself, it was quite the opposite." Rebecca Dana details the backstage posturing in her very good New York Observer piece.
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