Last year, when Peter Jennings died, my friend Adam and I speculated on who might be the next anchor of ABC World News Tonight. We looked at the websites professing "expert" opinions of who the next anchor would be, and there was a fairly-limited number of individuals: Charles Gibson of Good Morning America, Elizabeth Vargas, and several others were on the list.

Adam and I were of the opinion that ABC could really rock the boat by going with a nonwhite or nonmale anchor. I hesitate to even mention that, given that my ultimate opinion is "the best person for the job regardless of what minority groups they do or don't belong to", but in terms of the way television works, changing things up to that degree and being the first to do it would certainly be worth at least a few ratings points for the network to do it.

ABC eventually decided upon the duo of Bob Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas, and until Woodruff was injured by an IED, that team seemed to do an okay job. Then, with Woodruff on the mend and Vargas announcing her pregnancy, I guess ABC decided it was time to pick an anchor who wasn't going to go off and get himself injured or go off and get herself pregnant.

So ABC News decided to go with Charles Gibson, an older white guy best known for his time spent on Good Morning America.

I'm not knocking Gibson -- he can read a teleprompter and fake concern just as well any of the other candidates. But ABC really had a chance to change things here, to be the first network to make a statement that "it's not just white guys who can lead our marquee news product". Alas, they didn't.

ABC has chosen to go out with the old and in with the old, instead of trying something new.

Sounds about right to me.

TV Exec 1: How about this? A single white girl in the city working at a magazine!
TV Exec 2: Yeah, that's good.
TV Exec 3: Do you guys hear yourselves? This is the same old crap over and over again. We need to take a chance. Try something different. Something fresh.
TV President: *beats TV Exec 3 over the head until he's unconscious*

Amazing the things you can learn from Family Guy.

Guest Blogger Josh Cohen makes his home at Multiple Mentality.

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Posted by: Ole Blue at May 24, 2006 08:50 AM