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Why Sawyer Will Be Better Than Couric

By Nick McMaster, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 2, 2009 4:16 PM CDT

(Newser) – With Diane Sawyer as the host of ABC’s World News, two of the three network nightly newscasts will be anchored by women. But Sawyer is likely to have a smoother time than Katie Couric did, writes Joshua Alston for Newsweek. For one, Sawyer will benefit from Couric’s trailblazing: With less fanfare over the second female anchor, she'll be perceived as the best person for the job, not as someone shattering a glass ceiling.

But Sawyer is simply a better fit for the format. Couric got her experience on the fluffy Today show, while Sawyer was a 60 Minutes correspondent, a host of Primetime Live, and even a Nixon staffer. It’s unlikely that she’ll try to experiment much, as Couric did with her more informal approach, which led to low ratings. "Sawyer will come in with the knowledge that Couric lacked—the fact that people watch the nightly news in order to have the day’s stories read to them in a grave voice,” Alston writes. “That’s all.”

[Images (3)]

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Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric are seen in separate file photos. (AP)

In this July 9, 2009, file photo, Diane Sawyer attends the premiere of "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, file)

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The perception will be that she was the best person for the job, not that a network executive was trying to punch a hole through a glass ceiling merely for its own sake.
- Joshua Alston

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