ABC新闻部总裁即将卸任

在ABC新闻部裁剪四分之一的雇员后，其总裁威斯汀提出了辞呈，宣布其13年的新闻工作走向尾声。究竟大家对此持何种态度？一起来听听大家对此的反应吧。

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

And I'm Melissa Block.

ABC News President David Westin has told the network he is resigning after 13 years in the job. As NPR's David Folkenflik reports, his announcement comes just months after ABC News bought out a quarter of its employees.

DAVID FOLKENFLIK: David Westin's mentor, Roone Arledge, propelled ABC to success by creating a star system around Peter Jennings, Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters. As former ABC News correspondent Linda Douglass recalls, Westin had been the news division's soft-spoken lawyer.

Ms. LINDA DOUGLASS (Former ABC News Correspondent): Everything about Roone was larger than life, and David was greeted with some skepticism by the staff because he didn't come from a background in journalism.

FOLKENFLIK: He made some early mistakes, such as sending Leonardo DiCaprio to interview President Clinton. But Westin's tenure was defined by his reaction to crises. He salvaged a rating-starved "Good Morning America" by convincing Sawyer and Charles Gibson to become hosts. Then, there was the unhappy task of replacing Jennings.

Ms. DOUGLASS: When you talk about the anchor challenges, you really have to take into consideration the shock of Peter's illness and subsequent death and the impact that it had on ABC News.

FOLKENFLIK: One of the new anchors, Bob Woodruff, was critically injured in Iraq, and the other, Elizabeth Vargas, went on maternity leave. Westin turned again to big-name stars.

ABC's corporate parent, the Disney Company, made a big and profitable bet on sports cable with ESPN but didn't do the same for news. Analyst Andrew Tyndall is publisher of tyndallreport.com.

Mr. ANDREW TYNDALL (Publisher, tyndallreport.com): At NBC, they knew that the broadcast-only face of news was on the wane, and they got the money to expand the house of broadcasting and go into, first, business cable and then all-news cable, CNBC and MSNBC.

FOLKENFLIK: Westin emphasized ABC's digital presence instead but enjoyed only modest success. Meanwhile, corporate bosses demanded increased profits, even as audiences waned.

Former CBS News President Andrew Heyward.

Mr. ANDREW HEYWARD (Former President, CBS News): The head of a network news division needs to balance the demands of the current audience and the revenues that current audience generates with the need to innovate and to imagine the needs of a future audience. And you can actually innovate too aggressively at your peril.

FOLKENFLIK: But Heyward questions whether network newscast will still be around in a decade. Meanwhile, Westin, who's 58, says there are things he still wants to accomplish professionally but can't do at ABC. No word yet on a successor.

David Folkenflik, NPR News, New York.