david westin

One of the primary goals of all journalists is to ensure that they report on the news without ever becoming the news. Unfortunately for ABC News honcho David Westin, he has now moved from covering the story to being the story, as numerous media outlets are reporting his imminent departure from ABC.

According to The New York Times, Westin, who has been president of ABC's news division for nearly 14 years, announced his resignation to staffers via an internal e-mail yesterday, stating that "there are some other things I want to do professionally - things that I cannot explore while fulfilling my responsibilities here."

The message went on to say that though Westin was proud of recent changes, which included putting "in place news anchors on all of our programs," the division also "went through a very difficult transformation made necessary by changes in our business and its economics."

Starting this evening (probably as I type this), ABC is debuting a new name for its nightly newscast. It's nothing radical; they've just removed one pesky word: "Tonight."

The decision to rename World News Tonight, which ABC has been using since 1978, to World News (actually, World News with Charles Gibson), is due to the fact that there is now an afternoon webcast attached to the program and updates made on ABCNews.com all day long. According to news president David Westin, "We are committed to expanding ABC News and World News into the 24-hour space created by the digital world, and it makes sense for that reality to be reflected in the title of the broadcast."

This TV Week article also notes that this is the first time the broadcast's title has incorporated Gibson's name. Gibson, of course, took over the anchor spot in June.