Posts Tagged ‘Diane Sawyer’

ABC News’ Diane Sawyer used her big scoop — the first televised interview with Jaycee Dugard — to break in her Twitter account.

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ABC News will launch dedicated Web site SaveOne.net Friday, Dec. 17, in conjunction with a special edition of 20/20, Be the Change: Save a Life, focused on the health conditions the poorest people on the planet deal with and innovations that may help them.

SaveOne.net will serve as a clearinghouse for global health information and allow viewers to get involved, also offering unique content from ABC News reporters around the globe as they report through the year.

Be the Change: Save a Life, anchored by Diane Sawyer and airing at 10 p.m. ET Dec. 17, will feature: Sawyer comparing maternity wards in Brooklyn and Afghanistan; Elizabeth Vargas reporting from India; Dr. Richard Besser returning to Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he worked 20 years ago; Chris Cuomo looking for clean water in the jungles of the Central African Republic; Christiane Amanpour reporting from remote villages of Guatemala and Niger, Africa; Deborah Roberts visiting the Kingdom in the Sky; Dan Harris examining tuberculosis in Cambodia; and Jay Schadler and a team of camels making up a medical camel caravan trekking through the nomadic Samburu region of Kenya.

ABC News will live-stream its election-night coverage Nov. 2 on Facebook starting at 8 p.m. ET, including some reporting from the social network’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., reports Caitlin Fitzsimmons of sister blog All Facebook.

In addition, Facebook will solicit members from key congressional districts to explore issues and interact with news broadcasts on the network, with questions, comments, and opinions, as well as questions for local debates, according to All Facebook.

World News anchor Diane Sawyer and chief political correspondent and Good Morning America co-anchor George Stephanopoulos will lead ABC News’ coverage of the midterm elections.

Diane Sawyer regularly engages her ABC News viewers asking them to send in their stories and comments on controversial issues and topics in the news. And in two recent cases she’s turning the online comments into on-air stories.

“World News” ended Friday’s broadcast with Sawyer and correspondents David Muir, Sharyn Alfonsi, Ron Claiborne, and Bill Weir all together on set. The correspondents each featured one of the stories that viewers sent in throughout the week on the show’s webpage and Facebook as part of it’s “Going Home” series.

In addition, Sawyer’s “20/20″ special Friday night, “Islam – Questions & Answers,” was born out of questions she asked viewers to submit as the broadcast covered the controversy over the planned Islamic Center near ground zero and the controversial plan to burn Koran’s in Florida.

In her daily pre-World News webcast “The Conversation” today, ABC’s Diane Sawyer talks with her former producer-turned-author Ben Sherwood whose book was turned into a the Zac Efron movie “Charlie St. Cloud.” Sawyer talks with Sherwood about how one goes from TV News producer to author. They also exchange some old memories and photos.

“Charlie” brought in about $12 million in its opening weekend. As TVNewser reported earlier this week, Sherwood is also a former NBC News producer having been a senior producer on “NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.”

“ABC World News” is going to Silicon Valley this week, with Diane Sawyer speaking to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Sawyer made the announcement, not surprisingly, on her Facebook page and is soliciting questions for Zuckerberg from her fans.

Big Announcement: On Wednesday I’ll be sitting down with Mark Zuckerberg, creator and founding brain of Facebook. I want to bring questions from you, so send them my way and let’s see what happens.

According to an ABC News press release, Zuckerberg will give Sawyer a tour of the facility before sitting down for a one-on-one interview. The interview will air Wednesday, July 21 on “World News,” which will originate from Palo Alto, CA that evening. Additional excerpts will be featured on other ABC News programs and platforms.

Sawyer has another exclusive interview the day before, with new UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

While the new “World News with Diane Sawyer” premiered on ABC last night, one longtime Web production — the daily World News Webcast — is taking a break.

“We put the Webcast on hiatus,” show EP Jon Banner tells WebNewser. Banner has added new elements to Diane Sawyer‘s Web presence including “The Conversation.”

“‘The Conversation’ is a natural extension of what’s happening on air. And allows us to talk to some of our great top-notch beat correspondents in a way that’s not always possible on the broadcast,” says Banner.

The online chat is recorded on Webcam, in the newsroom, or wherever the correspondent or anchor may be. And while it may be edited, it is unvarnished showing the so-called “sausage making” that goes in to producing a nightly newscast.

“I think both the mission of the broadcast and our online mission is similar in that I want it to have a more real feel,” says Banner. “This is not always 100% polished, this is an attempt and being a little bit more real. Everything in life is not perfectly lit.

• More: “The Conversation” from today, in Brian Ross‘ office.

Next Wednesday, ABC News is devoting most of their day to the President’s plans for U.S. health care. It culminates with a one-hour primetime conversation on ABC-TV from the White House moderated by Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer.

While he audience in the East Room will be chosen by ABC News, ABCNews.com is inviting all viewers to join the discussion and share their questions about health care reform by going here starting tomorrow.

ABCNews.com will be working with Digg to select popular questions voted on by online users and some of those questions will be put to President Obama during the program. ABC News’ daily political webcast, “Top Line”, will focus on health care reform throughout the week of June 22. ABCNews.com’s senior political reporter Rick Klein, will live-blog and interact with users as the forum airs and full video coverage of the forum will be posted online.

TVNewser has more on ABC-TV’s plans…

ABC News announced today that it will be releasing a commemorative three-hour DVD, “A Moment in History: The Inauguration of Barack Obama” on March 3. The ABC News production will be the first commercially available DVD of the Inauguration and will be offered for pre-order at the ABC News Store and MPIHomeVideo.com.

The DVD features highlights of the day’s coverage anchored by Charles Gibson, Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos and reporting by the network’s team of correspondents throughout Washington DC.

The DVD also has special features including Barbara Walters‘ November interview with the Obamas.

NBC will release its inauguration video a week later on March 10.

Gawker has a compilation video of Diane Sawyer‘s ABC News coverage before, during and after the inauguration. The insinuation, or rather straight-up accusation, is that Sawyer was drunk on the air.

Thanks to hero intern Bette Bentley for compiling this wonderful video of America’s Drunkest Former Nixon Staffer Journalist mumbling things about children and boots.

ABC was none too happy with the Gawker post and demanded a correction. And in true Gawker style, the correction comes with commentary. Oh, and it’s not true either. An insider tells WebNewser, “It’s 100% inaccurate and untrue. Diane had been up since 3am Tuesday and worked through GMA this morning.”