• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Can Bob Woodruff Save Network News?: Metro Detroit Native Will Do Extensive Reporting As ABC's New Co-Anchor

Posted on: Friday, 30 December 2005, 15:00 CST

By Julie Hinds, Detroit Free Press, Detroit Free Press

Dec. 30--A random survey of metro Detroiters last week indicated Bob Woodruff isn't a household name.

Not yet, anyway, but give it a few weeks.

"I can't say I recognize him, but he looks like either a politician or the weatherman," said Peter Prouty, 27, of Hamtramck, when asked to identify a photo of Woodruff.

"I don't know who that is," echoed Marion Shanle, 61, of Grosse Pointe Shores. "I would think he's a TV newsman."

A television critic made a similar observation recently as a joke. "This just in: Bob Woodruff was set free today after an entire country couldn't pick him out of a line-up," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle's Tim Goodman.

But Woodruff's under-the-radar days are numbered.

On Tuesday, the 44-year-old Woodruff, who grew up in Bloomfield Township, makes his official debut as the co-anchor of ABC's "World News Tonight." He'll be appearing from Tehran, Iran, for his big night.

Woodruff will share anchoring duties with Elizabeth Vargas of "20/20," who'll be working from New York on Tuesday. They were chosen in early December to replace Peter Jennings, who died in August of lung cancer.

Plenty of questions loom as Woodruff assumes one of the plum jobs of broadcast journalism. Will his chemistry with Vargas be better than that of past pairings like Harry Reasoner and Barbara Walters and Dan Rather and Connie Chung?

Can "World News Tonight," which is second in the ratings to "NBC Nightly News" with Brian Williams, close the gap? And what happens if Katie Couric takes over at "CBS Evening News," as is rumored?

And then there's the big unknown: What does the future hold for the traditional network evening newscast?

Although the format still draws a combined viewership in the multi-millions, the audience is a graying one that's used to reserving 6:30 p.m. for a dose of national news.

Younger viewers, the people advertisers crave, are turning to many other sources for the latest headlines: cable news, Web news outlets, even Comedy Central's satirical newscasts.

In the battle for ratings and relevance, ABC is rolling out some fresh ammunition for Woodruff and Vargas' debut.

The network is launching a live Webcast on Tuesday that features the duo. Also, Woodruff and Vargas will be putting in later hours to do live newscasts for the western part of the country.

The youthful-looking team may attract new viewers to "World News Tonight." Or that's the hope.

As Woodruff prepares for his debut week, he stresses that nothing about "World News Tonight" is going to be formulaic, including his new job.

"I think we almost need a new word for it, other than anchor," says Woodruff. "I think it's going to be much more of a reporting kind of job, in terms of being out in the world. And it's certainly going to be a job that requires broadcasting on new and different platforms."

Does he have a new word in mind? "No, I'll leave that up to you guys," he says with a laugh.

Woodruff says there's no set rule for how often he'll be out in the field reporting. But observers think it will be a significant chunk of time.

"I'm sure they'll put him on the road one week out of the month," says Brian Stelter, editor of TVNewser.com, a popular site for network and cable news updates.

In Woodruff, ABC has promoted someone who seems like a natural heir to Peter Jennings: a sharp, well-traveled correspondent who's telegenic.

"Physically, he resembles him a little bit, at least a slight resemblance, the shape of his face, the brown hair. Journalistically, he's kind of followed in Jennings' footsteps, as far as he's done a lot of foreign reporting," says Mike Lewis, former WDIV-TV (Channel 4) reporter and journalism director at Oakland University. "He was embedded with the Marines in Iraq. Bosnia, Afghanistan. Pakistan. ... He's not a lightweight."

Those who know Woodruff well expect him to take his new assignment in stride.

"People want to classify him as the good-looking type, but he really is a brilliant guy," says his older brother, Dave Woodruff, 45, who works in Troy as group advertising director for Hearst Magazines.

"Here's a guy who went to Michigan Law School and just kind of in his spare time learned to speak Mandarin Chinese. ... That's just kind of typical of Bob. He's one of those guys that's incredibly smart, knows a lot about a lot of things. When you meet him, he's a regular guy."

In many ways, Woodruff is the ultimate local-guy-makes-good. He's a graduate of Cranbrook Schools who had a reputation there as a kind and popular scholar-athlete. He went to the University of Michigan Law School. His parents still live in the Bloomfield Village neighborhood of Bloomfield Township.

Charles Shaw, head of the Cranbrook Kingswood upper school, recalls Woodruff, who captained the lacrosse and ski teams, as someone who always had the qualities of a leader.

"He had a continuous sense of self-control, courage, resilience, the kinds of things that are necessary," says Shaw, who coached him in lacrosse. "His tolerance for scrutiny and his tolerance for testing are exactly the kinds of qualities that make him excellent."

Detroit broadcasters who've followed Woodruff's career point to his overseas experience as proof that he has the right stuff.

"People interpret this as hands-on," says Amyre Makupson, former WKBD-TV (Channel 50) anchor. "You've earned it. You've been in the trenches. You've been around. This is not just you get this job and you sit here. I think it brings a level of respect."

Media consultant and columnist Teresa Tomeo, a former local TV reporter, says Woodruff fills both sides of the anchor coin.

"It is TV, so you have to have a good appearance and look good and come across well on camera," says Tomeo. "But it's so important to be able to understand the stories that you're reading and that you're talking about. And he has an extensive background, which I think is really impressive."

Even with those credentials, it may be hard for someone in Woodruff's position to form the kind of bond that existed between past anchors -- Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, the Jennings-Brokaw-Rather troika -- and their audiences.

Emery King, a former Channel 4 anchor and NBC White House correspondent who now handles communications for the Detroit Medical Center and is an independent producer, says he looks with a skeptical eye at the shifting landscape of network news.

"It's just all changing and evolving and the big question I share with regular viewers is I don't know what it's going to turn into," says King.

Oakland University's Lewis says network anchors remind him these days of circus hawkers, in their "desperate struggle to get people into their tents, particularly young people."

Dan Kennedy, who teaches journalism at Northeastern University in Boston and writes the "Media Nation" blog (www.medianation.blogspot.com), says the network evening newscasts are hampered by their outdated time slot.

"The big problem the newscasts are all facing is they're stuck in this 6:30 p.m. time-slot ghetto. The young people they want to reach are just not watching news at that time of day."

Kennedy says Woodruff and Vargas will have their work cut out for them catching up with NBC, which made a seamless transition from Brokaw to Williams.

NBC seems "poised for the next 10 years," Kennedy says. "They're not really in a position of having to reinvent themselves."

Channel 7 programmer Marla Drutz, however, expects the race to be close in the Detroit market. During the November ratings period, ABC's "World News Tonight" was a single ratings point behind "NBC Nightly News" in metro Detroit, she says, and this was before the Woodruff-Vargas announcement raised viewer curiosity.

Woodruff has endured some ribbing from Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report." In one segment, Stephen Colbert gushed at leisure about Vargas, then showed Woodruff's photo for a second as a punchline.

Woodruff says such attention comes with the territory. "You've got to have a pretty thick skin to do this job," he says.

-----

Copyright (c) 2005, Detroit Free Press

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Unknown:HRS, Unknown:LAF,

Source: Detroit Free Press

More News in this Category