Exit Interview by David Westin

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Synopsis

An industry veteran takes us inside TV newsIn March 1997, when David Westin became president of ABC News, TV journalism was in the throes of rebirth: cable networks were proliferating, the Internet was emerging as a viable medium for journalists, and the Big Three were losing the cultural dominance they’d known for decades. More intriguingly, post–cold war America was enjoying an era of peace and prosperity. “It looked like all the really important news was... more

An industry veteran takes us inside TV newsIn March 1997, when David Westin became president of ABC News, TV journalism was in the throes of rebirth: cable networks were proliferating, the Internet was emerging as a viable medium for journalists, and the Big Three were losing the cultural dominance they’d known for decades. More intriguingly, post–cold war America was enjoying an era of peace and prosperity. “It looked like all the really important news was behind us,” Westin writes.It wasn’t, of course, and for the next thirteen years he presided over ABC News for some of the most important, thrilling, fraught, and perplexing events in its history. Exit Interview is a behind-the-scenes look at his tenure and the major news that marked it. Neither an apologia nor a critique, the book instead addresses basic questions about journalists today—what they do and why they do it—from the point of view of someone who was there.With touchstones from the recent past—President Clinton’s impeachment, the contentious 2000 election, and the war in Iraq, among others—Westin takes us inside the chaos of the newsroom, where what looks clear and certain from the outside is often mired in conflict and urgency. From his baptism by fire after Princess Diana’s death to the epochal events of 9/11, he explores the uncertainty inherent to his job, and its central question: Is it possible for journalists to be both good at their jobs and people of good moral character? less

About David Westin

David Westin was president of ABC News from March 6, 1997, to December 3, 2010. He lives in Bronxville, New York.