Reporter Av Westin Behind ABC’s ’20/20′ dies at 92


He left CBS in 1967, spent two years as executive director of the non-commercial Public Broadcasting Lab, and joined ABC News in 1969 as executive producer of the evening newscast, then Frank Reynolds. It was a time when “ABC Evening News” followed CBS and NBC’s nightly news operations in prestige, ratings and financial sources.

“My target is ‘H and B’,” Mr. Westin told The Indianapolis News in 1969, referring to NBC co-hosts Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. “I think people are sick of them, and if they’re shopping, I want them to look at us before they automatically turn to Walter,” Cronkite says.

broadcast journalist Ted KoppelMr. Westin, a reporter on the evening news program, said in a phone call, “He probably got the ‘ABC Evening News’ as loud as anyone else down to Roone Arledge,” said Av.

While at ABC News, Mr. Westin directed the “Close Up” documentary unit for which he won a Peabody Award in 1973. The next year, he earned another Peabody for producing and directing the documentary “Sadat: The Biography of Action.” Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat.

He left ABC News in 1976 in a dispute with the division’s head, Bill Sheehan, but returned two years later after Mr. Arledge’s request to “get rid” of the mismatched, bloody “Evening News” host team of Mrs. harry makes sense.

“The day I got back at ABC, one of the producers at the Reasoner camp came up to me and said, ‘You know, he owes us 5 minutes and 25 seconds,’” Mr. Westin said, referring to the Academy of Television. It’s about how much more Miss Walters has been on than Mr Reasoner over the past year.

After returning as executive producer of “Evening News,” Mr. Westin collaborated with Mr. Arledge in 1978 on an overhaul that turned the show into a faster-paced, graphic-focused “World News Tonight” with three links: Mr. Reynolds in Washington, Max Robinson in Chicago and Peter Jennings in London.



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