Entertainment

Amanpour leaving CNN to host ABC’s ‘This Week’

Christiane Amanpour is the new anchor of “This Week,” ABC’s flagship Sunday politics program, the network announced Thursday.

Amanpour previously spent over two decades with CNN as an international journalist. She begins her new position in August, ABC News president David Westin wrote in an e-mail to staff and posted to the ABC Web site.

“Christiane will bring the international and the domestic together,” Westin wrote. “Our audience has come to us for years to see differing points of views expressed in intelligent and compelling ways; now the different points of view will be expanded beyond partisan politics alone.”

George Stephanopoulos, a former top aide to President Bill Clinton, was the longtime host of the program until he moved to ABC’s “Good Morning America” earlier this year. Jake Tapper will fill in until Amanpour arrives.

Amanpour will be a part of a shrinking newsroom. Westin announced last month that ABC News would look to cut a third of its staff through buyouts and layoffs to cut costs.