Diane Sawyer’s “World News Tonight” is the least serious evening news broadcast and is “now certifiable Disneyfied,” according to a report out on Friday.
The well-known TV news business analyst, Andrew Tyndall, published a scathing review of Sawyer’s broadcast in his 2013 news industry annual report.
“2013 marks the year when ABC World News finally rejected the mission of presenting a serious newscast,” wrote Tyndall, noting that ABC’s broadcast did the least coverage of weighty issues such as the budget debate, health-care roll-out and gun control and instead loaded up on stories about sports and show business.
“The only major stories that ABC covered competitively were true crime — the George Zimmerman trial and Ariel Castro’s Cleveland hell house — and celebrity: London’s baby prince,” Tyndall wrote.
The Mouse House network immediately returned fire and tore into the report.
ABC News is the only one of the three major broadcast news divisions not to pay Tyndall for his minute-by-minute analysis of who’s covering what on the evening news, ABC’s news p.r. chief Jeffrey Schneider said — trying to cast Tyndall’s attack as financially motivated.
In addition, the quality of news broadcasts shouldn’t be judged on how many minutes they dedicate to any single topic, Schneider told The Post.
In a wild few minutes, Tyndall returned ABC’s fire with his own facts — that ABC dropped him 10 years ago, and that he’s been compiling the annual report every year since then.
Disney has fielded accusations that it’s gone soft on news since it shifted “Nightline” one hour deeper into the night — to 12:35 a.m. — to make way for Jimmy Kimmel.
The accusations threw the spotlight on ABC’s news president Ben Sherwood, who fluffed up “Good Morning America,” and ended up toppling NBC’s “Today Show.”
Sawyer’s evening news program has seen its ratings increase as well.
Its ratings are up about 1 percent this season, to their highest level in four years — and it is closing in on NBC’s Nightly News.
Tyndall argues that his data shows CBS has the most serious evening news coverage because it covered foreign policy and policy debates in depth.
CBS’ “60 Minutes,” of course, has been criticized lately for faulty reports on the Benghazi consulate attack and a soft feature on the NSA.