He left CBS in 1967, spent two years as government director of the noncommercial Public Broadcasting Laboratory and joined ABC Information in 1969 as the manager producer of its night newscast, then anchored by Frank Reynolds. It was an period when “ABC Night Information” trailed CBS and NBC’s nightly information operations in status, scores and monetary sources.
“My goal is ‘H and B,’” Mr. Westin informed The Indianapolis Information in 1969, referring to NBC’s co-anchors Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. “I feel individuals are getting uninterested in them, and in the event that they’re purchasing round, I need them to take a look at us earlier than they routinely flip to Walter” Cronkite.
The printed journalist Ted Koppel, who was a correspondent on the night information program, stated of Mr. Westin in a telephone interview, “He in all probability elevated the ‘ABC Night Information’ as a lot as anybody till Roone Arledge,” including, “Av was a really formidable man, who thought he ought to have been ABC Information president.”
Whereas at ABC Information, Mr. Westin ran its “Shut-Up” documentary unit, for which he received a Peabody Award in 1973. He received one other Peabody the subsequent 12 months, for producing and directing the documentary “Sadat: Motion Biography,” concerning the Egyptian chief Anwar Sadat.
He left ABC Information in 1976 in a dispute with Invoice Sheehan, the president of the division, however returned two years later at Mr. Arledge’s request “to do away with” the incompatible, feuding “Night Information” anchor workforce of Ms. Walters and Harry Reasoner.
“The day I arrived again at ABC, one of many producers who was within the Reasoner camp got here as much as me and stated, ‘You understand, she owes us 5 minutes and 25 seconds,’” Mr. Westin informed the Tv Academy, referring to how way more Ms. Walters had been on the air than Mr. Reasoner over the previous 12 months.
After returning as the manager producer of “Night Information,” Mr. Westin collaborated with Mr. Arledge on an overhaul in 1978 that remodeled the present into the faster-paced, graphics-oriented “World Information Tonight,” with three anchors: Mr. Reynolds in Washington, Max Robinson in Chicago and Peter Jennings in London.
