NEW ABC NEWS PRESIDENT NAMED

ABC has named Ben Sherwood, a former executive producer of Good Morning America, to replace David Westin as president of ABC News. Sherwood, who is the very personification of media convergence — he has a background in traditional broadcast news, has written commentaries for the Web (including the Huffington Post), and wrote the novel on which the movie Charlie St. Cloud was based — takes over just as ABC’s early morning and early evening news programs are taking a beating in the ratings. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Sherwood, who left the network four years ago, said, “It’s an amazing job that will require every ounce of creativity that I have and every ounce of ability that I have. And I’m going to go all out.” But today’s (Monday) Los Angeles Times described what Sherwood will be up against: “The division has been ravaged by staff cuts, must grapple with how to respond to opinionated and provocative cable rivals, and faces scores of anonymous competitors breaking news on Twitter,” it wrote.