Ben Sherwood will succeed David Weston as president of ABC News, Disney announced on Friday.
In an emailed statement, the global media company said that Sherwood, 46, will head up editorial, programming, and digital operations for the news division – a natural fit for Sherwood, whose background brings a lot of diversity to the role.
In addition to positions with the news divisions of CBS, NBC, and ABC, during his career, Sherwood has written a novel, “The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud,” and has founded an online support group, TheSurvivorsClub.org, a website with a mission to help people “in crisis survive and thrive.” ABC is hopeful that this modern-day renaissance man has the skill set to inject some life into its news department. The company began taking steps to restructure the entire division last February, when the network began to rely more heavily on freelance journalists, and required staff to begin wearing photography and editing hats in addition to their roles as reporters.
Experts think that Sherwood will bring the knowledge and talent to the table that ABC needs to compete in today’s changing media world. “They need more people who are conversant with new media, social media and the blogosphere,” said independent media analyst Hal Vogel. “They need to be able to reach a different demographic who has a very different view of how the world works.”
Photo courtesy of the Hachette Book Group.
