Diane Sawyer has been berating her “ABC World News” producers for repeatedly sending her to the wrong continent for breaking news, a network source said.
The source told us, “Diane is off-the-charts mad. She feels that she’s always poorly positioned. She was in China last week, while the news was in England with the royal engagement, and NBC’s Brian Williams already had the Prince Charles interview.
“She was in New York Tuesday night when the news was in North Korea, so it would have been better for her to be in China this week.
“She was even throwing around that she was in Afghanistan when the Haiti quake happened. It’s impossible to predict breaking news, but she sometimes feels she is in the wrong place at the wrong time, and is taking it out on her producers.”
Competition between Sawyer and her “NBC Nightly News” rival Williams is fierce. Williams got lucky with a Prince Charles interview for a “Dateline” special, “The Man Who Will Be King.” It was set up before the official Nov. 16 announcement of the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton and aired on Nov. 19.
But another ABC insider told us, “Brian’s interview was obviously booked before the engagement was announced, so to say Diane is jealous of an old interview is ridiculous.
” ‘World News’ had its best ratings of the season while Diane was in China,” the ABC insider said. “We were the first on Tuesday night to get a comment from President Obama about North Korea. Plus, Diane was there two years ago, when she was one of the first journalists to broadcast from there.”
An NBC insider said, “ABC producers were insanely envious. Brian had the only formal comments from His Royal Highness regarding a possible engagement. The interview was booked in advance, but it was great forward thinking.”