{alltv} ABC News chief: Too early to blame media for Tucson

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PASADENA, Calif. — Is the media to blame on some level for fomenting a political climate that may have led to Saturday's tragic shootings in Tucson?

ABC News' new president, Ben Sherwood, says that despite discussions on cable news, it's too early to say. "There are a bunch of different dots in the story that, if we look at them, it is way too early to connect," he said Monday in his first meeting with TV critics.

"We know there is a guy who did this in a supermarket parking lot; we don't know why he did it," he says. "To leap next to the media's role in its is a giant leap, and I don't think we're ready to make that leap."

He says it troubled him to learn of the family of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' grief when they heard (mistakenly, it turns out) that she'd died of her wounds. "Our mission is to get it right, and accuracy is the most important thing. For about 10 minutes, part of our organization, abcnews.com, put up a headline citing other sites, and we brought it down. It did not go on our airwaves. How did that happen? It really hit me in the heart when I heard what that family went through; we have to make sure we're one voice through the whole organization."

Sherwood, a novelist and former Good Morning America producer who replaced the retiring David Westin late last year, boasted that ABC was first on the air Saturday with a special report on the shootings in Tucson. And he hopes that despite "fundamental and very difficult changes in past year" — more than 300 staff cuts that amount to a quarter of its staff — the division is poised to regain its edge.

He says there are "no plans" for further cutbacks, but says, "We have to become more successful as a news division, and that's my mission." (ABC has long been No. 2 in broadcast behind NBC, which shares costs with its MSNBC cable channel.)

One way may be in a partnership with Bloomberg, the financial news organization founded by New York's mayor, which Sherwood's still mulling, though he declined to be specific. "We're always looking for partnerships to expand."

And he defended criticism from outside ABC about the choice of Christiane Amanpour, the globe-trotting former CNN reporter, to anchor Sunday morning's This Week, noting she has been heavily involved in coverage of the Tucson shootings.

"Christiane Amanpour is an intrepid, ferocious reporter who is a true television star," Sherwood says. "Our challenge is to do the right show for Christiane to showcase her talents. My vision for her is to be much more visible to our audience as a contributor to ABC News."