Two for the Road

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Monday's 15-minute Webcast has other interesting pieces, such as one on musicians bypassing record companies to take their songs to the Internet, that were pitched for "World News Tonight" but didn't make the cut. No one at ABC knows how many people are watching these 3 p.m. programs, which are prepared as meticulously as the broadcast itself, but the newsroom got a boost this week when Apple's iTunes said the show was the top-rated news podcast, and No. 12 overall.

With 29 minutes to air time, the control room is in a tizzy. Vargas is supposed to tease the newscast with the anchors of ABC's Philadelphia station, but she can't hear anything in her earpiece. They miss the live shot but fix the problem in time for a chat with WJLA's Gordon Peterson in Washington.

Banner, meanwhile, is making last-minute changes to scripts. The lead story, which has remained constant all day, is the layoffs and restructuring at Ford, with Dean Reynolds live in Dearborn, Mich., and Dan Harris analyzing the automaker's strategy. This will be followed by reports on Bush defending his domestic surveillance program and David Kerley on West Virginia passing a mine safety law. Vargas fiddles with the introduction to Kerley's piece to make it more national in scope.

With 11 minutes to go, Banner is on the phone with correspondent Bill Redeker, who is crashing a piece on Kobe Bryant's big night for the West Coast update. "Can it be a little different than what everyone's been doing all day long?" Banner asks, looking for some graphics to jazz up a story that will be old news in Los Angeles by the time they come on.

Finally, it's show time for Vargas. "Good evening. Bob Woodruff is on assignment tonight. They are calling it Black Monday at Ford Motor Company . . ."

The broadcast goes smoothly, and Vargas returns to the newsroom after taping a promo for a series on cancer prevention. But she still has three hours to go. Since ABC has committed to live feeds for the Western time zones, she must stick around to do the show twice more, at 8:30 and 9:30 Eastern, when Bryant will finally get his moment.

Whether Vargas and Woodruff will get their moment -- whether they will be recognized as worthy heirs to the man whose spirit still infuses the place -- remains an open question. An equally open question is whether the tag-team approach and Internet presence produce journalism that appeals to a mass audience, or whether, in the end, all that matters is stardom.

On a column in the newsroom hangs a poster with Jennings's picture, announcing that his newscast had won an Edward R. Murrow Award. It is a reminder that ABC is still feeling its way through a transition that no one wanted.

"It's a tremendous motivator," Woodruff says, "to know that Peter is watching and what we have to live up to."