The TV Column: For ABC and Whitney Houston, a Game of Hoarse

On the day Diane Sawyer was crowned anchor of ABC News's flagship evening newscast, she was seen on ABC News's "Good Morning America" pimping for Oprah Winfrey and Whitney Houston.

ABC News had taped Whitney Houston's mini-concert in Central Park on Tuesday to air Wednesday. This was supposed to have been a comeback party for Houston. She was bad -- and not in a good way.

ABC News apparently did not expect any actual news to come out of that concert. Otherwise they maybe should not have allowed actual journalists -- or at least people with cellphones and TMZ's Web address -- to join the 5,000 fans who came to hear Whitney.

By sitting on its own story for one day ABC News got scooped.

"She cracks her pipes in comeback," the New York Daily News headlined before ABC's show aired Wednesday.

Thanks to non-ABC News journalists, and cellphoned fans, we knew Tuesday that Houston struggled throughout her highly hyped mini-concert, and that she apologized to the crowd for her vocal deficiencies, and blamed it on --

Oprah.

"I'm so sorry. I did 'Oprah' yesterday and I was talking for so long . . . I talked so much that my voice . . . " Houston said before trailing off, according to video of the event sent to TMZ by one of those pesky citizen journalists who do so much these days to gum up TV networks' carefully choreographed news events.

ABC News's "Good Morning America" couldn't avoid showing viewers Houston's less-than-perfect performance. But it edited out Houston's explanation. Nor was newly named news anchor Princess Di seen asking Houston about that.

That's not to say Di dodged all mention of the pop singer's upcoming two-part interview with Oprah Winfrey, timed to kick off the 24th season of Oprah's syndicated talk show, which is seen in many markets on ABC stations.

On the contrary. Di raved about that interview:

"I gotta tell everybody. You know -- an interview with Oprah is going to be on," Di revealed.