Correction appended
Veteran journalist and ABC World News Tonight anchor Charles Gibson sat down with aspiring journalists yesterday to offer his two cents on media.
About 20 people congregated at Kelly Writer's House for a lunchtime question-and-answer session with the seasoned reporter - and no question was out of bounds.
Gibson, who has over 40 years of experience in the business, emphatically denied that advertisers influence the content of his news broadcast, a suspected issue in some outlets.
"We're circumspect that our ownership is Disney," he said. "We'll talk about a story if it affects them. But the sales division keeps their hands off."
Gibson also commented on CBS Evening News' hiring of Katie Couric, saying that CBS's mistake was "trying to alter the form of the show."
Gibson had several tips for students considering a career in journalism.
Like any other person, Gibson admitted that he has opinions on many of the issues he reports on daily but warned students against advocating those opinions in a news story.
And although he works in a more visually-oriented medium, Gibson emphasized the importance of writing to any type of journalism.
It's an "enormously undervalued skill," he told the crowd. "You can't write enough."
Gibson also said many careers in journalism don't have to start in a large newsroom.
Gibson's own career started small in Lynchburg, Va., where he covered a racially divided community in the wake of the civil rights movement.
Students appreciated Gibson's candor.
"The thing that really struck me the most was when we were introducing ourselves, he tried to make a connection with each of us," said Wharton junior Felisha Liu.
Gibson made an earlier visit to a TV Criticism class taught by Philadelphia Inquirer reporter and Penn professor Gail Shister.
"There's not one phony bone in his body," Shister said, mentioning Gibson's trademark "old-school" style.
Gibson admitted that he always wears a tie and only carries a cell phone because ABC forces him to.
College senior Carly Zakin eagerly came to the lunch, being "a big fan of Charles Gibson and Gail Shister."
Wharton senior Scott Goldin, who met the president of NBC when he took Shister's class last semester, said he was excited that she able to bring in a news anchor to campus.
Correction: "ABC World News" was incorrectly referred to as "ABC World News Tonight."
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