ABC Loses Sawyer

Thursday February 25, 1999 12:00 AM EST

Emmy-award winning TV news correspondent Forrest Sawyer, whose duties included occasionally sitting in for Ted Koppel on "Nightline," is leaving ABC. Sawyer (no relation to Diane Sawyer) was unable to reach an agreement with the network on a new contract. An ABC spokesman confirmed Sawyer's departure, saying it was not part of the cuts planned for ABC on-air personalities. Sawyer most recently filed reports on the Kosovo refugee crisis in Albania and on problems with the Apache attack helicopter.

  • In other media news, Vanity Fair writer Kim Masters has seen her warts-and-all bio of Disney chief Michael Eisner (for which she was reportedly paid a $700,000 advance) shot down by Random House, which called the book "unpublishable," according to The New York Times. But now it has emerged that Masters shares the same attorney -- Bert Fields -- with Disney foe Jeffrey Katzenberg (who recently won a major legal decision to claim a multi-million-dollar bonus due him by his former employer, Disney). Observers are calling Masters's employment of Fields -- given she is reporting on Disney -- a conflict of interest.

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