Upon learning that conservative commentator George Will was moving to Fox News, my initial thought was”great, now he’ll be the next to sell out his usually composed and reasonable conservative mindset in exchange for a more radical approach to appease the far right Fox News audience.”
I should give him the benefit of the doubt though since I do think (or hope) he is better then that.
According to the linked Times article above, Will wanted to eliminate the travel between his Washington home and New York, where ABC’s “This Week” is based from (on weeks when hosted by George Stephanopoulos — usually three weeks out of the month). According to the Times article, Will has been a regular roundtable participant on “This Week” since 1981.
Like the other Sunday morning news shows, “This Week” was based in Washington up until Jan. 2012 when Stephanopoulos returned as host. The New York move was done to accommodate Stephanopoulos who continues to host the New York based “Good Morning America” during the week.
When ABC first announced this arrangement in Dec. 2011, I wondered how it might impact the show’s ability of booking guest to appear in studio, considering most of the mainstream political guests are based in Washington. These same guests often appear on multiple shows each Sunday morning, the rest of which are based in Washington.
It must not have posed too much of a problem or else Stephanopoulos would have either been flying to DC himself each weekend or the network would have replaced him with a DC based host by now.
Earlier this year, ABC News vacated their studio space at the Washington-based Newseum, where “This Week” had previously been hosted.