TVSquad

After lots of controversy, one of America's notorious babies not named Suri has been born. Elizabeth Vargas, who stepped down as anchor of ABC's World News Tonight because of the pregnancy and other family issues, gave birth to a boy yesterday. She and husband Marc Cohn named the baby Samuel Wyatt, and it appears both mother and son are doing well.

Vargas, who still appeared on 20/20 after she stepped down, insisted that she wasn't pushed out of WNT because of ratings slippage, but that she realized that she couldn't travel all over the place when she had two small children to take care of. So, just because she had her baby doesn't mean we'll see her increase her workload again. Even if she did try to lobby for her anchor job back, Charles Gibson would pour sugar in her gas tank on her first day back at work.

[via Mediabistro]

When Elizabeth Vargas stepped down from her job anchoring World News Tonight, many felt that she was forced to do it by ABC higher-ups because of an unfortunate confluence of poor ratings, Bob Woodruff's injury and her unexpected pregnancy. The pregnancy angle riled up lots of people, including feminist groups such as NOW. In fact, these groups publicly criticized the network, even bringing in its treatment of the Geena Davis-led Commander-in-Chief into their tirades (talk about going a step too far...).

But Vargas insists that the decision to give up the WNT anchor chair was hers. In fact, as she tells Gail Shister of the Philadelphia Inquirer, "I played a crucial and active role in this decision. It's the best thing for me and my family and my career right now... . I have no complaints." She still wants to anchor a five-day-per-week show in some capacity -- maybe even in the mornings -- but she won't even attempt to do so until both her kids are a little older.

[via Mediabistro]

According to the New York Post, ABC World News Tonight anchor Elizabeth Vargas is having a boy. The network news anchor is due in late summer.

The little boy will be her second son. She and husband, singer-songwriter Marc Cohn, have another son, Zachary, who is three.

ABC announced today that Good Morning America's anchor duo of Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer will fill in for Bob Woodruff on World News Tonight. As everyone knows, Woodruff suffered severe injuries in an IED explosion in Iraq. Because his injuries will keep him out of action indefinitely, ABC News president David Westin decided to preserve the dual-anchor format that Woodruff and Elizabeth Vargas started on January 3. To that end, Gibson and Sawyer will take turns co-anchoring WNT with Vargas until Woodrufff is well enough to return.

I would imagine that both Gibson and Sawyer won't venture out into the field much, so look for Vargas to be taking the "intrepid reporter" role so that Westin's vision of having at least one anchor in the field can continue.

The irony, of course, is that Gibson was passed over for Vargas and Woodruff when the permanent pairing was announced in December.

The new, young faces of World News Tonight debut this evening on ABC. Five months after Peter Jennings' death from lung cancer, Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff will co-host the nightly newscast. They are the first network anchor team since Dan Rather and Connie Chung shared the desk at CBS in the 1990s. But, don't expect to see them sharing the desk very often. Vargas says it's not going to be two anchors sharing 22 minutes of news, rather, one of them will most likely be reporting anchoring from the field while the other reads the rest of the news from the desk. In fact, tonight's debut of the new format has Vargas at the anchor desk and Woodruff off in Iran. I imagine this is what the anchoring-from-the-field schtick is going to be like: Vargas and Woodruff sharing different "in-depth" or "special" reports about issues rather than day-to-day news events. The purpose of Woodruff's visit to Iran tonight is to help bring better understanding to Americans about a very powerful country that has been on the Bush Administration's radar ever since it was included in the "axis of evil".

Vargas and Woodruff take over the #2-rated newscast in the nation, with Brian Williams and NBC still on top. CBS has yet to decide what it will do with its open anchor position and there are still whispers that Katie Couric is in contention.