ABC’s GMA3 Disaster: How Everyone Screwed Up

In this business of media navel gazing, we like to pick winners and losers. No matter how messed up the story is, invariably you’ll see someone make every effort to opine that this is who won and this is who lost, no matter how tenuous the argument may be.

That is not possible with the hot mess that is GMA3. Everyone is to blame and everyone is a loser. However not all losers are created equal.

Let’s start with the biggest loser and that is ABC itself. No matter how this resolves itself ABC will have to dig itself out of a hole but it’s a hole largely of its own creation.

The network had an opportunity for a brief moment at the very beginning to nip this in the bud. It faced a choice: ride it out for a week or two until the tabloids got bored and moved on to something else or panic.

ABC chose panic. Top to bottom, starting with ABC News President Kim Godwin, ABC panicked.