Diane Sawyer Appears Drunk During Live Election Coverage

The ever professional and composed reporter Diane Sawyer appeared a bit loopy during her presidential election coverage last Tuesday night.  Apparently after 48 hours of near non-stop prepping and reporting on the election, the ABC News anchor began slurring her words, leaning on her desk for support, laughing uncontrollably and being absolutely giddy, as can be seen in the viral video of the ABC election night coverage.

Mishaps in Sawyer’s broadcast included her referring to our president as “President Barack” and “Barack O’Rama.”  She also seemed to be particularly interested with the background music, at one point even saying, “OK I wanna — can we have our music, because this is another big one here? Minnesota, we’re ready to project Minnesota, rrright now. … Well, tonight we know that President Barack has won Minnesota,” according to USA Today.  She frequently got loud, slurred her words and slowed down considerably during her sentences.

Not long into the live reporting by Sawyer and her co-anchor George Stephanopoulos, viewers had a Twitter frenzy, making jokes about her behavior being due to alcohol or prescription drug use.  According to NY Daily News, someone even created a fake Twitter profile @drnkdianesawyer which got over a thousand followers within minutes, and posted tweets from Sawyer’s point of view such as “Diane Sawyer MUST HAVE TACO BELL,” “Im not drunk U gusys r dunk” and “Hey guys wh o won i fell aslee?p.”  Luckily Sawyer had a friend on Twitter to stick up for her. The New York Times’ Brian Stelter, soon tweeted, “Diane Sawyer’s name is trending. Many people saying she seems drunk on air. Alternative theory: she gets this way when she’s really tired,” according to the Huffington Post.
Although there were some tweets spurring harsh criticisms of her abnormal behavior, it was mostly all fun and games.  Sawyer even tweeted herself in a brief response during the unexpected studio blackout that occurred just before 11 p.m. saying, “Read your tweets the good, bad and the funny.”  She did not address her odd behavior days after on World News, and CBS News has not responded to requests for a comment on the matter, according to NY Daily News.

Since 1962 Sawyer has been a household name.  The much loved news anchor and writer has been around to broadcast news in this country’s history on Primetime, Good Morning America, CBS News, 60 Minutes, CBS Morning News and now the ABC broadcast World News.  She has won awards for her reporting such as the duPonts, Emmys, Peabodys, the grand prize of the premier Investigative Reporters and Editors Association, IRTS Lifetime Achievement Award, the USC Distinguished Achievement in Journalism Award and in 1997 she was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.  It is undeniable that Sawyer is a hard working woman, and even if rumors of her being drunk on air were true, it didn’t do anything to harm the broadcast.  If anything, it made it the most interesting show of election coverage of any of the networks.  At least she appears to be a happy drunk, right?  According to the LA Times, Tom Shales, a writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, praised Sawyer as being “indefatigable, if sometimes overly thrilled,” and her energy was “awe-inspiring.”

This is not the first time Sawyer has acted a bit peculiar and maybe even a little suspicious on air.  Most notably, in 2009 on her broadcast for ABC News the night after President Obama’s inauguration, Sawyer had some similar loopy behavior.  Extra smiley Sawyer appeared to still be drunk of celebrations from the night before while slurring her words and having slowed down speech, as The Atlantic Wire says, but admittedly it was probably just due to multiple nights of nonstop coverage of the event without a chance for sleep.  She is a woman with an impressive background of awards and national interviews with world leaders such as the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Roman Polanski and Whitney Houston. She even started out her career in 1970 as a press aid for the White House, according to the Examiner, and in 1974 she worked with the Nixon administration.  With so many prestigious experiences under her belt, even if Sawyer was under the influence during her broadcast, I wouldn’t hold it against her.  The ratio of times she has done amazing, professional work to the times she has had incidences of appearing out of it on the air would be inappreciable.

Of course when there is a broadcast swaying from the normal absolutely-no-fun-or-games political talk people are going to be thankful there is finally some entertainment on an important night in the country’s history and are going to make something out of Sawyer’s behavior that was probably nothing more than sleep deprivation.  In all honesty, I don’t believe this dignified woman who has clearly worked very hard for her entire career, earning multiple awards, would risk tainting her reputation on election night by being under the influence.  On the contrary, her behavior was a result of going the extra mile in reporting.  According to Business Insider, a close friend of Sawyer said, “It’s someone who was overworked because they do care so much about trying to put on quality coverage for the viewer and I think that it’s a symptom of her being a workaholic, not as many on Twitter defined to imply an alcoholic. That’s just crazy.”  The source also says there were not even any alcoholic beverages allowed in the newsroom on election night.  I think it’s fair to say Sawyer was not “getting boozy,” as some Twitter people were saying, but is only guilty of working too hard.  Cheers to the woman who made hours of election coverage a bit more interesting for viewers.

Avery Twible can be reached at avery.twible@spartans.ut.edu