Christiane Amanpour

– ABC has confirmed that it has signed Christiane Amanpour to be the new host of This Week. Amanpour is known more for covering foreign policy than domestic policy, so that might shift the focus of This Week a bit from the very domestic-politics-inclined Stephanopoulous. The real question is whether she can or will shift the show in the direction of discussing issues, rather than process or horse-race stuff. Since Meet the Press has been totally obsessed with trivial horserace stuff for years, first under Russert and now under Gregory, there is an opening for a Sunday talk show where the discussion is about who’s factually correct, rather than who’s winning the media narrative. But I don’t really feel confident that this can happen, under any host. The shows just aren’t built that way.