ABC's Sam "The Man" Donaldson ginned up some Kontroversy with a capital K yesterday, when on a panel at the National Association of Broadcasters' convention yesterday, he told breakfast goers that his employer and their Big Four competitors are going the way of the dodo bird--if they're not already there: "I think [network news is] dead. Sorry."

"God forbid, if someone shot the President, which network would you turn to? It will be cable, the Internet--something other than General Hospital being interrupted," he said.

Other panelists, Jeff Greenfield and Charles Osgood, were more circumspect, with Greenfield thinking that it was at least dying a slooooooowwwwww death, as if that'll make Andrew Heyward, David Westin, and Neal Shapiro feel any better....

(Over the op-ed page of the NYT, Don Hewitt of '60 Minutes' fame, who also was executive producer of the first 30-minute network newscast in 1960, offers his own vision for a new news style: lots of "audacious" commentary.)