Tapper Leaves ABCNews for CNN

They should have made him the host of “This Week” when they had the chance.  ABC’s loss is def­i­nitely going to be CNN’s gain.

Accom­plished Wash­ing­ton jour­nal­ist Jake Tap­per, who has served the last four years as ABC’s senior White House cor­re­spon­dent and is a best-selling author, joins CNN as anchor of a new week­day pro­gram and CNN’s chief Wash­ing­ton cor­re­spon­dent, it was announced today by Ken Jautz, exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of CNN/U.S.

Tap­per has been a widely-respected reporter in the nation’s cap­i­tal for 14 years and his most recent book, The Out­post: An Untold Story of Amer­i­can Valor, is cur­rently on The New York Times best seller list. In his new role at CNN, he will be a key Washington, D.C. anchor and cor­re­spon­dent for CNN.

“We are thrilled to have Jake join CNN and take the helm of a brand new week­day pro­gram,” said Jautz. “Jake is an excep­tional reporter and com­mu­ni­ca­tor, and we look for­ward to devel­op­ing a pro­gram that takes advan­tage of all of his strengths, his pas­sion and his knowl­edge of national issues and events.”

“With CNN’s impec­ca­ble report­ing dur­ing the elec­tions and the excit­ing changes in the works for the net­work, this is a per­fect time to join the CNN team,” said Tap­per. “I am excited about the prospect of work­ing with both the new lead­er­ship and some old friends and colleagues.”

Tap­per comes to CNN from ABC News, where he most recently served as senior White House cor­re­spon­dent, a posi­tion he was named to imme­di­ately fol­low­ing the 2008 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. In this role, Tap­per con­tributed reg­u­larly to “Good Morn­ing Amer­ica,” “Night­line,” and “World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer,” in addi­tion to serv­ing as sub­sti­tute host of “This Week” and pub­lish­ing to his “Polit­i­cal Punch” blog on ABCNews.com. While on the White House beat, Tap­per has earned the cov­eted Mer­ri­man Smith Award for pres­i­den­tial cov­er­age from the White House Cor­re­spon­dents’ Asso­ci­a­tion an unprece­dented three times in a row. He also played a key role in the network’s Emmy award win­ning cov­er­age of the inau­gu­ra­tion of Pres­i­dent Barack Obama.

Tap­per is quite pos­si­bly the last true jour­nal­ist left in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.  He takes on both sides with equal amount of energy and plays no favorites.   It is because of that, it is hard to find any­one on either side of the aisle who doesn’t have some respect for him.

Best of luck, and hope­fully some­day soon they’ll give him his own nightly show of the “Spe­cial Report” on FNC vari­ety.  He’d excel in that format.

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