‘A Really Sad State of Affairs’

Joan Lunden, the veteran journalist who co-anchored “Good Morning America” from 1980 to 1997, doesn’t mince her concerns about the current media landscape.

“I think it’s a really sad state of affairs that a very big segment of the American population doesn’t know what to believe anymore,” Lunden told Variety earlier this month at 50th anniversary celebration of “GMA.’ “There’s so much fake news, videos, pictures. They don’t know whether it’s really you. That part of it makes me incredibly sad and upset. I don’t know if we can put the toothpaste back in the tube.”

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While “GMA” remains a reliable ratings performer for ABC, more Americans are now getting their news from social media platforms. About half of Americans say they struggle to tell what’s true or not when they get news, according to a recent report from Pew Research Center. That confusion mirrors a broader collapse in trust in both news organizations and social platforms — a decline seen across political parties and age groups.

“I wish somehow we could right that ship,” Lunden said. “But with AI, I think we’re going to see losses of jobs in media, just like we’re seeing them in Amazon and everywhere else.” [Amazon CEO Andy Jassy attributed this year’s extensive layoffs to the company’s increased rollout of ‘generative AI and agents.’]

After pausing for a moment, Lunden added, “But you know what? They can’t replace a host sitting there in that chair, saying good morning to you in the morning. There’s nothing that can be said for the chemistry of two people on the air.”

Outside of AI-generated deepfakes, Lunden was also quick to acknowledge how she’s benefited from the new technologies ushered in since leaving “GMA” in 1997. She recalls feeling siloed from the audience she once greeted at every sunrise.

“The hardest part of leaving was disconnecting from the American audience,” she said. “Because there was no social media, it was truly a disconnect. It kind of freaked me out.”

That void was eventually filled when she first logged onto social media and reconnected with her old fans. When Lunden was on air, she had “reams of people [on staff] that did nothing but answer letters,” but the direct connection on social media was on a different level.

“Pretty soon I had fifty thousand, sixty thousand followers, and my husband said, ‘You cannot be talking to all those people every day.’” She chuckled, “But boy, I give it a try.”

The lively “GMA” celebration at Disney’s New York headquarters united Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos and Michael Strahan with Joan Lunden and fellow veterans Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer. The event followed the previous night’s airing of President Trump’s confrontational “60 Minutes” interview, his first since suing CBS over what he described as an altered version of Kamala Harris’ election-season appearance. The timing underscored the increasingly fraught relationship between politics, the press and the billionaire owners now shaping major media companies.

“We obviously know that the major networks are little by little all becoming owned by the richest people in the world,” Lunden said. “We don’t want their opinions and their political viewpoints to seep into our business. But I’m a glass half full kind of girl. I really think that the journalism, as an industry, will be able to stand strong. We’ll still be here ten years from now celebrating the 60th anniversary, and you’ll still be able to ask me any question you want.”

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