Diane Sawyer may be on her way out at ABC, according to a report that says the network's top newswoman is considering retirement this year.
A source close to the 67-year-old Sawyer tells
the New York Daily News she has "discussed with a few close friends and some people at ABC that she is seriously considering retiring."
"She said she'll be ready to hang it up not long down the road. She loves work and what she does and has endless energy, but she's overwhelmed with personal problems and she is thinking about leaving to take care of her family."
Those problems include "a private matter," as well as Sawyer helping her elderly mother battle an illness, according to the Daily News.
A spokesperson for ABC dismissed the report as "a bunch of nonsense," telling the News that Sawyer's plans for 2013 "haven't changed in any way."
The source told the newspaper that staffers love the veteran reporter and anchorwoman, who is the fourth wife of Oscar-winning director Mike Nichols.
"No one wants to see her going through a rough time. She's the nicest woman," the source said.
Sawyer has been a mainstay on network television since 1981, when she was an anchor of the "CBS Morning News." She later became a "60 Minutes" correspondent before jumping to ABC to co-anchor "PrimeTime Live" and "20/20." In 1999, she became co-anchor of "Good morning America," where she stayed for 10 years before replacing the retiring Charles Gibson as anchor on "ABC World News." Before her career on the networks, Sawyer was an assistant to Richard Nixon's deputy White House press secretary Jerry Warren. She then became administrative assistant to White House Press Secretary Ron Ziegler and later, Nixon's staff assistant.
At one point, there was suspicion that Sawyer was "Deep Throat," the notorious source who fed Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein tips on the Watergate scandal. That was proven to be false when the real "Deep Throat" later revealed himself.
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.