Perfect vision.

David Sloan, the openly gay executive producer of 20/20, triumphs in the macho world of network news

In the Darwinian world of network news, David Sloan, the openly gay executive producer of ABC's hit newsmagazine 20/20, is the fiercest of competitors. And like all good combatants, he recounts his war stories with pride. "In the mid '90s I was on a very tough story--to get Dorothy Hajdys, the mom of Allen Schindler la gay sailor murdered while stationed in Japan], for the show," Sloan says. "We bonded because I was gay. I understood things intuitively that she responded to. We compete very aggressively with [ABC's] Primetime [Live], and there was a producer on that show who said, `I've got this wrapped up,' and I said, `You don't have a chance.' We competed head-to-head with her and [NBC's] Dateline. I played the gay card. I had access that my competitors didn't have, and I bayoneted everyone."

His involvement in the story did raise a few eyebrows among network suits. He explains, "I've been asked by the management of ABC News--who have been sort of uncomfortable with a gay man reporting on gay issues--they say, `Gee, we wonder how this story would have been different if a straight producer had done it.' My reply was, `It would have been less good.'"

Such gutsy work has helped Sloan, 46, rocket to the top of his profession during his career of over 20 years in network news, nearly 12 of which have been with 20/20. In September, TV news legend Barbara Walters tapped him for the executive producer position. "You have to be at the top of your game every single day--even on weekends," Sloan says. "You never know when Barbara Walters is going to call wanting to talk about world affairs, and when you get her phone call on Sunday morning, you better be up to it. She's as smart as anyone I've ever met and has a grasp of the world in all fields like I've never seen--except sports, her one blind spot. And it's mine too."

And no one is happier about his ascent than the TV news doyenne herself. "David has very strong opinions," Waiters says. "He's funny. He has wonderful ideas. He pushes me to really extend myself to do stories I might riot ordinarily do. We are having just a wonderful season." She adds with a grin, "I hate to say this, because he'll be impossible now."

Prime-time TV seemed like a distant world during Sloan's childhood, The son of a roofing contractor dad and a waitress mom, he grew up in the New Jersey watching Walters anchor NBC's Today show. "I was painfully shy when I was a kid," he says. "One of the reasons I wanted to go into journalism was because I wanted to walk up to a complete stranger and ask ,all the right questions and not, be afraid or flustered. That's what Barbara did, that's what journalists do."

While attending Rutgers University, he started his transformation by joining the school paper--and by coming out. "It was hard," he says of the time. "But: it was such a relief not to have a girlfriend." After graduation in 1976, he worked briefly as a reporter for the Newark. N.J., Star-Ledger newspaper and went on to write media criticism for More magazine before a college classmate asked him if he wrested to fill In as a researcher on ABC's Good Morning America.

GMA quickly snapped him up for a full-time position, but Sloan found that the TV newsroom was a lot less friendly than it appeared from all those toothy smiles he had seen on, TV. "[GMA host] David Hartman was not very welcoming," he says. "I remember him asking me. `Are you married?' That was the question then. In the early '80s, it was an unwritten rule at GMA that you couldn't do gay stories." Still, ABC proved to be a far more sympathetic work environment than most. "This was always a place where people thought [my being gay] was a plus," he says. "That having me here gave them a glimpse into a world that was beyond them." Through those early years Sloan also thrived personally, dating gay activist Andy Humm for five years.

He continued his rise through the ranks of ABC News--landing positions as a consumer producer and then head of foreign news specials on GMA before jumping to 20/20 in 1989. Still, his first assignment for Walters---a, story on David Geffen--worried him. "As a gay producer, I was afraid of being pigeon-holed," he says. "I had contradictory feelings, but I went on to do some great general assignment stuff with her too." That included an hour-long special on Christopher Reeve, which earned him 1995 Peabody award, and a report on gays in the military during the Gulf War. Sloan won an Emmy and an award from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for the story--one of six that 20/20 has earned since the GLAAD Media Awards began in 1990--and Walters surprised him at the 1992 GLAAD ceremony to present the trophy. "I didn't even know her that well then," he says, "That was the coolest thing that's ever happened to me."

Though he was tempted last year by an offer of a top job at MSNBC, Sloan recently signed a four-year deal with ABC. "I have 3 1/2 years more on my contact, and I'm going to make them great," he says. "I think this is one of the best places to work in television--they still think big here." Also winning raves is his personal life. Sloan, who lives in Manhattan, has been in a relationship with medical equipment salesman Steve Norring for the past 10 years,

But tonight at ABC's Times Square studio, Sloan is in full-on command mode, taping a special report on the children of gay parents. During a break from shooting, Walters stops to chat about her producer. "I expect great things from David, I could see that he would go beyond being executive producer of 20/20. I could see him rising very high in this company. He is veer disciplined, and he's a fighter," she says as Sloan beckons her back to the set, adding with a laugh, "and when I'm doing a interview about him, he comes over mid tells me to wrap it up!"

Meers is managing editor of Paper magazine.