You betcha. That says it all.
I’m wrong often enough that I have to gloat on the rare occasion my predictions are dead-on. When Couric was first hired, my take was this:
I’ve never much liked Katie Couric, and I hate seeing network news creeping still closer to pure “Entertainment Tonight” clones.
Still, even from a purely BUSINESS standpoint, I’m not sure this move makes much sense.
I may not like Katie, but she has a large following, especially among women, and she CAN exude a certain perky charm during celebrity interviews. But her strengths are NOT strengths that will translate well in an anchor’s chair. She’ll be just another talking head reading from a teleprompter.
She won’t be a disaster or a complete embarrassment by any means, but her new job is NOT one that will allow her to be perky or charming. Regular viewers of CBS News will probably get used to her, and eventually shrug “She’s not as horrible as I thought she’d be.” But “Today” fans will probably tune in once or twice, decide “She’s not as much fun as she used to be,” and tune out again.
A few months down the road, she’ll be just another semi-competent news anchor with tepid ratings… and CBS will wonder why they threw money at her.
Score one for me.
Yup. If they thought Schieffer was too old, they should have gone with Gloria Borger. At least she’s got a pleasant smirk.
Why was ever given this spot in the first place? Does she have any journalistic background at all? What was ever the appeal for her? All I really know about her is that she was on one of the morning shows (I don’t even know which one. I don’t watch them from what I’ve seen, they’re all exactly the same anyway). What does being a perky personality have to do with journalism.
I read that she got busted for plagiarizing some editorial piece but then it turned out that she doesn’t write her own opinion pieces so it wasn’t her fault? WTF? She needs someone esle to write her opinions for her? What has happened to television news? Murrow must be chainsmoking in his grave and tearing his hair out.
It was a blog entry. Nobody over the age of six should believe that Katie Couric or anyone in a similar position writes their own blogs. The producer who did the writing got canned for it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18046837/site/newsweek/
This doesn’t bother me a bit. But despite what some people here think I still consider the evening news shows to be real news and requiring real news judgment, especially since the anchor is traditionally executive producer with some real responsibility for what goes on the air.
They shouldn’t attempt the impossible, which is getting a younger audience. They should care about catering to their remaining audience and giving us the hardest news possible, which is what we want.
One of her producers said something like, “We found out that what people wanted was a program that gave them the news.” (Quote horribly mangled, but level of stupidity of original preserved, if a bit understated.) Really? Whoda thunk that? :dubious:
There’s a couple of clips floating around the internets of Katie talking with one of her producers before she went on air, if you think that she’s an ignorant douche now, find the clips and you’ll realize just how big an ignorant douche she is. She sweats over copy about the quarterbacks in the Super Bowl like she’s Edward R. Murrow putting together one of his London Blitz reports. (For chrissake’s it’s just a game!)
Since when is the Super Bowl news?
Sometimes I think I should reserve a spot on the next departing ice floe.
Another era? I guess you don’t watch the local news.
I watch the local news in my area (northeastern Oklahoma). Many of the female “anchors” are former beauty queens. Many of the male “anchors” are former sportscasters. The reporters mostly look as if they stepped right out of “Entertainment Tonight.” Real journalists are a rarity on TV around here. Is local news significantly different elsewhere?
“…And now please join us for A Very Special Episode of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.”
The few times I’ve watched her I felt that should have introduced the broadcast. It was like Redbook at 30 frames per second.
There’s not a news outlet in the country that doesn’t report the winner of the Superbowl.
Does anyone in this thread even watch the news?
Has anyone watched any significant amount of Couric at CBS News?
They make a point of not covering shit like OJ and Anna Nicole, and since Couric has joined, CBS seems to have reverted to more old school news in which their intent is NOT to chase ratings.
And, here she is getting ripped for having poor ratings.
And, yes, she is a real journalist. She’s served as a Pentagon correspondent, and won Emmy’s and Associated Press awards for journalism. She might be perky, but she’s paid her dues and got to where she was based on her talent. On the Today show, she was equally skilled as a news reader and a fluff talker. You can’t rip on her abilities to read the news and interview heads of state just because she’s good at the latter, and has a decent set of legs.
I’m glad it isn’t a big success. Otherwise we’d see NBC and ABC follwoing suit giving anchor positions to Kelly Ripa and Paula Abdul.
Katie Couric had found her niche on The Today Show. She isn’t suited for the evening news.
I really don’t know much about Katie Couric, but her interview with the Edwardses on 60 Minutes was horrendous. She kept pushing, in the smarmiest way possible, that, “You dooooo understand why your critics think this is such a horrrrrrrible thing, right? Well, you doooooooooooo understand that, right?” She said that three or four times, and it was appalling.
Me.
Me.
As I said above, the show has gotten better. But in the beginning it was so horrifyingly bad that I’m sure it scared off legions of loyal viewers.
I flip across the three network news programs to catch the most interesting (to me) stories and to avoid the commercials. So I do see a fair amount of each newscast. Charles Gibson is an improvement over the ill-fated Elizabeth Vargas days. (When people talk about female anchors, they forget about her. She was also an obvious mistake. There’s nothing in particular wrong about female anchors. It’s just the ones that were picked were not the right ones.) Brian Williams is quite good. Katie strains visibly and is often hard to watch for that reason. But sometimes she gets it right and Gibson seems like the one from morning news.
In the end, it’s all about the beginning. Couric was the wrong person from the beginning and the show got off to the worst possible start. CBS needs to write her off and reboot. They already lost John Roberts, who should have gotten the job. (Reminiscent of Roger Mudd leaving CBS after he lost the job to Dan Rather, who was always a better reporter than anchor, unlike Mudd.) They need to find the best possible anchor, even if he’s a square-jawed white guy, and go with him for the foreseeable future. Things will change, after all.