Outgoing “CBS Evening News” anchor Katie Couric says America wasn’t ready for the “overly ambitious” change she brought nearly five years ago as the first woman to helm a nightly network newscast.
“In retrospect I would have given people what they were used to, a traditional newscast,” Couric told The New York Times Magazine. “And then as they got to know me and got more comfortable, then I would’ve started toying with the format and trying new things.”
The feeling I get from some reporting on this is that CBS will remain in third place, regardless who is behind the anchor desk. Another oft-heard excuse is that Couric was shackled by the format, unable to showcase the personality she grew while ad-libbing over at “Today.” I disagree with both of these excuses. If CBS puts a solid journalist at the helm of a nightly newscast, someone less interested in trying to insert their personality by way of editorializing (Palin interview, anyone?), CBS will stand a chance at being competitive.
Thoughts?
Case in the above point; our pals at Newsbusters have compiled the CBS Couric hits. A must-read. Some highlights:
“The party crashers. Big primary victories by fringe candidates open a rift in the GOP….After big victories this week by candidates of the Tea Party, the Grand Old Party is in turmoil….Does this mean moderate Republicans are becoming an endangered species?”
— Katie Couric on the September 16, 2010 CBS Evening News.“More than 46 million Americans have no health insurance. So when it comes to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and good health, all men are not created equal.”
— Couric, Evening News, March 12, 2007.“There is a debate to be had about the sensitivity of building this center so close to Ground Zero. But we can not let fear and rage tear down the towers of our core American values.”
— Katie Couric on Ground Zero mosque for “Katie Couric’s Notebook” on Couric & Co. blog, August 23, 2010.“You’re so confident, Mr. President, and so focused. Is your confidence ever shaken? Do you ever wake up and say, ‘Damn, this is hard. Damn, I’m not going to get the things done I want to get done, and it’s just too politicized to really get accomplished the big things I want to accomplish’?”
— Couric in an exchange with Obama shown on CBS’s The Early Show, July 22, 2009.
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