WP, Shales: No News Not the Best News for Katie Couric's Debut

[DeepModem Mom]

No News Not the Best News For Katie Couric's Debut
By Tom Shales, Washington Post TV critic
Wednesday, September 6, 2006; Page C01


After 15 years on NBC's morning "Today" show, Katie Couric changes networks to anchor the "CBS Evening News."

....Last night, the show simply played to her strengths, chiefly her ability as an interviewer. She had a taped sit-down with liberal columnist Thomas Friedman of the New York Times....Suddenly, with no hint at a transition, Couric was talking about executive changes at the Ford Motor Co. and then about the late Steve Irwin, the crocodile expert who died over the weekend when he was attacked underwater by a stingray. These little mini-stories were rammed together with no indication from Couric that she was changing topics. She needs work, and help, at reading off the prompting device and making it clear when the focus is about to shift.

The premiere was too jammed with "new features," as if the producers feared people would give Couric only one night's chance before they ran away to some other option. A segment called "Eye on Your Money" was simply a report by Anthony Mason that proved largely an apologia for big oil. Mason did concede that for all the tribulations the companies have suffered -- hurricane damage and such -- Shell Oil showed a $25 billion profit last year....Couric was standing again to introduce "something new," which turned out to be the oldest idea in television: Have some well-known or obscure blowhard pop up and do a rant into the camera....

***

Then the show reached its lowest point with an item that Couric had coyly promoted earlier in the day on the CBS Web site: a photograph of Suri Cruise, the previously hidden baby of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes....

Gettin' real folksy with viewers, Couric asked them to send in suggestions on how she should sign off the newscast. There was a montage of sign-offs from the past -- including Edward R. Murrow's immortal "Good night, and good luck."...Some people will say that including the image of Murrow on such a frothy, funsy broadcast as the Couric premiere was sacrilege, and that Murrow is spinning in his grave. In fact, if Murrow were going to spin in his grave, he would have started long ago, when "infotainment" first appeared on the TV horizon and newscasters became pop personalities akin to movie stars and actors appearing in sitcoms. Murrow must be all spun out by now. It's been downhill for a long time.

Couric's broadcast did not seem to hasten the decline and fall of TV news, but it didn't offer anything really new, either -- and on its first outing, it didn't offer anything news. A stranger from another planet tuning in the show would have to assume nothing happened in America or the world yesterday except that a photo of Tom Cruise's baby materialized....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501473.html?nav=hcmodule

[Drum]

1. K&R

:kick:

[tuvor]

2. She kind of fucked up the Bill of Rights, too.

You Americans consider that somewhat important, I do believe.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2055996

[Kiouni]

3. I like Friedman

a lot and love his books but i couldn't stand to watch her doing the interview.

[saltpoint]

4. It's unfortunate that William Burroughs did not live long enough to

be interviewed by Katie Couric.

I believe that would have put an end to the illusion that her main strength is as an interviewer.

[Syrinx]

5. Tom Friedman Is A Liberal?

After backing the Bush lunacy all this time, people still think he's a liberal? :wtf:

[Ken Burch]

6. Well, yeah, to the Washington Post.

Then again, by them the Contras were liberals.

[Syrinx]

8. I Wish Katherine Graham Was Still Running It

It was sliding right before her death. But after, the paper really changed a lot. Fast.

[lapfog_1]

7. Aha! I knew there was a reason for Katy Couric on the CBS news

Think of the unmatched potential of harnessing the environmentally friendly power generation of
all of the past (and now deceased) icons of broadcast journalism such as Murrow and Chet Huntley
and all the rest "spinning in their graves"! Somebody tell Cronkite to hurry up and take a dirt
nap so we can meet future energy demands for years to come simply by attaching a dynamo to his casket,
lowering away, and put Katy on every night. Hell, why stop there... Michelle Maulkin can replace
Connie Chung quite nicely.

(OK, this is :sarcasm: if you hadn't figured that out already)....

Katy is just one more step in the "dumbing down of America" needed by the new fascist "Untied
States of 'Merica".