Freepers Pound Couric For Being A Liberal, DUers Because She's Right Wing

[cali]

Who's right? I haven't the vaguest idea, and I'm not sure why I should give a shit anyway. My point is simple: We view people and events through a prism of our biases. This is true, of course, about how we view the rest of the MSM. I find it fascinating that hard as we bash them for being conservative toadies, the other side bashes them with equal fervor for being liberal lackeys.

My take is that in general journalists are liberals but management is more conservative, and certainly more interested in profits than anything else.

One thing I won't do is judge someone's politics on who they date or marry. And frankly, i find the obsession with the political leanings of Katie Couric or Meredith Viera or Brian Williams or whoever, pretty silly.

[KitchenWitch]

1. I am not sure what Katie Couric's leanings are

but she has very recently lambasted people on our side, while cozying up to people from the dark side.

[vi5]

2. In the case of Couric and Viera I agree...

But that's because they straddle the line between entertainment show host and news person/interviewer. They should not have Matt Lauer or Katie Couric interview politicians on their shows. It's that simple. That blurring of the line between entertainment journalism and news journalism has hurt this country more than anything else.

[tcfrogs]

3. Amen

You've just expressed what I've felt for a long time, but couldn't put into words. :)

[no_hypocrisy]

4. I'm neither troubled by politial affiliation, nor of Couric in particular.

It's the mainstream media and the dessemination of the news in general. The evening news is now a matter of broadcasting, not journalism. Instead of doing the legwork, the research, checking for errors and inconsistencies and gleaning the facts, and then writing the story, the "news" is as per Charles Foster Kean "what I tell them to believe". This is a greater issue than cute, perky Katie Couric. It wouldn't matter whether it was Kathie Lee Gifford or Diane Sawyer. News is another branch of entertainment, not information and democracy.

Sad, just sad.

[autorank]

5. She's so artificial she's a bit scary. Why pound her, she's a hack.

So is that Matt guy, the one who said he never hung out with * and then a DUer found a picture of them golfing. They should have fired him right there.

Couric, who cares...utterly useless in terms of "value added." She's been so nasty on que to Democrats, I don't care to watch. At the same time, she's not very smart so what do you do;)

:shrug:

[cali]

8. The specifics aren't really the point I'm trying to make.

they're just examples, but now that we're discussing specifics, should Meredith Viera not get the "Today" gig, because she's marched against the war and is clealy anti bush? Or is it just because you thing Matt whatshisface lied? I'd argue that a picture of him golfing with bush hardly makes them good buddies or even means they hang out.

[autorank]

18. Got it...didn't know she marched...cool...A+...she'll out shine him anyway

He needs some seriousu attitude adjustment:)

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. On Imus this morning, this news lady tried to bring that up

about Viera in the anti-war rally. Imus said big deal.

I don't like Imus and don't watch him but when I turned on the TV this morning, it was tuned to MSNBC this was the first thing I heard. I had to laugh.

[laheina]

22. Thank you!

And she isn't a journalist anyway. As I recently heard a rep from CBS keep stressing, "she is a host." He kept trying to make it sound like that was a very hard job, and Christina Amanpour couldn't do it.:puke:

[KharmaTrain]

6. She's A Newsreader...That's It

The concept of her being this Walter Cronkite "managing editor" is a joke. This isn't television of the 60's where Murrow's boys and a small staff tried to fill 15 or 30 minutes a night. Now it's a 24/7 biz with thousands of people...and the real power is held by the Producers. They're the ones who decide the stories, determine the order, assign who covers the story and can shape the entire coverage. All Katie will do is read the teleprompter and look pretty.

My bets are she'll be on a very short leash. If she leaves the studio, it will be in a well orchestrated. And it's apparent, the focus will not be on being the hard news operation it once was...that's gone to cable...but a cross between a newscast and entertainment tonight.

The crap about who Katie is dating or sleeping with has little merit as she really won't have a lot of control on what is presented. If I read properly, Katie will stay in New York...not even based in the network's news headquarters in Washington. That say a lot right there.

[Warpy]

7. She lies by omission just like the rest of them

but what gets through seems fairly even handed to me, except when it's obvious she's been set into attack dog mode by her bosses.

Anybody who relies on TV talking heads for the news is going to remain ignorant. We already know that. Couric is no foaming right winger, but she is a good girl who does what she's told, meaning little of what should be shouted in every newscast will get through.

I do enjoy seeing her get the slot and not that banty rooster cohost of hers, Lauer. He annoys me no end.

My only complaint about Couric is that I don't know how her perky, girl next door AM persona will translate to hard news at night. She's going to have to make some changes to sell herself to a skeptical public.

[boobooday]

9. She is an empty vessel on which we may project

She is just a projector screen.

[Freddie Stubbs]

10. Most on the far left and the far right don't want objectivity

They want someone to reinforce their views. Anything else is considered bias.

[TreasonousBastard]

11. If the left and the right both hate her...

she is the perfect person for the job.

[donheld]

12. Then she's done her job

She's suppose to be un-biased. It's nearly impossible to be human and unbiased. If both sides are against her she's "doin' a heck of a job"

[riona]

13. morning shows don't seem

as interesting anymore. too much skimming over the top of issues that should be examined. in the rare instance there is someone worth listening to, the host starts hemming and hawing for a commercial break.

[sadiesworld]

14. Basically mainstream (non-rightwing) media is corporate on economic

matters and liberal on social/cultural matters. Where we focus on the corporate, they focus on the social/cultural. Additionally, the conservative base isn't any happier with a lot of issues than most of us--such as corporate globalization--we just see the issues through different prisms. Where we see a race to the bottom, they see socialism, i.e., the "giving" of US wealth to developing countries.

The real problem, IMO, is that they somehow believe that the cultural is more important to mainstream media than the corporate. Hence, they've been able to convince themselves that the media is harder on republicans than democrats. That takes a real leap of faith after Teflon "Ron", the skewering of Clinton and the blind eye given the outrageous failure of *'s presidency.

[dweller]

15. and this mornings perfect example...

on the Today show (which i watched maybe 5 minutes of) Couric was questioning whether the new Arab news channel that will be reporting in English will be 'unbiased, or just a voice for a certain point of view' ...

and with straight face through it all
dp

[cali]

16. didn't see that but

I did see the segment with Matthews where he rated the bush leak a "10" in degree of seriousness- and over in freeperville they're frothing about it. My point is that one segment doesn't prove that the show is dominated by a particular POV.

[tanyev]

17. I can't watch her because of her relentless perk and

her raccoon mascara. I can't even get beyond that to her politics.

[KingFlorez]

19. I've never seen her do anything biased

So I've got no problem with her

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. She READS the news

Now how a political bias can enter into how she READS, I have no idea.

This is getting really silly. We have talked about her boyfriend (like it matters WHO she goes out with?) and some idiot even compared her to Ted Bundy's wife.

Give it a rest, folks. She's an overpaid reader. Let that piss you off.

[WildEyedLiberal]

23. I don't think she's right wing, I just think she's a vapid airhead

Just go ahead and stick a fork in CBS News now. Once they had Murrow and Cronkite, now KATIE COURIC? Have our journalistic standards sunk THAT LOW?

I know the answer to that question, sadly.

[BootinUp]

24. The pressure put on these people

to raise the ratings on their "news" programs has lowered the journalistic standards to a horrendous state. I think we agree it is financial/ratings/commercialism that needs to be looked at.

But if you look at the political pundits you can see how management has kept out real liberal pundits too. That is a problem.