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Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Katie’s debut: one last look …
The launch of Katie Couric as the First Female Anchor of a Network Newscast last night is still buzzing around the watercooler. Maybe once people see she’s going to be doing this every night, they’ll stop yammering about her. Or not … The Katie craze is relentless.
Judging by our readers, Couric’s arrival on the “CBS Evening News” last night was not exactly a slam dunk.
“It pained me,” wrote MJL of Austin. “I felt like I was watching one of those chatty morning news shows. What was with her sitting cross-legged in front of her desk while she talked to that reporter? It all seemed so lame. What about that ‘Free Speech’ segment? Yuck!”
A local academic ripped off a lengthy diatribe, beginning with: “Never did I think I would feel embarrassment for a network, but never in my decades of media consumption have I seen anything so shameful and silly than the Couric version of the CBS ‘news’ this evening.”
More than a few folks commented on Couric’s daytime talk-show style, mentioning that she couldn’t seem to decide whether to stand, sit, wander or lean.
Others took the sexist route — which, of course, I lunged into myself — and lambasted her fashion sense. I’m a short person myself, and even as a relatively anonymous newspaper writer, I know enough about what the TV camera can do to you. Wearing a short white jacket just cuts you in half. Seriously. Plus, as one of my colleagues snipped, “White after Labor Day … really.”
Beyond the totally superficial, however, there was the sense that CBS News has indeed turned the corner from straight hard news to curvy soft stuff. Baby pictures, extraneous rants, casual seating and chatting, leg flashing. It really did look more like “Today” or “The View” than the “CBS Evening News.”
According to behind-the-scenes folks, Couric downed a martini after her debut — handed to her the minute the cameras cut away. Relief? Celebration? Drowning her sorrows?
Judging Couric on her opening night performance probably isn’t fair. After all, she was just reading the TelePrompTer and doing what had been rehearsed for weeks.
The true test of her anchoring chops will come when big breaking news happens. Then we’ll know if Couric is up to the job.
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