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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.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: News coverage
Comments
By Janice
September 11, 2006 09:10 AM | Link to this
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By Sarah
September 11, 2006 09:10 AM | Link to this
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September 11, 2006 09:09 AM | Link to this
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By Clyde L Harris
September 6, 2006 05:55 PM | Link to this
The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric
Give the lady time to get up to speed in delivering the news. Just think what it would have been with Molly Ivns. Times change. She is still learning on the job.
Clyde
By Jana
September 6, 2006 05:42 PM | Link to this
I really hate that the first woman to anchor a National Nightly News program is also the one to make the nightly news "soft news." If you ask me, Katie Couric is doing a disservice to all women trying to work their way up the corporate ladder. Shame on her.
By Joan Black
September 6, 2006 01:42 PM | Link to this
I agree with most everything you said, I will give you that. But please you show your lack of real fashion savvy when you say and White after labor Day? Pleeze that old fashion rule was thrown out the rule book years ago. The part you are right about. is that on Katie's body , a short white jacket was a painful vision of bad. I felt sick at heart for her quite frankly.