NY Times covers Katie Couric disaster at CBS; asks "Is it the woman thing?"

[Nikki Stone1]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/14/business/media/14couric.html?hp

Is It the Woman Thing, or Is It Katie Couric?

By BILL CARTER
Published: May 14, 2007
The numbers are stark. Eight months into Katie Couric’s job as the first woman to anchor a network newscast on her own, her “CBS Evening News” has not only settled back into its long-held position of last among the evening news broadcasts, but also regularly falls short of the newscast that Ms. Couric replaced...

CBS executives say their research had predicted that the newscast would continue to struggle in the ratings, even after the network’s enormous investment in Ms. Couric — an estimated $15 million in annual salary — as well as millions more to build a new set and promote her and her newscast.

But the network seemed not fully prepared for a host of other developments that followed its expensive decision.

There has been a cascade of hostile comments in the press. Members of the news staff were quoted in The Philadelphia Inquirer as suggesting that Ms. Couric might stay only through the 2008 election. And a recent Gallup poll reinforced the notion that Ms. Couric had become a polarizing figure: 29 percent of respondents said that they did not like her, as opposed to 51 percent who said that they liked her. (Her competitors at ABC and NBC both had negative scores under 20 percent and positives around 60.)....

[Blashyrkh]

1. No, a "Katie" thing.

[SpiralHawk]

26. It's a corporate republicon propaganda CRAPOLA thing

Americans are sick of the republicon propaganda that all the corporate media catapults.

CBS has become a just another republicon propaganda tool.

People can smell it. Ms. Couric is the figurehead of this sad decline in responsibility to truth, democracy, real journalism, and service to the people of the nation.

'nuf said.

[Dorian Gray]

34. That's what I think as well

There are other female entertainment people in the biz who have much more gravitas, and they would have (in my opinion) been much better evening news anchors. The smiling little leprochaun with the bitchy attitude behind the scenes doesn't make the evening news seem so serious.

[misanthrope]

45. Why "other female 'entertainment' people" at all?...

...Why don't we start with getting a seasoned and proven journalist first and foremost and dispense of the "entertainment" slant?

[Dorian Gray]

58. Well, that's what I meant....

I just refer to all television anchors as "entertainment" people. But, your point is taken. I'd prefer someone who was more traditinally a journalist, and there are plenty of females trained to be so.

[Crabby Appleton]

46. me too, i detest her, I will never watch her. Cable news

has many excellent female newscasters. No more network "news" for me, it's crap.

[MadMaddie]

2. No it's Katie Couric.....she thinks that injecting her personal views

into the Newscast is News....

When she attacked John Edwards and his wife about continuing on the Election path.....she showed that she has no objectivity....especially considering that her husband died of cancer...

Can't say we will miss you Katie....and by the way I haven't watched the show since she has been on...

[sheerjoy]

29. I totally agree

when she moved off the TODAY SHOW, I stopped seeing her because I have NO respect for the woman. She is way too boased to be in the high spot she is in.

My wife loves her, but we do not watch her news... she sucks big time and I agree about the way she treated Edwards...grrrrrrrrrr

[ReverendDeuce]

55. But isn't that sort of what Olbermann does?

Let's be perfectly honest... "Countdown" *is* supposed to be a news show.

[Cha]

59. Difference is night and day.

couric is a jackaboots corporatewhore who injects lies and cover ups and "what people say" into her whatever she does.

Keith Olbermann is searching for the truth in a corporatemedia world and I'm surprised they let him get away with it. Something about "the ratings".

Phil Donahue had the ratings, too, but he was against the War On Iraq in 2002 and msnbc was not about to let that shite fly.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

3. They must be sending wheelbarrows of

money to both Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite to keep them from commenting on this visit from the fuck-up fairy.

Amazing that CBS would be last among networks in news.

[Garbo 2004]

15. CBS nightly news was in last place behind NBC and ABC before Couric. n/t

[SpiralHawk]

28. Fuck-up Fairy or Propaganda Pixie? You decide...

I'm SELECTING her defining attribute: republicon Propaganda Pixie.

with Ms. Couric, CBS is showing its corrupted heart - pathetically corporate republiconism, and because of that, inevitably, anti-people, anti-democracy, anti-American.

[Cha]

61. Maybe Dan Rather and Walter

Cronkite are too classy of former cbs newscasters to comment on cbs' fucked up news fairy?

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

No, it's an insipid feel-good drivel passed off as "news" thing

Not that hard to figure out. How do hacks like Carter get jobs at the Times?

[Nikki Stone1]

8. yeah. The article makes it clear that Katie was part of a larger format change

The format has been lousy.

[Ganja Ninja]

35. That's exactly why I can't watch their sunday morning news show.

Some how they got the idea I would prefer my news with feelings/blubbering.

[nam78_two]

41. What he said.nt

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

4. No, it's an insipid feel-good drivel passed off as "news" thing

Not that hard to figure out. How do hacks like Carter get jobs at the Times?

[Bluestar]

5. Well, of course they asked the question--written by a man, I see

We'll know that it is truly a gender-blind world when this question ISN'T asked.

[Warpy]

6. No, it's a combination of things

I think she'd do a competent job if they stopped making her prance around a living room type set and had her read news like a normal newscaster. I think she'd do a better job if she weren't saddled with a right wing bias. I think she'd do a much better job if her "free speech" segment actually resembled its name and not only Repugs and conservative Democrats were allowed to speak.

I'm going on knowledge long past. I haven't watched any part of it for months. I have no idea if they've changed that appalling format, nor do I know if anyone but conservatives from both parties has been allowed any of that free speech they advertise.

The transition from "perky girl next door, good morning, sit down with a cuppa" to newscaster was likely to be a rough one. The people CBS needs to unload are the ones who designed that set, the ones who write the garbage, and the jerk who schedules guests.

I don't think it's a woman thing. I don't even think it's a Katie thing. I think it's an incompetent management leading an incompetent support staff thing.

[emilyg]

7. It's KKKKKatie

can't stand her - never warmed to her "cuteness"

[bluestateguy]

9. A year from now Katie Couric will be narrating documentaries on the History Channel

The evening network news is for grownups, and that's not Katie.

[Beausoir]

10. It's the Rush Limbaugh thing. Duh.

KKKKatie the KKKKommerade using the vile pig-man drug-addict to spew his backed-up pilonidal-cyst acid, the first week of her show?

Smart move, Gumby.

[La_Fourmi_Rouge]

11. It's the dipshit thing... n/t

[nealmhughes]

12. Has nothing to do with her gender, everything to do with her presentation.

Gwen Ifill and Amy Goodman come to mind as women who cover hard news every day on the TV and they never ever never ever come across as someone who is about to burst out from behind the desk and grab the green mini apron and mix up a batch of "Hot new nonalcoholic drinks for your summer vacation" with a Martha Stewart clone.

[moondust]

13. It's a substance thing. nt

[blogslut]

14. It's It's Katie

The woman is a hostess, not a newscaster.

[Rev. Mother Ramallo]

16. I don't think it has anything to do with gender.

There are several women I would enjoy listening to besides Perky Katie--Christine Amanpour, Diane Sawyer, for instance. I heard a new kind of Asian looking gal witha very rich voice and good presentation the other night--didn't catch her name.... I'd rather have them than Katie.

[Selatius]

17. No, it's the bullshit thing. Let me explain this little tidbit.

A good example: Bill Maher was asked to do a "free speech" segment on the show. When he told them what his topic was, religion, they told him he couldn't do that, so he told them to go fuck themselves because that wasn't freedom of speech.

[Cha]

62. Really? I believe it..that's the

sad part but verrrr-rrrrry Interesting!

[izzie]

18. Times change and the big corp do not seem to see it.

Or that is how I see it.

[Cha]

63. They don't want it to

change but they've been likened to the dinosaurs and the internet is the meteorites.

[Diane R]

19. No. It's how she thinks she's 'cute', her voice, her ingratiating smile, and her pandering.

[nosmokes]

20. maybe it's the *NO NEWS THING*?

maybe? huh? ya think? likewe need another 1/2 hour devoted spoiled brats and who they're dating or not or what they're wearing or not. there are entire channels devoted to that crap and whole shows. i don't need to see it on the *NEWS*

[Cha]

64. I hear ya! Bingo! It's a cover-

up news thing..of the real news that corporatemediawhoreworld don't want ya to know.

[Matsubara]

21. It's not the woman thing.

There are female reporters with Gravitas. Couric is not one of them. The same reaction would happen if they had ET reporter John Tesh reporting the nightly news.

I don't dislike Couric. But she is a horrible nightly newscaster.

Here's a bit where she segues from giggly talk about her makeup and her salad to talking about people dying in storms.

Can anyone imagine Murrow or Cronkite acting like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD0qx6_Uua4

Nightly News needs SERIOUS anchorpeople.

[anitar1]

Thanks for the YouTube. It was awful and had to click off

half way through it. I have never watched her "newcast"?

[trotsky]

37. Oh man, I did the same thing.

Just could not watch, jumping from her cutsie news update with her makeup and salad to the death and carnage. WTF is she and/or her producer thinking?

[charlie]

22. You'd think they would've learned

from their Connie Chung fiasco. This dumbassery is costing CBS dearly, and not just money.

[Swamp Rat]

23. They need to fire the entire production crew and start over with another group

of people who really know broadcast news.



:hi: charlie

[SoCalDem]

24. It's just that the "cutesie girl" thing is waaaay past OVER

We don't need a cupie-doll reading the news to us, we don't need a lip-glossed-to-within-an-inch-of-her-life Barbie Doll reading the news to us, we don't need a grandfatherly guy either, we don;t need a celebutante hunky guy reading it to us..

We need smart..articulate..presentable.. that;s IT.

No matter the sex.. no matter the age..

Probably every 10th person on the street could do the job...for a fraction of the pay.. or failing that tactic, about any high school teacher could do it.

It's time to stop the salary-merrygoround, and just get a smart person who can speak clearly and who can read..

That would be an improvement over Katie and her ilk.

The NEWS is what matters..not who reads it to us.

Any normal person who can google could do a better job :)

[MrSlayer]

25. No, certainly not a woman thing. It's a credibility thing.

And quite frankly, it's really hard to fill the shoes of a journalistic legend, serious talent or not.

[Vidar]

27. Barbara Walters or Jane Pauley would have done fine. Kewpie

doll just can't cut it.

[philosophie_en_rose]

30. No. It's Katie Couric.

Katie Couric does not represent all women. I am confident that there are women who would have succeeded in her position, even from morning shows. For instance, Ann Curry has a professional demeanor and intelligence.

Katie Couric was one small step away from being "View" material. She's shrill, unreasonable, and biased in her questioning. It's impossible to take her seriously, any more than it is possible to take Limbaugh, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, "Dr." Laura, or any number of male and female idiots seriously.

Misogyny may play a role, but I think that that argument is primarily a means to avoid responsibility for CBS' costly mistake and Couric's lack of talent.

[Chimichurri]

31. No. I and millions of others gave her a chance in the beginning and

she blew it with her newsless fluff-fest.

People want news now more then ever.

[Junkdrawer]

32. What an amazing excuse to keep serious women off the air...

Katie "Navy Seals Rawwkkk" Couric's failure is all her own...

[Mandate My Ass]

47. Exactly. Put on Christine Amanpour

She is the same gender as KC, just in a whole different league.

Intelligence and gravitas are not comparable to clearly biased cutesie pie.

[Evergreen Emerald]

33. I have never--and will never watch her show: Rush Limbaugh

She sent a message the very first show by having the divisive, right-wing-radical shock-jock on her show. She is not an unbiased news reporter. She blew it. She must not have been reading the polls: Limbaugh and his ilk are the 28%--not the majority. I got the message, as did the other 72% of viewers.

[Cerridwen]

38. It's not a "woman thing" but it will be paraded as such and used

to justify why women can't report "hard news".

What a coup! Piss poor programming combined with light weight "talent" by a biased party drone AND they get to say it was because she is "a girl". Yee haw!!! "told ya girls can't do the news"

/sarcasm

[Cha]

65. And they got the message that

that shyte didn't fly and they still haven't changed..they fuckin' are dinosaurs.

[Cass]

36. Its a Katie thing and it ticks me off to think that this monumentally stupid

decion on CBS' part may wind up being an obstacle for other women who, in the future, may be considered for the anchor chair.

The geniuses responsible for this trainwreck should be run out of the television news industry. I will never understand why they thought hiring Couric for this position was a good idea. She was a perky cutsey morning host fer cryin' out loud. In addition, the way they revamped the newscast was awful and having Rush freaking Limbaugh on there spouting off his bullshit on that free speech segment right out of the box was ridiculous. As if Limbaugh doesn't have a large enough platform already.

And, by the looks of things, CBS execs are still dumb as a box of rocks if they still can't figure out where they went wrong with this.
:eyes:

[Nikki Stone1]

39. Message to CBS: Christiane Amanpour was the woman to anchor the news

Katie is the person I go to if I want to find out what color nail polish is in style.

(Just for the record: I wouldn't want Matt Lauer or Al Roeker in the anchor's chair either.)

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

40. No, it's DEFINITELY a Katie thing

Oh, by the way, Ms. Couric...are you ever going to get back to us on that Abramoff thing?
Ms. Couric?

[Cha]

66. ...

crickets

[KamaAina]

42. Nope. It's all about Katie.

She is the female Kent Brockman, except that Brockman is more lifelike :P

[Skittles]

43. couldn't be any other reason, like maybe KATIE SUCKS

could it?

[Cha]

67. cbs would rather blame

"women" than couric..shame on them for lots of reasons.

[KharmaTrain]

44. Broadcasting Remains A Boy's Toy...

Women are there to look pretty and jiggle, but if they have substance then they don't do well. Look at how many White Males are heard and seen...and if there's a woman anchor, be assured there's one, if not several men as co-anchors. If women "solo", it's on the weekends and off hours...or for short updates...everything on script.

Several years ago I was at a symposium addressing the on-going problem of women being able to "fly solo" in morning drive. Few stations are willing to take a chance on having just women in their most prized daypart...and the explanations range from advertisers not "feeling comfortable" with an "opinionated" woman or that "woman just aren't strong enough to carry a show on their own". Generalizations...and ones that have been long repeated and inbedded. Sadly, it's the flops like Couric that help fuel that stereotype.

[Nikki Stone1]

48. It's like they picked her to fail

It goes back to the male proclivity not to listen to women but just to ogle.

[KharmaTrain]

53. So Very True

About a decade ago, I worked with a woman who had a unique "shtick" she wanted to try on the air. Her angle was to be a female Howard Stern...going after a woman's audience with a stream of conciousness about sexuality and society in general that ran counter to the "norm". Karen was very talented...wrote some hilarious material and could ad lib with the best of 'em. She wasn't dirty, just would pick on the stereotypes and conventions and do it with a little edge. She would remark that we get to hear what the boys locker room sounds like, she wanted to bring out the girls locker room.

It took her a couple years to find a friendly PD to give her a shot (it was late night on the weekends, but better there than nowhere)...and she worked hard for the next couple months developing the concept and getting better and better. The response was very good, but the station refused to move her to a different time slot or give her any promotion. She tried to find other stations to move on to and ran into a brick wall...which inturn got back to the station she was on and she was fired for supposedly "talking with a competitor".

Now she sells real estate.

Cheers...

[WilliamPitt]

49. Navy SEALS rock.

[NewJeffCT]

50. Instead of complaining here, write to the NY Times

and tell them it is Katie Couric.

I'm sure plenty of women could have done a far better job than her - it's an issue of "gravitas" and Couric has none.

And, she buried herself in her first few weeks. Because she is not on Fox News, she won't be trusted by conservatives. However, she pissed off liberals because she had Rush Limbaugh, and several other conservatives, on in the opening weeks of her show and did not have any prominent liberal on for weeks. (I think she had her first liberal on in her 3rd week, but I had never heard of the guy...)

And, she also buried herself right in the beginning by referring to free speech as a "privilege" and not a right.

[Nikki Stone1]

52. Rush Limbaugh as an example of "free speech" did it for me

I wouldn't have cared who the anchor was; any news organization that thought Rush needed more than his 15 hours a week to spew his blarney deserved being tuned out.

[NewJeffCT]

54. Well

I didn't mind having Limbaugh on so much, it's just that there was nobody from the left on the day before or the day after. But, there really is nobody on the left that is as prominent as Rush and throws the bombs that he does. Michael Moore? But, Moore is far more reality-based than Limbaugh and isn't as shriekingly angry as Rush.

That said, Limbaugh is a curious choice - why not a legitimate former member of Congress?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

56. Why did they need to have the editorial viewpoints on at all? Why not just focus on delivering a

quality newcast?

[NewJeffCT]

57. good point

Maybe expecting 30 minutes of quality news from Couric was too much to ask?

[Lilith Velkor]

51. It's the stupid thing.

:think:

[BlooInBloo]

60. Men don't have a monopoly on suckiness.