've seen Katie Couric swoon and giggle far too many times from her "Today" show perch. That was her charge, or at least it was byproduct of what she, hands down, can be commended for doing: being our morning sweetie and connecting with viewers in a way that stroked the egos of the execs at NBC. "Today," according to The Associated Press, hasn't lost a week in the ratings for more than 10 years. All bow now to Katie.
Couric's jauntiness comes across as authentic enough. And that's probably why so many people like her. She seems friendly and open and as she shared her own stories, especially the death of her husband to colorectal cancer, you had to appreciate her.
But the nightly news isn't banter from your girlfriend. It's serious, sometimes dour stuff. Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, even Walter Cronkite — we've become accustomed to their pace. That straight, baritone, I'm-not-screwing-around delivery. They were the men who escorted us to the grimmest of events: war, then back, then back to war.
Do we really want someone who chirps and skips?
I mean, does Katie Couric anchoring CBS' "Evening News" mean we'll have more featurettes on hunky country singers — "eye"-quotient stuff — between morsels of Iraq and immigration?
I, like a good many of you, fall into that coveted demographic for advertisers on network newscasts: viewers age 25 to 54 years old.
I'm not one to dismiss any person, regardless of sex, who seeks a challenge (Couric said as much in explaining why she'll leave "Today" next month, where she's been for 15 years, and jumping ship to CBS. Her NBC replacement: Meredith Vieira who co-hosts that gal couchfest, "The View" on ABC. She's also the host of the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" )
I also won't ignore the newsworthiness of this story. Couric, 49, is the first woman to be named sole anchor of a network evening newscast. And yes, when women have climbed to the top (in journalism, in athletics, in politics, in the arts), I've applauded and then, as women tend to do when judging other women, I scrutinized them and took it all so personally if they screwed up
2006-08-31
02:34:06
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9 answers
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Anonymous