October 19, 2006
Is Couric Cratering?
Thanks to Dave Hughes' excellent DCRTV for reminding us of the local angle to a national media story: the status of Arlington native Katie Couric's recent ascension to the anchor's chair over at CBS News.
Couric grew up in Arlington, attending Yorktown High School (where she was a cheerleader) and UVA before beginning her climb to the top of the TV news industry — a process that included a stint at D.C.'s WRC-TV, NBC4. From there you all know the story: local girl done very, very good. It warms the heart (sniff).
But, as the New York Times reports, all is not well with Couric's latest project. Although she's doing better than interim host Bob Schieffer, until last week Couric's audience had declined every week since her debut. And ratings aren't the only trouble: the broadcast has come under fire for Couric's editorials and its controversial "Free Speech" segment — particularly one installment in which a bereaved father blamed a school shooting, in part, on the inclusion of evolution in school curricula. And a hopelessly fluffy interview with Condoleezza Rice did little to restore faith in Couric's capacity for hard news.
It's hard not to root for a hometown girl, but things aren't looking good. We wish her the best, of course. But if Couric doesn't get things back on track, this Washington-Lee alum will be forced to conclude that her case is just another sad example of the suffocating limits imposed by a Yorktown education.
Image by Flickr user Nicki Weber Moore, used under a Creative Commons Sharealike license
| 
I'm sure Katie is a nice person, but the hard truth is she's just a news reader. Nobody watches TV news anymore. It's dying.
I'm a well-informed person, but I probably haven't watched an entire traditional network evening news broadcast in at least 5 or 10 years. Besides, it's usually over before I even get home.
Yeah, not much love and kisses:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/10/18/katie-couric-is-a-bonehead/
Network news shows are full o' fluff. You have to watch John Stewart to get a decent digest of the events that the network honchos have sanitized.
As much as I enjoy Jon Stewart's show, it's amazing to me that people seem to forget that it's supposed to be a parody of a news show.
Katie Couric = Real life Veronica Corningstone
There's gotta be footage somewhere of her reporting on a kitty fashion show.
Interestingly, Hillman, according to a study by Indiana University titled "No Joke: A Comparison of Substance in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Broadcast Network Television Coverage of the 2004 Presidential Election Campaign," (to be published next summer in the Journal of Broadcast and Electronic Media), the content of The Daily Show had as much substance as the network news programs. While the Daily Show had more humor than news, the networks had as much fluff as The Daily Show had humor.
What that means is, as much as The Daily Show is supposed to be a parody of news shows, it delivers as much news as the actual news shows. Thus, going on content alone, The Daily Show is as much as valid news source as the actual news shows.
Show of hands -- how many people even get home in time to watch the network news. I think the longer commutes, more working hours, definitely has an impact on the nightly news digest.
And really, when you watch it, I swear half of it is advertising.
Studies aside, the Daily Show really only works for news if you have some context to put the "reporting" in. I love the DS, but I would be pretty lost as to the news content if I didn't read newspapers. Also, parodies are far less effective if the audience isn't familiar with what's being skewered.
Besides, all the ads are for Geritol, denture creams, Ensure, and laxatives. That tells you something about the demographic that still watches network TV news.
i definitely think couric sucks as a real news anchor - i think she belongs on the view or something. ditto on the comparison to veronica corningstone. oh well. hooray for jim lehrer!