In an attempt to dig CBS out of the gawd knows how many millions of dollars mistake it made by hiring Katie Couric to anchor its Evening News, CBS seems to have hit a new low – a low that is even lower than Couric’s ratings. Blaming it on the assumption that “people don’t want to get their news from women”.
I kid you not. Sean McManus, the president of CBS News, had this to say in an absolutely disgraceful article that gives CBS a pass but attempts to shift the blame towards a “bias against women”:
“It was almost a watershed event to have a woman in that chair.” He added, “There is a percentage of people out there that probably prefers not to get their news from a woman.”
No, jackhole, there is a percentage of people who want to get their news from news shows. Not who want to get fluff from news shows. Don’t blame “women” or set up strawmen (clearly not “straw women”) to cover for hiring someone with little to no serious journalistic experience – someone who was known as a “personality” as opposed to someone who could deliver news in an adult manner – someone whose interview skills weren’t completely lacking and someone who is a complete lightweight compared to serious women journalists.
There is a reason why the CBS Evening News ratings are at a 20 year low – that is the person who is delivering the news. The news which is being “delivered” isn’t much different than the news being “delivered” by Brian Williams or by Charles Gibson. It isn’t different from the other networks. It is the PERSON not the sex of the person that people don’t like. Plain and simple.
It was just about a month ago when I wrote a diary called Save Face, CBS. Dump Katie. Since then, the ratings for CBS Evening News have fallen further behind NBC and ABC. It wasn’t anyone else’s fault when CBS decided to go for “flair” just when everyone in America was starting to wake up from their slumber and (GASP) wanted to get REAL news. It wasn’t anyone else’s fault when the ratings for “talking meatsick punditry” was dropping faster than Mark Foley’s pants when a Congressional page logged onto AIM, yet it was CBS’ decision to throw close to $15 million per year at someone controversial AND unproven.
No, it is the fault of CBS for hiring someone that was in over her head way before she even started. It is Couric’s fault for not taking the job of Evening News anchor seriously. For her double standards towards Democrats, for being unsympathetic bordering on rude in her interview of John and Elizabeth Edwards, for having Rush Limbaugh on one of her initial shows without challenging him.
As for the whole “maybe people don’t like watching women” thing, well I have news for you – people don’t like their intelligence insulted. People don’t like when “credible journalists” plagiarize. People don’t like lazy journalism and allegations of “some people say”.
People watched Connie Chung and Barbara Walters. People watched Elizabeth Vargas and Jessica Savitch. People would watch Lara Logan, Christiane Amanpour, Amy Goodman, Campbell Brown, Judy Woodruff, even Rachel Maddow – just for starters. It isn’t about wanting to watch a woman read or deliver the news – it is about someone credible and unbiased reading or delivering the news. Period.
Sadly, in my diary from last month, I predicted (as did others) that the mistake by CBS to hire a clearly unqualified hack (whether it was male or female) would be used as an excuse to bash “women anchors”. So not only did Katie Couric completely ruin CBS’ Evening News – one of the most venerable Evening News shows in history, but also now has led to a doubting of women’s capability to anchor the Evening News.
Nothing could be further from the truth – but in under a year, Couric has destroyed CBS Evening News even worse than anyone could have imagined. Her complete lack of focus, attention to delivering real and not sensationalized news and seriousness in her approach to the job now has network executives publicly wondering whether it is a “women in general” problem.
Nice work, Katie – you may very well have destroyed the chance for many highly qualified women to advance in the field of journalism. And the sexist bosses at CBS News now have a convenient scapegoat for their colossal lack of foresight and planning. Knowing that there would be a spotlight on this “first woman solo anchor ever” situation, there was more than a responsibility to viewers and to journalistic integrity. There was a responsibility to serious women journalists that you wouldn’t screw this up so bad that it would threaten the opportunity for others after you.
And that responsibility was shirked in a massive way. By CBS and by Couric. That is nobody’s fault but CBSs’ and Couric’s.
also in orange
Right on, Clammyc. I have NEVER been able to like Katie Couric, and don’t trust her to tell me the news, not because she’s a woman, but because I’ve seen her shamelessly pander to guests in the past.
Bring back actual newspeople – not “newsreaders” like they are so appropriately called in other countries. I want Edward R. Murrow. And yeah, I want a female version of him!
Missing from your list, Diane Sawyer, probably the best. CBS has perennially been last in nightly news broadcasts, at least partly a result of poor planning. NBC groomed Brian Williams for several years, using him prominently and making viewers feel familiar with him upon his ultimate ascent. Charles Gibson at ABC was long a welcome and familiar fixture. But Couric was long past her early glory days at NBC, when she had provided glowing contrast to the morose and unloved Bryant Gumbel. She had become a drag on the Today show, a situation not relieved by her move over to CBS. Better to have kept Bob Schieffer for a while longer. Couldn’t they have “stolen” Campbell Brown?
I like Sawyer – at least more than many other who still don’t forgive her for being cozy with the Nixon(? – I think it was his) White House.
My wife is a fan of hers, and she has been pretty good on GMA over the past few years (although I haven’t watched GMA since last summer).
Gwen Ifill of PBS is another serious newswoman.
All good points.
If the CBS exec had said some “people don’t want to get their news from unattractive women”, he would have had a point. But that’s another matter. Anyway, it’s not just women: I can’t think of that many ugly male anchors, either.
Her complete lack of focus, attention to delivering real and not sensationalized news and seriousness in her approach to the job now has network executives publicly wondering whether it is a “women in general” problem.
Surely the producers must share some of the responsibility for this? Or is Katie analogous to Shrub: both have aggrandized notions of their own abilities, so they tend to ignore good suggestions by others? Or maybe Katie’s producers aren’t good either because she has trouble working with talented people, again, like Shrub.
If the CBS exec had said some “people don’t want to get their news from unattractive women”, he would have had a point.
Oh, God help us.
Um….no.
I prefer not to get my news from idiots, which leaves me little to choose from on the TV.
Glad to have someone actually writing this. Couric is absolutely terrible. In the Edwards interview (the one where she asked the same question 6 times)her faked look of “empathy” made me ill.
Then last week, we find out that she has her editorial positions “ghostwritten” and doesn’t even read them in advance.
It is insulting to women for someone to be put on some sort of pedestal simply because she’s a woman, rather than for competence. This lady is “soft news.” She is in the wrong job.
Part of the summer we live in a “cabin” where we can ONLY get CBS news–and we still don’t watch it. That’s because the features they show at night are repeated the next morning! Why bother? We can get public TV, and it’s better.
If CBS wants someone to watch, they have to offer something watchable.
It is the vacuum of intelligence.
It is the ever increasing blacklist of verboten subjects.
It is the subliminal propaganda I so easily see through now.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6427951.stm
And this.
http://www.mindpowernews.com/SubliminalAds.htm
http://www.subliminalmessages.com/
The lemming-like stupidity of the assumption that all is right with the world as long as you wear the MSM rose colored glasses.
It is not “news” to be told what to take for minor muscle pain or when I should see a doctor if it doesn’t go away or that the pollen count is high and I might need allergy stuff. Oh, don’t believe me? I just finished watching it on the other Illuminati channel, Boston channel seven or whatever. I try so hard to ignore them, they are all minions of the anti-christ IMHO.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
That is my mandatory check every day one. After the marketing courses, the futurism, media and global affairs electives my total disgust with all MSM has me wanting to get up a three in the morning and set fire to all those American flags lining our street. The town puts them up for the summer holidays.
Seriously I can’t wait for peak oil and the mass shut off of these f-ing boxes of mass deception in every American home.
is the most popular substitute host for Keith Olbermann on Countdown. And she’s a rising star; she’s going to be the co-host of a new morning show on NPR this fall.
It’s not a “woman thing” — it’s a Katie Thing…
Alison Stewart is so damned adorable that it’s hard to know if she is a good news person but one things for sure, if she is on, I’m watching.
I’m not sure how you can diary this without mentioning her faux pas on her ‘Note’ where she first person’d a plagarized blog and then terminated someone at CBS for stealing it. Serious dagger to what ever credibility Katie might have had.
Truth is that the numbers on all network news broadcasts have been suffering from shrinkage and it almost seems forgivable for CBS to try to find the market demographic that works – hence the Katie experiment. Obviously thus far, the Katie experiment is failing badly. C’est la vie
I already had suffered from Katie burnout as well as Bush burnout…I think Wired magazine would have already ‘expired’ them all.
I know – I mention it in the diary I link to from last month. I wanted to keep this one to the recent events….but thx for keeping that point out there.
Ok, so she’s said things that would be right at home on FOX:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200504120009
(Wow, hear Bill belatedly fight back!)
But why the double standard? They were looking for the anti-Rather, so they hired Couric. This proud misogyny is something CBS should just run with. Brand it. Why don’t they just ice the cake and hire Imus?