Katie Couric, the new CBS Anchor?

I'm sorry to say, but I'm with the fundamentalists on this one. It must certainly be the end of the world. Walter Cronkite....Dan Rather....Bob Schaeffer....Katie Couric?

Seriously, I must ask the question: is the reporting pool so small at CBS that they have to hire out? I know that Bob Schaeffer was a stand in for Dan Rather, but was he so bad?

I'm sorry folks. I am very tolerant person. But seeing Katie Couric as the new anchor at CBS is drawing the line in the sand. I could not stand her on NBC's Today show. And being an avid watcher of CBS news over the years, it would have been more tolerable to see Leslie Stahl or Ed Bradley in the spot rather that Ms. Couric. Even the sympathy around her dead husband does not soften my contempt for this woman.

How does everyone else feel about this change? Would you watch CBS with Ms. Couric as the new anchor? Or not?

It's not the end of the world, just the end of the "evening news." With the advent of 24 hour news networks, the hiring of Couric is just a publicity stunt.

Besides sports programming I can't remember the last time I watched "Big" Network TV.

What a joke . CBS has just hit bottom. The hiring of Ms. Couric is the death knell for the news division of the Big Eye. We've gone from, in my lifetime, Walter Kronkite, to Dan Rather, to Katie Couric; it's been downhill all the way, baby.

As someone already said, with the advent of 24 hour news channels, the big three news divisions were doomed anyway, this just accelerates the process, is all. Can't remember the last time I watched CBS evening news with whoever. Certainly not going to with this airhead reading the news.

I grew up watching Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather on the news. I cannot say that they are perfect, because each had their faults. But they represent the last of the "old guard" of journalists that worked on getting news before the new crop of media sycophants came in. I consider Ms. Couric just that. A media sycophant.

Although I've heard from some circles that criticizing Ms. Couric's position is "mysogynist", I still think that simply because she's a woman she is not immune from detractors. There are hard hitting women journalists that do their job. Helen Thomas. Leslie Stahl. Judy Woodruff. Christine Amapour. Jane Pauley (except that she's retired now). But, Ms. Couric simply hasn't demonstrated that she can handle the "hard news style". None of her reports or special stories have featured the type of material that would warrant any seriousness. Save her sparing reports on cancer--due to the death of her husband.

I ask again--was the people at CBS out of their mind to make her not only an anchor, but a managing editor of the news division? This goes beyond the fact that Ms. Couric is a "fresh face". I shudder at the thought of her sifting through the daily news stories like a producer and trying to choose news for the day.

I'm hoping that there's someone out there that will prove me wrong and present the credentials of this woman so that we can see that she does have this type of experience. Then, perhaps I will change my mind.

But I tell you, I didn't like her when she replaced Debra Norville on the "Today Show" (But then again, I didn't like Debra Norville) and I don't like her now. And it is hard to picture Ms. Couric as handling a position the one CBS afforded her.



[edit on 9-4-2006 by ceci2006]