Couric amiably fronts a newscast with substance

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(Free-Press-Release.com) September 7, 2006 -- Katie Couric's debut as CBS anchor came on a slow news day. But she filled her half-hour broadcast with new segments and feature stories. As a result, the premiere of "The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric" was professional, fairly relevant and only slightly cheesy.
If this is to be the Couric template, it is like this: hard news for 15 minutes, soft news for 15 minutes.

The first half was all war, politics and oil. For the second half, Couric casually sat on her desk to anchor a feature on how American kids are spreading "compassion" to orphans in Nicaragua, and to reveal a photo shoot of Suri Cruise, the baby of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
"Yes, Suri -- she does exist," Couric said.
Couric isn't just a figurehead. She is the first permanent solo female anchor of a network newscast. But she's also the managing editor. That means she's in charge. She made the call on Suri.
She also made the smart call to lead the show with chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan, who soberly checked in on Afghanistan, the war America forgot, and solidly detailed what is going badly.

Unfortunately for Couric, there was little else on the national agenda. This was clear from the second story, President Bush saying yet again he supports his war in Iraq. That's a nonnews story reminiscent of "Saturday Night Live's" old "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead" routine.
Cable news outlets had reported Bush's redundant "we're a nation at war" speech all day, too.
News for real people
What's notable is the way Couric has been telling the press she wants her news to be less wonky. She repeated that line again Tuesday on a video blog, promising to tailor the news less for policy makers and more for people who work at banks all day.
Yet, she fell for the same political stump routines of both parties. What happened?

Interestingly, Couric added a guest commentary segment, a sort of throwback to when networks aired editorials and counterpoints under now-defunct FCC guidelines. Couric's segment is called "freeSpeech," a challenge of capitalization that makes it trademark-friendly.
The first guest editorialist was documentary director Morgan ("Super Size Me") Spurlock, who railed against the very thing Couric had just done: the news media giving too much press to the wrestling-esque grandstanding of Red State-vs.-Blue State politics.

"We're not a nation divided at all. We're just a country that's buying into the 'Smackdown!' hype," Spurlock said. "The majority of us are camped out here in the middle. But nobody wants to hear what we have to say, because we don't foam at the mouth, call your mama names or say anything that's gonna juice the ratings."
If Couric and Spurlock are on the same page, she should step back from reporting every little chess move from the campaign trail.


Source: http://www.yahoo.com
Posted BY DOUG ELFMAN