Notes as I'm watching the Couric Train Wreck

[Ultimajock]

...this is truly jaw-dropping bad. As I'm watching this video turd, they
have the gall to run a clip of Douglas Edwards' first "CBS Evening News"
displaying the first baby pictures of Prince Charles as a lead-up to the
first baby picture of Suri Cruise. And Couric is billboarding a Rush
Limbaugh commentary on Thursday's show. There'll have to be a whole new
West Coast edition of this one, no doubt about it...

...Sweet Jesus. As a sign-off, Couric ran a short package of other
anchors' sign-offs: Edward R. Murrow, David Brinkley, Chet Huntley,
Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Ted Baxter, Ron Burgundy. You read those
last two names right. Fictional characters played by Ted Knight and Will
Farrell have just been put on the same plane as men who stood up to
Joseph McCarthy and decried political hatred as John Kennedy's coffin
returned to Washington from Dallas...

...yes, the Murrow-Huntley-Brinkley tradition survives, Unfortunately,
it's stuck on MSNBC (hello, Keith) between a blowhard pundit yelling
"Hardball!" and pond scum masquerading as a failed Republican politician...

 

[RobNorton]

Dude, it was unbelievably awful.

But, Katie is managing editor. So, I guess that's why the entire last, what - 8 or 10 minutes of the show consisted of (I hope I'm remembering right) - celebrity baby pictures, an orphanage, and help me with my signoff (Jeez, lady, we don't care, just give us the news!).

Also, usually, I'm kind of a fan of the 30 days guy, but I thought his comments tonight were really kind of trite - not worth stopping a network newscast for.

No, it's over to Charles Gibson for me.

 

[Ultimajock]

...you can keep Gibson. I wait 90 more minutes and flip to Olbermann...

 

[Braves2005]

Managing editor of the news now,huh? No wonder that she wants to try a Today Show approach with the news. Katie,you are not on Today anymore,remember?

I watch Charles Gibson anyhow so what Katie does now will not bother me in the least. If anything,she will be a laugh riot for Jay Leno,Saturday Night Live,and Mad TV among others.

 

[radiolover78]

You probably had it in her even before she went on the air.

I wish her the best though.

 

[Ultimajock]

...no, I didn't. In fact, there's a few places around the Internet where I opined that Couric couldn't possibly do nearly as much damage to CBS as Bryant Gumbel did with his cluelessness on 9/11. I was wrong...

 

[imhomerjay]

For the love of God people, lighten up and join the majority of folks in the 21st century. For better or worse, the Walter Cronkite era is long since over. It was fine for its time, but in today's world, there are more people with different expectations and needs from the 'evening news.' I have nothing but the utmost respect for people like Cronkite and Huntley and Jennings and Edwards and Chancellor and many others I'm forgetting off the top of my head. They did wonderful work that suited the eras in which they came to prominence.

Why there has been such a bloodlust to skewer Katie Couric is beyond me. So she did the Today show. So what? Where was the outcry when Charles Gibson took over ABC News? For heaven's sake, he interviewed Kermit the Frog on GMA, and ranked it among his favorite interviews! How could someone who talked with a muppet and laughed as he did cooking segments with Emeril possibly have the gravitas to anchor a network's flagship newscast?!?!?!? And what about Hugh Downs, who was generally regarded as a serious journalist. How much less gravitas-worthy could someone be than to have once hosted a --gasp-- game show? (That would be sarcasm.)

What, exactly, is the threshold when someone is enough of a journalist to take a seat on the nightly news? Is it a certain number of interviews with heads of state? Is it a magic ratio of XYZ so-called "serious" stories to "fluff" stories? So many people take the cowardly approach of saying the doesn't have the chops; how about putting some more specifics behind that? Quanitify your benchmark.

In the era of multiple around-the-clock news services and the Internet, the "voice of God" approach to the nightly news isn't necessarily the only model. Of course some people still want that, and they may not care for a new-fangled approach, but there's no way to please everyone--never was, never will be. If CBS finds an approach that reaches enough people, whatever it may be, they're doing their job. That may include some lighter segments, and believe it or not, the planet won't fall off its axis if it does.

 

[radiolover78]

With all the depressing news out there, it's actually nice to see a lighter segment on the evening news.

As someone who leaves for work before 7 in the morning, it's nice to see that "light fluff" on evening newscasts. I have to miss the national morning shows.

I hope Couric does well. Her newscast was pretty damn good.

 

[nuzguy]

Didn't see tonight's first run. After all the baby pictures and anchor flash backs, was there any room for Iraq et al?

Couric's debut at the anchor desk may well have been a bit of a dog and pony show, possibly setting the stage for whatever is to follow in the way of presentational style and production of the CBS Evening News. Train wreck, jaw-dropping bad as it may have come off, future shows beginning with CBS EN tomorrow night may give a more concrete hint of how it will all be packaged in the future. Film at 11.

BTW, who is exec producing now. Any change there or in any of the other offices of the Evening News?

 

[RobNorton]

>>>>> So she did the Today show. So what?

See....hmmm...how can I say this. It's not just that Katie was doing morning news before this. It's more than that. Some anchors who happen to be on in the morning can still maintain their brand as hard news people. I dunno how they do it, but some pull it off, and some don't.

I would bet that most people would have completely different reactions to the following statements (regardless of what network it is):

"Hey, did you hear? The new flagship network news anchor is Katie Couric!"

"Hey, did you hear? The new flagship network news anchor is Diane Sawyer!"

 

[raccoonradio]

http://theedge.bostonherald.com/tvNews/view.bg?articleid=156080

"Sounding like a third-grade teacher, Couric asked for viewers to suggest her signoff. For $15 million the 49-year-old managing editor can’t write her own? A montage of signoffs from across the years included Dan Rather, Ted Baxter and Ron Burgundy. Two of those characters are fictional. Here’s hoping CBS knew which ones. As last night’s broadcast demonstrated, CBS is spending a lot of money.
Too bad the network couldn’t dig up some spare change for actual news."

 

[raccoonradio]

Edited version of the Couric debut http://hotair.com/archives/2006/09/05/video-katie-couric-debuts-on-the-cbs-evening-news/

 

[Morgan Wick]

For the love of God people, lighten up and join the majority of folks in the 21st century. For better or worse, the Walter Cronkite era is long since over. It was fine for its time, but in today's world, there are more people with different expectations and needs from the 'evening news.' I have nothing but the utmost respect for people like Cronkite and Huntley and Jennings and Edwards and Chancellor and many others I'm forgetting off the top of my head. They did wonderful work that suited the eras in which they came to prominence.

See, that's why people like Keith Olbermann. He has a hard-news approach but he does it in a way no one save Stewart is funnier at.

Where was the outcry when Charles Gibson took over ABC News? For heaven's sake, he interviewed Kermit the Frog on GMA, and ranked it among his favorite interviews! How could someone who talked with a muppet and laughed as he did cooking segments with Emeril possibly have the gravitas to anchor a network's flagship newscast?!?!?!? And what about Hugh Downs, who was generally regarded as a serious journalist. How much less gravitas-worthy could someone be than to have once hosted a --gasp-- game show? (That would be sarcasm.)

In my mind, Gibson actually had the opposite problem from Couric going in. I thought he would be dull and uninteresting. If you look at the wide variety of things he's done outside GMA (far wider than Couric) he's got plenty of hard-news cred, but he didn't really seem to me to have that Jennings-Rather-Brokaw kind of gravitas.

NBC definitely came out of it best in this mass passing of the torch. Brokaw left on his own terms and had a successor (Brian Williams) already hand-groomed. Dan Rather left in Nixonesque disgrace and left Les Moonves looking for some gimmick to hang his news on, while an anchor less gravitas-y than Gibson passed World News Tonight (as it was still called). ABC was caught off-guard by Jennings' death and probably had the worst circumstances to pick a successor. It'll be interesting to see Katie's ratings beyond the initial curiosity-fueled surge.

Didn't see tonight's first run. After all the baby pictures and anchor flash backs, was there any room for Iraq et al?

I watched the start of the show, which actually seemed pretty good, though I didn't watch it late so it might have run off the rails then. (I actually would have loved to see that multi-signoff, though.) Personally, I was almost stunned with how natural Couric seemed with the hard-news bits. They actually spent quite a bit of time on the news of the day. Give her a week to see how she is when she's not doing a lavish premiere spectacle.

"Sounding like a third-grade teacher, Couric asked for viewers to suggest her signoff. For $15 million the 49-year-old managing editor can’t write her own? A montage of signoffs from across the years included Dan Rather, Ted Baxter and Ron Burgundy. Two of those characters are fictional. Here’s hoping CBS knew which ones. As last night’s broadcast demonstrated, CBS is spending a lot of money.
Too bad the network couldn’t dig up some spare change for actual news."

I've got an idea. Go without a signoff. Did Jennings, Rather or Brokaw have sign-offs like "And that's the way it is"? Do Williams or Gibson? Did Schieffer? ("Courage" doesn't count, and I don't watch network news so I haven't actually seen any of these that much save Brokaw, so the answer could be yes to all for all I know.)

 

[bpatrick]

Brokaw usually closed with, "That's Nightly News for
this (fill in the day). I'm Tom Brokaw. I'll see you
back here tomorrow night."

Jennings usually said, "That's our report on World
News Tonight. I'm Peter Jennings. For all of us
at ABC News, good night." (or words to that effect)

Don't forget that the sign off was a way for radio
newscasters to identify themselves: Murrow's "Good
night...and good luck"; Gabriel Heatter's "Ah, there's
good news tonight," etc. Cronkite, although not a
radio newscaster, seems to have followed the tradition,
being of the same generation. Paul Harvey does the
same thing: "Paul Harvey...good DAY." Douglas Edwards
was famous for his opening: "Good evening everyone,
from coast to coast." And we all know "Good night
Chet, good night David, and good night for NBC News."
But again, most of these guys cut their broadcasting
teeth in radio, not television.

I think that signature openings and closings are something
of an anachronism now. Why doesn't Katie just say, "That's
the CBS Evening News. I'm Katie Couric. Good night," and
be done with it?

 

[Morgan Wick]

Brokaw usually closed with, "That's Nightly News for
this (fill in the day). I'm Tom Brokaw. I'll see you
back here tomorrow night."

Jennings usually said, "That's our report on World
News Tonight. I'm Peter Jennings. For all of us
at ABC News, good night." (or words to that effect)

Don't forget that the sign off was a way for radio
newscasters to identify themselves: Murrow's "Good
night...and good luck"; Gabriel Heatter's "Ah, there's
good news tonight," etc. Cronkite, although not a
radio newscaster, seems to have followed the tradition,
being of the same generation. Paul Harvey does the
same thing: "Paul Harvey...good DAY." Douglas Edwards
was famous for his opening: "Good evening everyone,
from coast to coast." And we all know "Good night
Chet, good night David, and good night for NBC News."
But again, most of these guys cut their broadcasting
teeth in radio, not television.

I think that signature openings and closings are something
of an anachronism now. Why doesn't Katie just say, "That's
the CBS Evening News. I'm Katie Couric. Good night," and
be done with it?

Exactly. Of course, Olbermann signs off every night (or used to) the same way Murrow did, which seems to me almost to be a little conceited, like he's equating himself with one of the greats.

 

[RobNorton]

KO has said that his "good night and good luck" is an homage to Murrow.

FWIW, that's just what I've heard him say.

 

[Ultimajock]

KO has said that his "good night and good luck" is an homage to Murrow.

FWIW, that's just what I've heard him say.

...depending upon the night you catch him, anyway. Other times he'll toss in Jean Shepherd's "Keep your knees loose," and on other nights summat about "on the ***th Day after the Declaration of 'Mission Accomplished' in Iraq," which harkens back to the way Ted Koppel signed off "Nightline" during the Teheran Hostage Crisis. Most nights will get a combination of two or all three of these...

 

[Studio20]

Ok, lets lay this out....

Has Katie Couric ever worked a beat? Homicides? The Courts? um...Animal Control?

Was Managing Editor Couric filing reports on newscasts, at least in market 199?

As for Hugh Downs, he was a reporter long before hosting...admirably, I might add, Concentration. He was a Today show co host with Barbara Walters.

By the way, I didnt see either ABC or NBCs news. Did either anchor even paraphrase David Brinkley...who the night after Barbara Walters co anchored her first newscast with Harry Reasoner, opened the NBC newscast with "Good Evening..and Welcome Back"

 

[FightingIrish]

...no, I didn't. In fact, there's a few places around the Internet where I opined that Couric couldn't possibly do nearly as much damage to CBS as Bryant Gumbel did with his cluelessness on 9/11. I was wrong...

What's funny about Gumbel is that, if you come across a CBS-published book called "What We Saw", there is a DVD in it featuring CBS News highlights of that day, including Gumbel denying the second plane hitting as it's being shown on live TV. It's worth the purchase price just for that, especially if you don't like Gumbel.

The book's not bad either. I got it a few years ago on clearance for $10 at Target.

 

[Ultimajock]

...no, I didn't. In fact, there's a few places around the Internet where I opined that Couric couldn't possibly do nearly as much damage to CBS as Bryant Gumbel did with his cluelessness on 9/11. I was wrong...

What's funny about Gumbel is that, if you come across a CBS-published book called "What We Saw", there is a DVD in it featuring CBS News highlights of that day, including Gumbel denying the second plane hitting as it's being shown on live TV. It's worth the purchase price just for that, especially if you don't like Gumbel.

The book's not bad either. I got it a few years ago on clearance for $10 at Target.

...I got that book upon publication; that's how I saw the Gumbel material. (I watched KTLA and KCBS Los Angeles via Dish Network on the morning itself. I switched over to KCBS after the second tower collapsed.) Some interesting essays in the text, but the Gumbel stuff on the DVD is stunning in how horribly he performs...