Sure.

I'd take Suzanne Malveaux before I'd take Katie Couric. I'd take Greta Van Susteren. I'd take Barbara Walters or Leslie Stahl.

Do you have an inkling of the substantive difference between Couric and those other women that I might suggest?

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"The iPod was not developed by Baptists in Waco." -- G.K.

Have you guys who think Couric can't do real news because she is cute given any thought to whether you're being sexist?

Good question. I'll cop to thinking about it in those terms. It's hard not to, because it's all based on appearances. Couric is no more of a "pretty airhead" or primadonna than Tom Brokaw (actually, they're both very talented in their own right - it's just that TV doesn't really reward journalistic skill as much as good looks, charisma and acting ability - as Stephen Colbert mocked with his piece about the importance of "inflection").

One of the main criterion for being a good TV journalist is a "male" trait - aggression. The willingness to get in someone's face relentlessly - regardless of whether the questions being asked are relevant or worthwhile - is seen as a sign of journalistic talent. Sam Donaldson, Dan Rather, et al are the epitome, and Geraldo Rivera is the comic extreme. Barbara Walters proved it's possible to get into the boys' club by adopting this persona (I think her dull questions are on par with Donaldson's). Malveaux's an up-and-comer, because she was willing to go head-to-head with the Machismo in Chief.

Again, contrast this with newspapers*. Yes, there's Judy Miller. But she wasn't considered a diva (outside her own newsroom) until she started popping up in the TV universe. A better example is Dana Priest. She's recognized as one of the best in the business - if not the best. But that's not due to her aggressive interviewing "style" (at least it not until she battled Bill Bennett on TV), but because she reports and writes great, informative articles.

* None of this is to say newspapers don't have their problems. They have huge, honking problems and commit many of the same journalistic sins. But as a news medium, television will never even match print's worst day.It's just not possible.

chicken? egg?

Look criticizing Katie Couric is easy. These are the same people who listen to Rush Limbaugh. Didn't he proclaim her the "Eva Braun of the Left." More cognitive dissonance and Godwin's Law writ large.

"In a medium in which the image captures most attention, personality supercedes—in fact, all but obliterates—ideas and issues. That is why one becomes a celebrity by the mere fact of appearing on television. No prior accomplishment is required. Nor a reason for being there. It is accomplishment enough for one’s image to be on television."
- Neil Postman

From E! Entertainment News 2014:

CBS announced today that long time news anchor Katie Couric will be stepping down from the CBS Anchor desk to host 60 Minutes VII. She will be replaced by E! Entertainment news personality Lindsay Lohan. Behind the scene reports tell of a competitive race between Lohan, Amanda Burns, and longtime rival Hilary Duff. Paris Hilton did not make the final cut because target audiences felt she was "too old".

Urgh. You seriously want to rehash this, go ask our kind hosts over at Knoxblab to resurrect the thread the digit started last year, approximate title "Did the media make matter worse during Katrina?" Or was it on your old board? You resurrect if it was on your old board. I don't remember. But anything that's going to be said here has already been said there, I'd bet. But, for what it's worth...

Which "media" "backed the Contract on America coalition in Congress that impeached Clinton"? All of the mainstream media? Every single publication and channel "backed" that? Each and every reporter and anchor? Wow. I had no idea. Imagine that. The MSM, all conservative puppets. Digit should be happy.

Which media didn't report on the aftermath of Katrina? Weren't reports of poverty and race on the Gulf Coast in Time and Newsweek and the major newspapers for months after that? Could have sworn there were. Must have been my imagination. Digit should be happy about that, too.

Which media didn't report on Brown's inepitude and FEMA's incompetence and Bush's inanity? None of them? Of course. That must have been my imagination too. The MSM didn't report on Abu Ghraib, the government's domestic call monitoring programs, or anything else of that sort. Nope.

All the media ever does is report celebrity gossip. And it manufactures all of that too. There are no Brads or Angelinas or whatever the flavor of nanosecond is, the media creates it all to keep the sheeple in circuses (government handouts provide the bread, natch). The media, not the audience, creates the demand. It's all the fault of "the media." Sure, right.

Look, the "media" isn't what you want it to be, and it doesn't cover all issues to the degree that you want it to. Despite what you and the digit want to believe, the media is mostly just about reporting what's current. They aren't "problem solvers," despite the digit's fevered delusions and your fervent hopes. When the audience tires, they move on. And individual editors at single papers have biases and their corporate owners have bottom-line interests, and individual reporters are more competent or less competent, more lazy or less, more preoccupied or less preoccupied with this or that, and stories that should get covered don't, and stories that you would never have heard about otherwise get broken.

And news agencies or editors or reporters will come back to stories periodically, too. I know I have read MSM articles on the "debate on reconstruction" in the Gulf, articles on the wasted federal monies in that effort, stories on the difficulties in identifying the victims' remains months later, stories on the opposition to the rebuilding plan Nagin backed, stories on people from poorer neighborhoods feeling like they were getting the shaft from the rebuilding plan, and on the New Orleans mayoral race and the issues of how to get absentee votes in. That's just stories I can remember off the top of my head and not including some the more of sensational ones I've read in the MSM, cops attacking a black guy, National Guard called back in, etc.

And I'm not even following events in the Gulf. Those are just things that I have happened to read because they were prominent headlines. In my own circumscribed observations, I'd say the the MSM have continued to report on the Gulf. More superficially and spottily than you prefer, sure. But is coverage nonexistent? No.

But sure, after a while, most news agencies moved on to the next thing and the next and the next. It's not what you want it to be. It's not what the digit believes it is.

And despite your certainty that the KNS is card-carrying member of CRACKDOWN (the Committee of Republicans to Anoint & Crown Karl [Rove] Dark Overlord of the World, Now!), I notice they get hate mail all the time from people just as certain they are members of DRAGDOWN (Democrats Requesting Al Gore to Deliver Our World Now). It's a middling thing, I think.

As for the crack about people in "the industry" seeing the glass half full, I'm not in "the industry," so my views on half-filled glasses are not representative of "the industry." My views on half-filled glasses are thus: If I see a glass that is half-filled with water, I call it half a glass of water. If I see a glass that is half-filled with milk, I call it half a glass of milk. If I see a glass that is half-filled with beer, I call for another round. And next time I see you out, if your glass is half-filled with beer, I'll order another round for you too. Drag the digit with you. I'll buy it one too.

The only reason to continue watching will therefore, eventually, be big boobies.

Is this the future?

Thet is my pueent, Undy. Nu oone-a cun sereeuoosly beleeefe-a thet Cuooreec is a sereeuoos replecement fur Dun Rezeer. Thoos, oone-a cun nu lunger sereeuoosly beleeefe-a thet oone-a cun be-a sereeuoosly inffurmed by vetcheeng zee CBS Ifeneeng Noos (recell thet it ves under Rezeer's vetch thun 77% ooff zee nooscests' feeooers vere-a sereeuoosly meesinffurmed ebuoot zee reesuns beheend zee Ireq infeseeun). Bork Bork Bork!

Un hum de hur!

(Given your avatar, I just had to use the Enchefalator.)

But yeah, I get your point. I just don't think that anyone's dropping any pretense here. I do believe that CBS thinks that this is a genuine, completely straight manner to broadcast the evening news, wholly consistent with their history of same.

CBS isn't the least offender, by the way. The words of Jon Stewart vis-a-vis Crossfire spring immediately to mind...

"[T]he absurdity of the system provides us the most material."

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"The iPod was not developed by Baptists in Waco." -- G.K.