 |
Global Edition | Today Is Thursday, March 11, 2010 |
|---|
|
Global Edition | Today Is Thursday, March 11, 2010 |
|---|
| C-SPAN: America’s Pride | « Scan Content In The Order It Was Published » | Illusions Of Credibility | |
| Previous In Section | « Scan Only The Network Television Section » | Next In Section | |
Katie Couric with Rick Kaplan, CBS Evening News
New York – The Katie Couric debate, whether she is about to be fired or will soon quit in frustration, is only the most visible symptom of a festering disease afflicting CBS News. Ms. Couric is neither the cause of the disease, nor its cure — for the cancer eating at the heart of CBS news has been festering well over a decade.
While the Katie Couric misadventure has accomplished little in terms of making the CBS Evening News more competitive ( read profitable ), the problem is not of Couric’s making either. She is what she is, a talented and engaging television personality. Her desire to re-make network news into a features-driven broadcast were ill-conceived at best. But Ms. Couric was recruited, some say enticed, to move to CBS on the assumption that her talents and ideas would turn the tide. She may have been foolish to think further dumbing-down of what had become an entertainment-driven news program would prove successful.
Katie Couric was ill-prepared for a serious journalism role, for she is neither journalist, nor reporter. She is, of course, a major television star, a very competent news reader, a quick study, and nobody’s fool. If she is to be dumped, it is not because she didn’t apply herself to the task at hand. Once Rick Kaplan came aboard, the 12 minute news segment turned from mushy to rock-hard. While it took far longer for Katie to take up the voice of God mantle, she has accomplished that with grace and far more skill than she is given credit.
One must wonder if the content, editorial judgment, delivery and style of today’s CBS Evening News broadcasts had been the standard from the get-go, whether it might have changed the outcome. Maybe so, maybe not, for network newscasts are collaborative in nature and thus the result of many talents and decisions. What we see of Couric today is evidence of a student well-schooled and a newsreader of significant skill. No matter that The CBS Evening News has not proven competitive in viewership and demographic makeup, in terms of its journalistic content, production and delivery, it is equal to, if not better than its competitors on most nights. If anyone saved Couric, it would appear to have been Rick Kaplan, who steered the right course and re-established high quality journalism to the news segment of the broadcast.
Katie Couric grew up in the last two years. Alas it was too little and too late, but she has proven there is far more to Katherine Anne Couric than meets the eye.
CBS President Leslie Moonves
Couric has failed, but what her critics fail to recognize, or many not understand, is that nobody could have been successful at making the CBS Evening News more competitive because the news division is neither wanted by, nor understood by CBS Management. Network news is, according to what CBS president Leslie Moonves has said since Rather departed, not only dying, but irrelevant.
Sean McManus, President, CBS News and Sports
Ms. Couric was set-up to fail by men who seduced her into believing that her super-star status would make her, and CBS News successful. But CBS News is internally afflicted by failed management at the hands of Sean McManus. To his credit, McManus wisely agreed to replace Rome Hartman after Couric’s disheartening early airings. That said, Hartman’s successor, Rick Kaplan, restored probative news content to Couric’s broadcast. Unfortunately, Kaplan’s overhaul of CBS journalistic standards and editorial judgment accomplished little in terms of changing viewer preferences. When a patient is dying of four major illnesses, curing one of them, while noteworthy, does not change the eventual outcome. CBS News is a failed institution.
Rick Kaplan, EP, CBS Evening News With Katie Couric
As it stands today, the CBS Evening News is unlikely to recover from the mis-adventures of the last 18 years. Many of its best people are gone to shore up CBS’ bottom line. Worse, the internal derision and discordance, disaffection and enmity among former personnel, may well have pushed CBS News beyond the tripping point. If that’s the case, the infrastructure that has served CBS News for six decades is certain to unravel further — further damaging its reputation while adversely impacting its journalistic qualities. Leslie Moonves has what he wanted — an excuse to silence The Voice Of God.
That said, what of the future? If Couric is dumped, as is being widely speculated about today, who will replace her? And what will be the outcome of putting yet another highly paid television personality up front on a dying broadcast? While the future of network news is not clear, putting yet another patch on CBS News defies logic.
Absent long term commitment and support from CBS management the time has come to end the charade by declaring victory and replacing the CBS Evening News with real entertainment programming. Since this is going to happen eventually, no matter how many up-front faces replace Ms. Couric, why not do it now — whenever she or CBS decide to throw in the towel?
The voices raised in protest that would follow ought to clarify whether network news still matters to the world’s richest and least well-informed nation.
