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How the news covers Friday the 13th

Fri, 13 May 2011 17:14:00 +0000

Friday the 13th is the one time of the year that everyone gets together, renounces their religions, and starts believing entirely in the power of luck for a day. It's true! Superstition trumps common sense on the 13th, and as someone who once got fired and evicted on one of these days, I'm more of a believer in its power than anyone. Still, I know how ridiculous it sounds to be scared of a day because of bad mojo. That's why it's always funny to watch news anchors try to cover Friday the 13th. Is it a holiday? Should they make fun of it? (Or is that just tempting the bad luck gods?)

We take a look at some of the more egregious examples of stations trying to make this non-story work below.

In 2009, Katie Couric did a short segment on Friggatriskaidekaphobia, a phobia of Friday the 13th, which raises the question: Why do we need a name for something everyone has?

Palin can’t name one influential journalist

Wed, 04 May 2011 12:40:00 +0000

Who could forget Katie Couric's excruciating interview with Sarah Palin in 2008 when the then-vice presidential hopeful was unable to name even one newspaper? You might think after such a reputation-dashing incident, Palin would have swotted up on her media knowledge. But not so, according to some short footage that has emerged from the MSNBC White House Correspondents Dinner after party.

An NBC reporter asked a number of celebrities, newsmakers and Palin to name who they think is the most influential journalist today. "Um, gosh, that's a great question, I have to think about it, OK? Because there are many," responded Palin, after turning to husband Todd for his thoughts (to little avail).

Scott Pelley taking over for Couric as CBS anchor

Tue, 03 May 2011 15:09:00 +0000

CBS says Scott Pelley will take over as its evening news anchor, starting on June 6.

The network on Tuesday announced the expected selection of Pelley, the veteran "60 Minutes" reporter, to replace Katie Couric on the "CBS Evening News." Couric is pursuing a syndicated talk show, but hasn't said where she will be working next. The date for her final CBS broadcast has not been set.

Pelley is a Texas native who has worked at CBS for two decades. He will inherit a broadcast that is in last place in the ratings behind NBC and ABC, and has been for some time.

CBS said Pelley will continue to do stories for "60 Minutes."

Goodbye to Katie Couric, “perky” news anchor?

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 20:05:00 +0000

Katie Couric was always an outside-the-box choice for CBS news anchor. Following in the gravitas-filled footsteps of Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather, Couric was a morning news veteran, a woman to whom the adjectives "perky" and "cute" have been applied more times than Lindsay Lohan has been called "troubled."

So perhaps it was not entirely surprising Monday when the Associated Press reported that a CBS network executive confirmed that the anchor, whose CBS Evening News is trailing at third in the ratings, will be leaving the network when her five year contract expires in June.

Is the anonymous tipster just a classic decoy, designed to test the waters of public opinion before Couric and the network get down to negotiations? CBS News spokeswoman Sonya McNair said Sunday, "We have no announcements to make at this time. Until we do, we will continue to decline comment on rumor or speculation," and Couric's own spokesman likewise declined to comment.

Katie Couric leaving anchor post at CBS News

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 12:52:00 +0000

Katie Couric is leaving her anchor post at "CBS Evening News" less than five years after becoming the first woman to solely helm a network TV evening newscast.

A network executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Couric has not officially announced her plans, reported the move to The Associated Press on Sunday night. The 54-year-old anchor is expected to launch a syndicated talk show in 2012 and several companies are vying for her services.

Couric's move from NBC's "Today" show was big news in 2006, and she began in the anchor chair with a flourish that September. She tried to incorporate her strengths as an interviewer into a standard evening news format and millions of people who normally didn't watch the news at night checked it out. But they drifted away and the evening newscast reverted to a more traditional broadcast.

After those first few weeks, the "CBS Evening News" settled into third place in the ratings and is well behind leader Brian Williams at NBC's "Nightly News" and second-place Diane Sawyer at ABC's "World News."

No departure date has been set for Couric. Her CBS News contract expires on June 4.

Katie Couric gets sexy

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:09:00 +0000

After nearly 30 years in broadcast journalism, Katie Couric is finally allowed to present herself as sexy, says the Washington Post's Robin Givhan. And this is apparently something to celebrate.

Meditating on a recent Harper's Bazaar fashion spread, in which the first female solo evening news anchor poses in a "short -- very short -- skirt," a curve-hugging Calvin Klein dress and "the kind of platform Gucci heels that have been known to send professional models tumbling to their knees," Givhan writes, "[a]fter breaking ground in network news, after having folks debate whether she should have worn a white blazer on her debut show -- as if anything but black or navy proclaimed her less serious -- there are these images. Unapologetically, forcefully, I-dare-you, sexy." The photos offer "a full-throated, even exaggerated, rebuke of the notion that a woman must dress in a prescribed manner -- Suze Orman suits, full-coverage blouses, sensible heels -- to protect her IQ, her résumé and her place in a male-dominated work culture." Never mind Couric's Cronkite Award-winning evisceration of Sarah Palin, even -- just check out those shoes!

Palin vs. Couric

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:53:00 +0000

The election may be over, but Sarah Palin and Katie Couric still don't have particularly nice things to say about each other.

The New York Post's Page Six reports that Couric, asked for her advice to Palin, said, "I think she should keep her head down, work really hard and learn about governing."

Ouch.

In a segment of their interview broadcast Wednesday, Couric's former colleague, Matt Lauer, asked Palin about one question she stumbled on during her conversation with Couric. The former vice-presidential candidate responded:

Ladies of the nightly news

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:31:00 +0000

It was perhaps galling that one of the smartest questions asked of Hillary Clinton in the past 18 months was posed after a presidential debate in which Clinton did not participate. But it was appropriate that it came from a journalist who understands as well as the New York senator that the path to gender parity is lined with potholes.

"Why do you think Sarah Palin has an action figure, and you have a nutcracker?" asked CBS anchorwoman Katie Couric on her nightly webcast -- her so-called after party -- following the final presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain on Oct. 15.

Of course, Clinton didn't answer the question fully -- by, say, launching into a discourse on how her brand of female power is based on authority and competence that made her appear threatening, like a potential harvester of testicles, while the Alaska governor's brand of female power is based on her ability to winkingly climb the political ladder while never disrupting the fantasy that she is only here to conform to traditional feminine norms that do not threaten testicular dominance. No. Clinton just let out a loud (just once, for old times' sake) cackle and said, "I don't have any idea, Katie."

Another Palin-Couric debacle

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:54:00 +0000

Tuesday night, CBS News broadcast yet another interview that Katie Couric conducted with Sarah Palin. The results were somewhat better for Palin than they have been in the past, but she still gave one truly puzzling response, and a few evasive ones.

The puzzling one came in response to a question Couric asked Palin about what newspapers and magazines she reads. Here's the ensuing exchange:

PALIN: I've read most of them, again, with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.
COURIC: But, like, what ones specifically? I'm curious that you ...
PALIN: All of them. Any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.
COURIC: Can you name a few?
PALIN: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news to -- Alaska isn't a foreign country where it's kind of suggested it seems like, wow, how could you keep in touch with the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking and doing when you live up there in Alaska. Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.
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No, Sarah Palin, Katie Couric wasn’t talking about you

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:03:00 +0000

You almost have to feel sorry for John McCain. Not only is he still trying to figure out that whole e-mail thing, but now people are removing his Web ads before they've even been in the series of tubes for a full day.

The Politico's Ben Smith reports that, at the request of CBS, YouTube has removed a McCain Web ad titled "Lipstick," which portrays Sarah Palin as the victim of Barack Obama's sexism. CBS sought the removal because the ad involves an unauthorized clip of CBS anchor Katie Couric saying, "One of the great lessons of that campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life."

The ad implies that Couric's comment was about Palin; in fact, Couric was discussing Hillary Clinton's campaign.

CBS spokeswoman Leigh Farris said, "CBS News does not endorse any candidate in the Presidential race. Any use of CBS personnel in political advertising that suggests the contrary is misleading."

The ad can still be viewed on McCain's Web site.

Quote of the day

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:53:00 +0000

The Huffington Post has posted a special segment recorded by Katie Couric that will air on CBS News Wednesday night. In it, Couric talks about the sexism that surfaced during the Clinton campaign: "One of the great lessons of [Hillary Clinton's] campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life, particularly in the media."

You can watch the video here:

Was Katie Couric railroaded?

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:07:00 +0000

News broke last week that Katie Couric will be leaving the CBS Evening News. In a story for the New York Post, Leslie Bennetts parallels Couric's fate with that of Hillary Clinton -- two powerful women in unprecedented roles and the wreckage to prove it. (In its trademark lack of subtlety, the Post illustrates the article with the women's heads Photoshopped onto the movie poster for "Thelma & Louise" and the headline: "Hillary & Katie: Two women pioneers driven off a cliff.")

Bennetts angrily describes how CBS suits turned Couric into a "nauseating female caricature," urging her to talk about her kids in between news segments and flashing her famous gams. Bennetts is indignant that women like Nora Ephron added to the pile-on, critiquing Couric's performance on election night by writing, "I don't mean to be sexist about Katie Couric ... But it's impossible for me to make any sort of evaluation at all about her. Because I cannot believe how bad her makeup is." (A quote that seems to say more about Nora Ephron than it does about Katie Couric, but point taken.)

Clinton: I will be the nominee

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 12:33:00 +0000

An appealing sense of confidence or an obnoxious sense of entitlement? How you view Hillary Clinton's exchange with Katie Couric last night probably depends entirely on how you view Hillary Clinton herself.

Couric asked Clinton how disappointed she'll be if she's not the Democratic nominee. "Well," Clinton said, "it will be me."

Clinton said, as she has before, that she'll support the Democratic nominee, whoever it may be. So that means that Clinton has at least considered the possibility that she won't be the nominee?

"No," she said, "I haven't."

The liberal news media

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 12:53:00 +0000

Point: In a new Gallup Poll, 77 percent of Republicans say that the news media is "too liberal."

Counterpoint: In an excerpt from his new book, Howard Kurtz describes the pressure Katie Couric felt from management at NBC to toe the line on Iraq:

"Two months before the 2004 election, when she was still at NBC's 'Today' show, Couric had asked Condoleezza Rice whether she agreed with Vice President Cheney's declaration that the country would be at greater risk for terrorist attacks if John Kerry won the White House. Rice sidestepped the question, saying that any president had to fight aggressively against terrorism.

"Couric interrupted and asked the question again. Would a Kerry victory put America at greater risk? Rice ducked again, saying that the issue should not be personalized.

"Soon afterward, Couric got an e-mail from Robert Wright, the NBC president. He was forwarding a note from an Atlanta woman who complained that Couric had been too confrontational with Rice.

"What was the message here? Couric felt that Wright must be telling her to back off ...

Dan Rather stands by his story

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 11:29:00 +0000

Dan Rather's complaint against CBS and Viacom, its parent company, filed in New York state court on Sept. 19 and seeking $70 million in damages for his wrongful dismissal as "CBS Evening News" anchor, has aroused hoots of derision from a host of commentators. They've said that the former anchor is "sad," "pathetic," "a loser," on an "ego" trip and engaged in a mad gesture "no sane person" would do, and that "no one in his right mind would keep insisting that those phony documents are real and that the Bush National Guard story is true."

If the court accepts his suit, however, launching the adjudication of legal issues such as breach of fiduciary duty and tortious interference with contract, it will set in motion an inexorable mechanism that will grind out answers to other questions as well. Then Rather's suit will become an extraordinary commission of inquiry into a major news organization's intimidation, complicity and corruption under the Bush administration. No congressional committee would be able to penetrate into the sanctum of any news organization to divulge its inner workings. But intent on vindicating his reputation, capable of financing an expensive legal challenge, and armed with the power of subpoena, Rather will charge his attorneys to interrogate news executives and perhaps administration officials under oath on a secret and sordid chapter of the Bush presidency.

Edward Klein’s next three books

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 10:45:00 +0000

Edward Klein's new biography of CBS News anchor Katie Couric, "Katie: The Real Story," is the latest entry in a unique and controversial oeuvre. In a series of biographies, Klein has painted various famous females -- Hillary Clinton, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy -- matching shades of bitch. Klein's subjects often turn out to be grasping harpies who aren't above using their lady parts to beat the competition. The Klein approach to Understanding Important Women is encapsulated in the title of his 2005 biography of Clinton, "The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President." In his newest profile, Katie Couric is sleeping her way to success -- and wrecking a home -- before Page 10. Through an anonymous source, Salon recently received the opening pages of Klein's next three books. You read them here first. -- ed.

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Couric goes to bat for Lohan

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 23:20:00 +0000

From one beleaguered broad to another: CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric sounded a lot like Broadsheet's Lynn Harris last night, when she gave a compassionate shout-out to Lindsay Lohan, whose recent arrest on drunken driving and cocaine possession charges, along with her glassy-eyed mug shot, have put her on front pages once again this week.
"Of course this 21-year-old bears responsibility," Couric told her audience in a "Notebook" segment last night. "Her behavior puts others at risk, and the laws shouldn't make exceptions for the famous. But when you're staring at the magazine emblazoned with her photo, or that TV show breathlessly describing her latest fall from grace, remember that this young woman has a very serious medical illness: addiction. Her biochemical state is exacerbated by the constant media attention and parents who discuss her problems on national television." (Memo to Dina and Michael Lohan: When an anchor takes special time to spank you for crappy parenting on a national newscast, it is the final sign that you should pack it in and permanently turn your daughter over to Mandy Moore's parents.)
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No apologies, Katie Couric!

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 11:31:00 +0000

Joe Hagan's profile of Katie Couric in this week's New York magazine begins with a mug-shot cover image of the anchor above her own words, in crescendoing font: "I have days when I'm like, Oh my God, What did I do?" Hagan's headline is "Alas, Poor Couric," and his lead paragraph alone features the anchor "sitting stiff and still," and "dwarfed" as she reads the news. But it wouldn't be fair to take Hagan to task for laying the recrimination on a little thick. No. In this case, it's Couric -- long known as a world-class ball-buster with a heart of gold -- who has finally gone to mush.
As the ratings for her "CBS Evening News" broadcast continue to drop, it would appear that Couric has decided to take her successful morning-show persona -- all disarming directness and spunky humility -- not to the news desk, where she's buttoning up and getting serious, but to the public. Suddenly, the woman who used to refuse to talk to reporters about her astronomical salary and hard-bargaining skills, who unapologetically drove the high rate of turnover among "Today" show producers, and who radiated a steely self-confidence, cannot shut up about everything that's gone wrong since she left NBC for CBS!
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She may not have gravitas …

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:53:00 +0000

More than a few people were hoping that the second Katie Couric slid behind the "CBS Evening News" desk, the show would combust live, on the air, into flaming journalistic ruin. But, boy, she almost has it easy compared with Lauren Jones, the star of Fox's upcoming reality TV show "Anchorwoman." Jones, a busty bikini model and former WWE star, is being trotted out for the amusement of TV watchers in Tyler, Texas, where, despite a total lack of journalism experience, she will take a shot at reporting for KYTX Channel 19. Then, only the best of her on-air flubs and hostile run-ins with the real station talent will be broadcast nationally as a reality TV show.
Imagine the pitch given to Fox's bigwigs by the show's creator, Brian Gadinsky -- the same mind behind the dating show "Mr. Personality," where a hot bachelorette is forced to pick from a host of masked (read: potentially ugly) men. As Jennifer L. Pozner writes for the Huffington Post, it might have gone something like this: "A bikini model is going to try to read news copy from cue cards! Her coworkers will hate her because she's so vapid! Let's place bets on how badly she'll mangle the news!" Or what about some teleprompter high jinks and a back-alley brawl with the competing news station, à la "Anchorman"?
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Katie Couric: Tarting up the news?

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 01:30:00 +0000

Dan Rather calls Katie Couric a dumbed-down tart. At least, that's the favored interpretation of the former CBS anchor's comments yesterday morning on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." Rather said Couric -- his successor, by the way -- is nice and all, but it was a mistake "to try to bring the 'Today' ethos to the evening news and to dumb it down, tart it up, in hopes of attracting a younger audience." CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves has already called the comment "sexist." Sadly, Nerve's Scanner reports: "Couric could not be reached for comment, as she was too busy putting on her fishnets and stilettos for tonight's broadcast."
What an unusually sensible idea. Instead of tossing child prostitutes into prison, why not place them in "safe houses"? That's the goal behind the Safe Harbor for Exploited Youth Act, which has already made its way through the New York State Assembly. As the act's name implies, it considers child sex workers to be victims rather than criminals. It would also give U.S.-born child sex workers the same protection already granted to foreign-born child prostitutes. (For more on the legal difference between child sex workers and victims of sex trafficking, check out Continue Reading...