Truman's Conscience

Couric Still Looking For Bottom (Ratings wise that is....)

Every once in a while you get justification on something intellectually you know is just plain wrong. In this case for me it's the plight of Katie "Perky Soccer Mom Sensibilities" Couric. Putting aside the fact I simply can't stand this plastic fake of a human being I am enjoying watching CBS burn for this choice to reach out for the soccer mom sensibility demographic and change the face of network "we're shilling for the GOP" news.

And what pretell would sully and cloud my judgement about the perking cup of evening news that is now an evaporating 6:30pm demographic CBS is trying to stem? Back in 2000 during the heat of the Presidential election I had just stepped out of the shower getting ready for work when my T.V. suddenly announced to me Ms. perky girl Couric from her Today co-host chair was interviewing Dick Cheney. I don't quite remember the question she asked Cheney that elicited this reaction but I sure as hell remember Cheney's answer and Courics follow-up: "[Cheney] Well, that won't matter because Americans won't back that kind of foreign policy initiative, but the Democrats will surely put up a fight." So, you have Americans and then you have Democrats who are surely, according to Dick Cheney with that statement, NOT American. And Couric's follow up? "[Couric] Then why will the Democrats fight this?" Ah, nothing like validating a smear on half the country and smiling as you do it. Asking "Why won't the Democrats support this?" showed a tacit agreement with Cheney there are in fact "Americans" and "Democrats." I just wanted to kick my T.V. set in. Afterwards I spent the rest of the day seething, not at Dick Cheney, because one should expect this kind of vile framing from this lower case human being, but at Couric for validating it.

Now with CBS trying to bail water on this awful knee-jerk move to put Ms. Perky at the helm of Edward R. Murrow's legacy imagine my delight at reading how the backstage bickering is tearing the CBS news division asunder as they try to cut and run with this monumental disaster on their hands:

"So now Couric finds
herself tethered to what appears to be, if not a sinking ship, one taking on
water faster than anybody at CBS News knows how to bail. No wonder she's
undergone a minor image-reclamation project, suggesting in a magazine interview
that with perfect hindsight she might have balked at the challenge -- a
cry-me-a-river lament if there ever was one, coming from a multimillionaire
anchor as news divisions and newspapers hack their way toward
profitability."

Heh. The advent of 24 hour news channels still has the major network news divisions shaking their heads after nearly two decades of falling ratings. They still don't get that the landscape has changed with online Internet communities bypassing their corporate biases while propping up the GOP.