Last week, Katie Couric made the announcement that she is leaving behind fifteen years on the Today Show to become the primary news anchor on a competing station. Eyebrows shot up. The media rushed to cover the story, giving it more space than Bush’s woes. Newsweek even beat a printing deadline to feature her on its cover.
Personally I’m not a Couric fan. To me, she represents the ultimate in perkiness; and, while it might play in Paducah in the morning, I would not want to see full-blown perkiness creep into the evening news. Even without her, the news is heading in that direction.
I’m old enough to remember when the news was limited to fifteen minutes. I’m old enough to remember the workhorses of that era too. And, yes, I’m also old enough to remember when perkiness (or social familiarity among anchors) was limited to a “Good night, David” and a “Good night, Chet.”
Even if I sound like Andy Rooney, I liked it that way. To me, any program that has the word ‘news’ in its title should feature the facts of the day, not the faces of the newscasters. In other words, I want my news program to distinguish itself from various other talk shows by its emphasis on fact over opinion, detail over distraction, conciseness over commentary.
I don’t care if Brian Williams likes someone else’s tie and tells that person on national TV or if Bob Schieffer wants to share his opinion when he’s interviewing someone. Schieffer has the annoying habit of asking a leading question almost every time. “But don’t you think Bush’s rating in the polls is down?” he’s apt to ask, suggesting his own bias. What ever happened to “What do you think of Bush’s rating in the polls.”
Today newscasters want to be celebrities in their own right, along with Oprah and Dr. Phil and the screaming Jim Cramer. Network management seems to encourage this as a way of making the news softer and friendlier, like a chat between neighbors across a back fence. I don’t deny that Katie Couric probably has the skills involved and that she’s certainly put in her time; but I hope she decides that the facts, just the facts ma’am, will be her approach when she takes on the other anchors. I bet there are others out there like me who would find that refreshing.
Leave a Reply