First Reviews Of Couric

Howie Kurtz has the quickest review up, near as I can see, and he seemed to like Katie Couric just fine.

The first block said it all. Couric led with a three-minute news feature by Lara Logan in Afghanistan, with striking footage of Taliban fighters with their weapons. It was not a hard-news “scoop,” and therefore an unusual lead story, but an eye-opening look at America’s other war.

This was followed by the only this-happened-today story, a Jim Axelrod report on President Bush’s latest speech on the war on terror. The innovation here was cable-style graphics: As Bush mentiond Lenin, Hitler and Osama, their images were put up in a split-screen.

And then part of a taped Couric interview with the New York Times’s Tom Friedman, sitting on facing chairs, about Afghanistan and Iraq. This ran longer than the typical two- and three-question chats that generally pass for interviews on the nightly news.

What about events of the day? The second block led off with a “Briefing,” and it was, well, brief: A study on lung problems among Ground Zero workers, Bill Ford quitting the family automaker, and mourning for croc hunter Steve Irwin. Each got two sentences.

Okay, I did not watch the broadcast – as I wrote here the Evening News has always interfered with things like feeding my family, and we purposely have no television in the kitchen – but I noticed a few things from Kurtz’ piece:

The Taliban story, while interesting and newsworthy was in no way “breaking” news or “news of the day.” It is your basic “bad news” story. I could not help wondering why it could not be balanced out with say, ohhhh…a sort of vaguely “good news” story – and a real bit of news “of the day”, like this one, wherein we learn that the Danes picked up some terror suspects. You know, a story that reminds us that while things are hairy in one spot, they are improving elsewhere, or that at least reminds us that terrorism is a real, not imaginary threat in the world. That might have required curtailing the interview with Thomas Friedman, though (and goodness knows, the world has never seen or heard enough from him, has it), and it might have cut into the story about the lung problems of Ground Zero workers which, hey – here’s a complete coincidence – just happens to be Hillary Clinton’s latest “the government (really, George W. Bush) lied to you…” pet project and battle cry.

And yes, it’s a real story, but not really a surprising one – few recovery workers even wore masks regularly while they were doing the job, because the masks simply made a tough job even more uncomfortable. I hate to be cynical – it’s much too easy to be cynical, and a bad habit to get into – but Hillary is still working very hard at getting the Firefighters, Cops and First Responders to love her (they booed her at Madison Square Garden, which you might not recall, since the Viacom-released Concert for Heroes changed the boos to cheers), and to see this story – above all others – chosen for the big-ratings-assured Katie debut just smells a little bit too much like a free campaign assist.

I’m just noticing, that’s all. On a positive note, while the publishing world has become so incestuous that it is difficult to figure out who owns what house, it appears that Friedman’s publishers, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, are not yet aligned with Viacom (which owns CBS). This is happy news, indeed. Under Don Hewitt, CBS 60 Minutes routinely went large on books published by Simon and Schuster, a subsidiary of Viacom, or othersuch houses.

Obviously, I’ll need to find time this week to look in on Couric, at least once or twice. Then, I will probably never look in again, as the television is rarely on around here, anyway, except for baseball and breaking news. And, ummmm…well…is Katie interested in breaking news? Can’t tell from Kurtz’ piece. We’ll have to see.

Ann Althouse liveblogged Couric and pretty astutely, too. She seems to have found some of it too slick-by-half, some of it “painful” and some just a tad too “feminine.”

Freeman Hunt liked Couric and says she will tune in regularly.

Blue Crab Boulevard says Katie’s been smacked by Althouse. I don’t know that I’d agree. I think Ann’s commenters are much rougher on Couric than the professor is.

Musing Minds are gagging on the whoopdedoo feminism surrounding some of this hype.

Gateway has a snarky round-up. And Bulldog Pundit has suggestions for Katie’s sign-off line. She left herself wide open for some of this. Scrappleface has a funny collection.

Big-Time-Media-Critic reviews:
Tom Shales “Opening night left acres and acres of room for improvement.”
Alessandra
Stanley “A work in progress…”
Andrea Peyser “She looked like a little girl who needed to go potty.”

Peyser has never been a fave of mine. She “writes spiteful” more than any columnist I can think of who not employed by Long Island Newsday. So, I’d take her bit with a grain of salt. I don’t even like Couric, and I’m quite sure she did not look as described.

Couric and Company, the broadcast-related blog looks at the reviews.

I’ll add more reviews as I find ’em. Oddly, while I’m not especially interested in watching Couric, the reads are pretty interesting.