Couric and CBS, lying
The status of Katie Couric at the CBS Evening News anchor chair came up again at the Television Critics Association; on a satellite feed, Couric was asked about those reports she would be leaving CBS.
Her boss, CBS prez Sean McManus, said flatly that those reports weren’t true. Couric said the same thing: “Yeah, I can echo that. We have no plans to part company any time soon.”
Couric and McManus are lying. Here’s the Rebecca Dana WSJ story that started the issue off three months ago:
After two years of record-low ratings, both CBS News executives and people close to Katie Couric say that the “CBS Evening News” anchor is likely to leave the network well before her contract expires in 2011—possibly soon after the presidential inauguration early next year.
Ms. Couric isn’t even halfway through her five-year contract with CBS, which began in June 2006 and pays an annual salary of around $15 million. But CBS executives are under pressure to cut costs and improve ratings for the broadcast, which trails rival newscasts on ABC and NBC by wide margins.
Since then, Couric’s ratings have declined. For what it’s worth, the story wasn’t reporting that plans were under way for her departure; just that the two sides had accepted reality, which in the TV world means that if you take over a lagging news show and then lose 25 percent of its viewership and counting, you don’t get to keep your job.
Couric has trafficked in celebrity worship for so long she’s a celebrity now herself, which means she gets treated like one and acts like one, which is all just one of the many reasons she shouldn’t be anchoring a news show. Celebrities lie all the time, which is what Couric is doing here and another reason she shouldn’t be anchoring a news show.
One of the TV critics should have asked her, “If you leave the Evening News after the inauguration, the way the WSJ said you would, would it be fair for us to call you a big fat liar?”
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