Katie Couric: Brainless Automaton

3:03 am EST April 11th, 2007 | Media | 5 Comments

My mother and I often disagree about TV anchors. She grew up in a world where most of these people were journalists at one point or another in their careers, and she still sort of assumes that about them. Her favorite was Peter Jennings, who was an actual reporter before he anchored the ABC World News (the newscast I grew up watching more than the others). So she kind of bristles when ever I inevitably comment about just how amazingly dumb today’s anchors are and how they are nothing more than glorified, blow-dried “readers”.

Katie Couric

Now of course Dan Rather had a lot of flaws, but his replacement Katie Couric – in my view – is nothing less than an abomination of the news. Her place at the centerpiece of CBS News’ operations is, more than Fox News, the triumph of trifle over substance. That someone as journalistically inept and unqualified as Couric is among the highest paid personalities in news is a hell of a condemnation of the mainstream press.

And, she’s just a glorified “reader”.

Katie Couric did a one-minute commentary last week on the joys of getting her first library card, but the thoughts were less than original. The piece was substantially lifted from a Wall Street Journal column.

CBS News apologized for the plagiarized passages yesterday and said the commentary had been written by a network producer who has since been fired.

…

Genelius said it is “very common” for the first-person commentaries to be put together by staffers without Couric’s being involved in the writing, but that she does participate in topic selection.

She clearly wasn’t involved at all. She had no idea what she was saying. They stuck something on a teleprompter and like she’s done for years now, Couric just read the darn thing.

Sigh. And that’s the way it is.

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5 Responses to “Katie Couric: Brainless Automaton”

  1. Thad says:
    April 11, 2007 at 2:59 pm

    - For the entire Channel 4 news team, I’m Veronica Corningstone.
    - And I’m Ron Burgundy. Go fuck yourself, San Diego.

  2. Mike Lief says:
    April 11, 2007 at 8:15 pm

    Oliver –

    We don’t agree on a whole lot — we’re politically 180-out from each other — but you’re absolutely correct on this.

    As an ex-journalist, I salute you. Well said.

  3. lutton says:
    April 13, 2007 at 8:19 am

    If I recall correctly, Jennings applied for or received a plumb assignment very early in his career, and it turned out he didn’t have the chops for it…yet.

    So he went out in the field and earned his stripes reporting from around the globe…then returned to the anchor desk a seasoned pro.

    Some others could learn a lot from that career course…

  4. DJ Escher says:
    May 8, 2007 at 11:00 pm

    Will Couric the anchor ever open her mouth as productively, ethically, and nobly as she did her opposite orifice while a Today Show host?

  5. CBS May Be Ditching Katie Couric » Oliver Willis says:
    April 9, 2008 at 8:18 pm

    [...] some of you may know, I have nothing but disdain for Katie Couric and the brand of “journalism” she practices. CBS would have been much [...]