Beukey on Pop Culture

This blog will focus on pop culture, with an emphasis on views outside, overlooked, or ignored by the mainstream. I may veer off-topic. We are all grown-ups, so don't act shocked at occasional bad language. This blog is not the place for those of you who stood in line to see "The Lake House".

Saturday, April 12, 2008

To Use Language That Reflects The Sophisitcation Of The Newscast: Katie Go Bye Bye

It seems that CBS's $75 million dollar experiment in dumbing down the evening news is tanking. CBS may dump Katie Couric, or reassign her before the end of the year.

The blame should not be assigned to Katie Couric. Although I don't care for her, she does possess the skills to do network television. (If you don't believe me, watch 15 minutes of Ann Curry, and you'll see the world of difference that exists.) But Katie's skills do not mesh with an evening newscast, something that was obvious before she was hired. "Katie" was being "Katie", not "Kate" which was the pre-Today show name she used when she was trying to make it as a serious journalist.

Why on earth did CBS news think it was a good idea to have "fireside chats" and "man on the street" segments in the evening news? If I want to know what a soccer mom or guy on a bar stool thinks about world events, I'll take a walk through my neighborhood. The network news is put together by professionals that have access to other professionals that get paid to think about complicated issues. Why toss out all that knowledge just to chase down some rube on the street to see what he thinks about global warming? "I think we can all do more to help the environment" says the rube. Thanks Einstein, you must have been up all night thinking to come up with that timely solution.

CBS so far paid Katie about $30 million in salary to have exchanges similar to that air. No wonder her ratings are in the toilet.

1 Comments:

  • At 8:16 AM, Blogger K. Buchanan Shay said…

    Yes, IMO putting Katie on the CBS nightly news is the "photo negative" of having Dennis Miller on ABC Monday Night Football...both with disatrous effects!

     

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