Katie Bar the Features
September 6, 2006 11:00 AM
There weren't that many of those "what-WERE-they thinking?" moments on Katie Couric's debut as anchor of "The CBS Evening News," and maybe the heavily-hyped hoopla really does deserve a certain respect merely as a gesture -- though having the first solo woman anchor of an evening network newscast this late in the game hardly takes your breath away as a piece of feminist progress.
And Katie with her knee-jerk perkiness makes kind of an odd feminist hero. It isn't being sexist, by the way, to notice what she's wearing. Look at all the grief Dan Rather endured when he put on a sweater, or got a too-close, Marine-style haircut. Appearance counts -- on television if anywhere. And you did have to wonder what they were thinking to let Katie step out for her debut in a white blazer that tucked at the tummy-button as if she were suddenly pregnant, perhaps with some kind of immaculate conception.
The conceptions behind the show were not immaculate. They were moldy, some of them. "Free Speech," one segment, harks back to the earliest, earliest days of TV, when, like today, they had more channels than they could fill (even if there were only three-to-five in a given town) and thus, perhaps more in desperation than inspiration, opened their cameras and mikes to the proverbial person on the street.
In Chicago, it was artfully done on a show called "First Freedom" that aired on the local ABC affiliate (forgive me if I have the wrong network, but I am 99.9 per cent sure, and we're talkin' three or four decades ago -- as I was reviewing TV even at the age of five). On the new "Evening News," the first "average Joe" to step before the camera was an egomaniac who must have hired a press agent or two by now: Morgan Spurlock, whose name sounds like the mad doctor in an old monster movie ("The Deadly Dr. Spurlock," "The Island of Dr. Spurlock"). Anyway, he's a shrieking bore who spouted tired old cliches from the Spiro Agnew era. And a promised "average Joe" for Thursday night's telecast is that overexposed Blimpus Americanus, Rush "pass-the-pills" Limbaugh. Come on. That's stale thinking and unimaginative casting.
And both those things plagued other segments of the show. Katie needs more support, and maybe needs to assert herself more. As it stands, "The CBS Evening News" has been turned into the first half-hour of the "Today" show -- though, mercifully, with mirror-loving Matt Lauer absent. If this is a revolution in network news, it's going to have to get a heckuva lot more revolutionary. But to restate the obvious (at least I hope it's obvious): Katie, we still love you. We just want you to have the surroundings and the show you deserve, you little supertalent you. Oh, and it would be nice, on the next edition of "The CBS Evening News," to include some actual news amongst the special features, special segments, and other elements that weren't, by any stretch, special.
In Katie we still trust. She's a hard-workin' gal, and she knows her oats, and I'm sure there are more cliches that apply, but those will do for now.
With love to Katie from Tom Shales.
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Comments (8)
Hey, Tom, I read your piece in the Post. You talked about infotainment being a focus, but you spent time talking about her clothes. What the hell does that have to do with the news?
You can't have it both ways. I've heard critics talk about her hair, makeup, perkiness, smile, and clothes, but none of that has to do with the news.
Posted by Roland S. Martin | September 6, 2006 12:18 PM
Tom, I don't know whether or not commenting on Katie's outfit is "sexist," but it is pretty danged tired, and also rather disingenuous given who Couric is. Give it a rest.
That said, I can't but wonder what the addition of all these "special features" is about. An attempt to make CBS more "populist"? A not-very-subtle statement that Couric can't bear the manly yoke of the nightly news without a few bells and whistles?
Posted by Karla Keffer | September 6, 2006 12:59 PM
I very much doubt Tom Shales is really writing this blog. His writing is much better than this and I doubt he would focus three (I only read three, perhaps there are more) entries about Ms Couric.
I also doubt Tom Shales would call Morgan Spurlock a "shrieking bore".
Forgive me if I am wrong. But if I am right, I guess I'm going to have to find a new favorite critic.
Posted by Dona | September 11, 2006 3:01 PM
The jury is still out with me on the Katie show, but I was never a fan. However, I could not STAND Dan Rather and could not figure out why he held the throne so long. I liked Bob Scheiffer, and yet, I'm willing to give KC a chance...I do find the fashion distracting. I like my news straight....sit behind the desk in your blue pinstripes and deliver...unless - like the Mexican channels I so dearly love, you have to show incredible cleavage. (I live in San Diego or "MexAmerica")
The question is not "Will Katie stand?", but will she wear pants?
- like every other self-respecting businesswoman in America who wants people to listen to what she is saying, and stop looking at her legs. It's a shame, really, but I don't see glorious ratings for KC and the sunshine boys at CBS. Though in God's name what the hell happened to CNN? Like most people, I just 'watch' the internet...
Posted by Nora | September 13, 2006 3:56 PM
What is WRONG with you people? You're the sexists if you think I am supposed to look at someone on television, the visual medium, and not comment on their appearance if they are female. What kind of crap is that? I wrote, and others wrote, about Dan Rather's sweaters and beautiful neckties and, forgive me, Peter Jennings' cheap suit, and we all comment on Roger Ebert's pudginess or Dave Letterman's breasts (the dumb double-ones on most of his suits) and awful granny glasses (I suspect they are contact lenses with frames). COMMENTING ON WHAT KATIE WEARS IS PERFECTLY RELEVANT, and I didn't dwell on it, I only mentioned it. I think I gave it fewer than two sentences. And let me wise you up further: Women AND men on TV are interested in how people think they look and pleased as punch to get a compliment. IT'S ONLY HUMAN. Now shut up.
Posted by TOM SHALES | September 16, 2006 4:35 PM
NORA: Your dumping me as your favorite critic because we disagree on one or two items? PLEASE reconsider. First off, I am probably the cutest TV critic around or -- well -- at least the oldest. You know -- the cute old coot type. Who doesn't love a cute coot now and then? Also I take the medium very seriously except when writing about such nonsense as Katie Couric's white blazer - but I have to comment on such things, they are part of the presentation. And I get the awful feeling that CBS honchos thought as much about what Katie would wear, and how she would look generally (remember how they computerized a photo to shave off a few pounds) as they did about the usefulness and effectivess of the show's content. I love Katie but I fear no mortal could live up to all that hype unless she brought peace to the Mideast and cured cancer on the same night. Come back, little Nora! (Whenever I'm on TV, some writer somewhere is bound to point out how tubby I am. THAT'S BECAUSE I'M ON TELEVISION, DUIMMY (nothing personal -- just quoting Paddy Chayefsky) Love, Tom
Posted by TOM SHALES | September 16, 2006 4:41 PM
Actually it was I who was going to dump you as my favorite critic, not Nora. I guess I will reconsider since we were born in the same town and we usually agree about television programs. I just happen to really like Morgan Spurlock and don't find him a bore at all. And I really didn't think it was really Tom Shales writing this.
Posted by Dona | September 17, 2006 5:58 PM
I wrote about Katie Couric's white jacket,too, and nobody dissed me on my blog. Yet. Is that perhaps because I am a woman? But maybe, it's because I, a woman, wrote about the practical issues, the biz side. Same old geriatric ads. She is not getting the younger demo yet, and that's the real story. And I will say this, I really hated her hair on 9/11. What was that all about?
Posted by Marianne Paskowski | September 18, 2006 5:58 PM