Press Slams Katie Couric. CBS Flak Gil Schwartz Continues To Let Them (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch)

Jossip Blog ^ | October 27, 2006

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When it comes to Katie Couric, CBS's official line is "While CBS News ratings are up, NBC and ABC ratings are down." Technically, when CBS spokesman Gil Schwartz points out the numbers – CBS is up 8 percent from this time last year, with 7.4 million viewers, while NBC is down 8 percent (to 8.5m) and ABC down 5 percent (to 7.9m) – he's right. But that still leaves Couric dragging in third place, and more than a few CBS insiders have declared the $45 million investment in the former Today show host a flop.

But what about the investment in PR chief Schwartz (aka Fortune columnist Stanley Bing)? Schwartz – who's held his job in one form or another since 1994 and reports directly to Les Moonves – continues to draw ire from industry insiders. It was only Monday night, at Broadcasting & Cable's Hall of Fame Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria, that many a mouth were wagging about his current Katie Couric tragedy. And this time, it wasn't just about the slimmed down photo than ran in the CBS promotions magazine Schwartz oversees.

Nobody can quite figure out how Gil has managed to bungle Katie Couric's rep so badly. While the numbers may do the talking, Schwartz should be doing the spinning — and NBC's Jeff Zucker has given him the perfect platform. The GE-mandated 700 job cuts at NBC Universal is, one would think, the perfect platform to cast the network TV spotlight entirely on the Peacock's problems. But Gil hasn't managed to do much of that, evidenced by the continued hounding of Couric. On the attack: USA Today's Peter Johnson, Matt Drudge, the Los Angeles Times, Broadcasting & Cable's Andrew Tyndall, the New York Times, Newday's Verne Gay, and the New York Post's Page Six all raking Katie over the ratings coals. NBC's press coverage, meanwhile, remains plenty anti-Zucker, but sometimes apologistic.

And it's not just the random hacks in the TV news business kivetching: We hear Katie herself is fuming over Schwartz's inabilities to put the spin in her favor. Not one to befriend a network's PR team, Katie already has Freud PR chief powerhouse Matt Hiltzik on her roster. And (indirectly) taking Katie's side is former CBS head Andrew Heyward. Speaking to The Strategist's John Elsasser:

In the frenzy that erupted, you, along with many of your colleagues at CBS, found yourself in the media’s crosshairs. How did you deal with being part of this media onslaught? What can PR professionals learn from your experiences?

Heyward: First of all, I think we handled the aftermath poorly and exacerbated the problem. There are lots of lessons there for PR professionals. In retrospect, they seem so obvious: Be quick to recognize not only that there is a problem but also the magnitude of the problem; be quick to address it, not only with the outside world but also with your own colleagues; and be open-minded about what your critics are saying. At the beginning, it might have been a commendable instinct to stand by your colleagues, [but] loyalty . . . should have been balanced more effectively and quickly with the responsibility to get to the bottom of the criticism and find out what had really happened and whether we had, in fact, fallen short in our reporting — which we had. That took way too long, and that was partly because we were too busy fending off attacks and had placed too much faith in colleagues based on their track records as opposed to the evidence that was before us.

It was only 2004 when Gil's head was rumored to be on the chopping block after his continued follies advising Heyward on how to handle the Dan Rather fall out. And you know what happened there. Unfortunate for CBS and Katie Couric, it sounds like Les Moonves doesn't know what's happening here. "I like Gil, he's a nice guy," a senior level CBS insider tells us. "But he's a disaster."

[Dick Vomer]

Couric is TOAST.....

I have the straight poop from the pulse of America. MY WIFE....

She's a born again Conservative (meaning she was born in Nebraska, raised as a granola in Washington and then made the mistake of marrying me and having 4 kids.... she became gradually conservative....

hated guns till somebody showed up at the front door at 3am while I was at work.... she pulled out my pistol and called 911 with hammer back, safety off till the cops came. She now is a 2nd amendment supporter.... same with hunting... hated deer hunters till she saw deer overpopulation and starving deer...and a friend nearly killed by a deer/car accident.

She saw Clinton give a speech and said, "that guy is creepy... I can't put my finger on it but he's just ...slimy"...

my point is that she's a good judge of character (except mine ) and she gives people the benefit of the doubt.... she listened to CBS while waiting for a kid to get out of the dentists chair and told me later, that Katy Couric sounds....flat... just no enthusiasm and when she signed off...she was kinda meed and said, "I hope to see you tomorrow"...like she was begging....

I nearly peed myself laughing. I hadn't seen the queen of media for awhile but if my wife said that..... take it to the bank...she's toast.

[bitt]

tftp!