Imus: 'Unwatchable' Couric Can't Do 'Big Boy' Evening News

NewsBusters ^ | Mark Finkelstein

[governsleastgovernsbest]

After his comments this morning, if Don Imus ever gets invited to a party on the terrace of Katie Couric's midtown apartment overlooking Central Park, he would be well advised not to get too close to the ledge.

Chatting with Imus on MSNBC at 8:45 ET this morning about the travails of the CBS Evening News and the advent of Rick Kaplan as executive producer, media maven Howard Kurtz observed: "I don't know if this is attributable to Rick, but it seems to me that in the last week the show has a little bit of a harder edge, a little bit of a faster pace."

That set Imus off on an anti-Couric tirade: "It's unwatchable. And it's unwatchable because she's unwatchable. I'm sure she's a nice lady, but I mean . . ."

View video here.

KURTZ: "She certainly wasn't deemed to be unwatchable when she was #1 at the "Today" show for over ten years."

IMUS: "That's a completely different deal. Doing little stupid chit-chat stuff on an idiotic morning show on NBC has nothing to do with sitting down and doing the news. That's big-boy television."

KURTZ: "Katie Couric, like Charlie Gibson during all the years when he was on 'Good Morning America,' also interviewed presidential candidates, heads of state and all that as well as cooking and . . . "

IMUS: "This is pathetic. This is unbelievable."

A bit later, Kurtz passed along a bit of condescension toward Middle America from Rick Kaplan: "He told me . . . he thinks that there is a chunk of the audience that, for whatever reason, is not comfortable getting their news from a woman at 6:30 and this is one of the attitudes they have to change."

The MSM: bringing cultural enlightenment to the benighted reaches of flyover America. Kaplan might want to start in Imus' neck of the woods.

Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net

[governsleastgovernsbest]

With one short sentence, Kaplan managed to insult both Katie and much of America!

[3AngelaD]

I haven't been able to figure out where that "ic" came from, or how to get rid of it. But let me assure you it has nothing to do with Democrats.

[AmericanMade1776]

IMUS: "That's a completely different deal. Doing little stupid chit-chat stuff on an idiotic morning show on NBC has nothing to do with sitting down and doing the news. That's big-boy television."

Imus should know, because he does chit-chat stuff on an idiotic morning show on TV, he is an expert on it.

[roses of sharon]

Imus is unwatchable, and he is far from a "big boy", he is a punk who shills for the commie vampires.

As are his other "big boys" at the networks.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

Thanks for the explanation!

To get rid of it, reply to this message. Under the text box you'll see a smaller box called 'tagline.' Delete the "ic." Voila: gone!

[poobear]

"He told me . . . he thinks that there is a chunk of the audience that, for whatever reason, is not comfortable getting their news from a woman at 6:30 and this is one of the attitudes they have to change."

Yes, we bodunks of Middle America and the South are not only racists but chauvinist pigs as well.

[ApplegateRanch]

Katie doesn't 'do news'.

Katie does "stories du jour". And does them to death. And recycles them regularly.

Often, I have already read some of Katie's "news" days, even weeks, previously right here, in FReeperland.


An evening newscast is supposed to news; magazine programs are supposed to do the 'in depth'.

I used to get more news in 15 minutes of Chet & David, than these yahoos give in 30 minutes.

Hell, Paul Harvey, even with all of his interminable ads, gives more news than the perky one.

[BluH2o]

... there is a chunk of the audience that, for whatever reason, is not comfortable getting their news from a woman at 6:30 and this is one of the attitudes they have to change."

As one pundit put it ... maybe the name Katie has something to do with it ...
who wants to get their evening news fix from someone named 'Katie'?
Diane Sawyer maybe ... not Katie.

[Long Island Pete]

[3AngelaD]

OK

[3AngelaD]

Thanks. I needed that. I feel so much less icky now.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

It worked!

[jla]

That set Imus off on an anti-Couric tirade: "It's unwatchable. And it's unwatchable because she's unwatchable. I'm sure she's a nice lady, but I mean . . ."

I think Katie C is a tad more watchable than Don Imus. And I know she has better legs!

[montag813]

Watching Don Imus is like watching a dead person speaking. Who is his producer, George A. Romero?

[RetiredArmy]

he thinks that there is a chunk of the audience that, for whatever reason, is not comfortable getting their news from a woman at 6:30 and this is one of the attitudes they have to change."

That line is the biggest chunk of B.S. that I have read recently. I think a lot of men would watch any babe give the news if she were creditable. I think most folks think the bitch is full of BS, thus they don't watch. I have not watched a evening network news cast in over 25 years. I think the last person I watched was John Chancellor on NBC. I think. It has been so long ago.

[AU72]

I used to like him until he started sucking up to the NBC Gallery of news stars, treating David Gregory, Andrea Mitchell, and Tim Russerts as demi-gods of journalism.

Even looks like he's thrown his brother Fred under bus by now hawking his trophy wife's eco-friendly cleaning products.

[Thermalseeker]

That's big-boy television.

Imus wants a programmable anchor that will take fabricated documents, run completely bogus stories about them in a less than veiled attempt to derail a presidential campaign. Then, when the anchor is caught in the lie, he will stand by the bogus document's authenticity, even if it costs him his career.....Ahhh, the good 'ole days!

[StoneColdTaxHater]

I am not sure that Imus isn't dead

[veronica]

Diane Sawyer might make it on an evening news show, but Katie was bound to fail. She lacks gravitas, as they say.

[19th LA Inf]

For Mr. Kurtz's information, we folks in "Middle America" don't get the news at 6:30, we get it at 5:30. I have a theory that much of what is wrong with America is that the millions of people like Mr. Kurtz in the Eastern time zone have to stay up until 11 PM to watch the "news", then probably hang out for another hour watching some trivial late night show, then have to get up and go to work in the morning. Another way that TV has changed the country for worse.