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

[Hatteras]

Post 19: "Broken record, over and over and over."

Post 20: "Broken record, over and over and over."

Doh! LOL

[justshutupandtakeit]

A Katie by any other name would still be a Katie.

[Savage Beast]

Sorry, Don. The labels "morning talk show" and "evening news" are as meaningless as the mindless drivel they spew forth. Doing little stupid chit-chat stuff on an idiotic morning show is the same thing as doing little stupid chit-chat stuff on an idiotic evening show. Mindless drivel by any other name is mindless drivel. Propaganda by any other name is propaganda.

[Liberty Valance]

It's [Imus] the "Daily Show" for adults.

Excellent analogy.

[Hatteras]

Okay, okay... here's the last word. Katie is still cute. For heaven's sake, she's what? 65? 70 years old? She's pretty durn cute for somebody that old. She does, however, have an evil mind. She is not an idiot. She knows what she is doing. She was misguided early and didn't bother taking the time to seek out the truth. That is her fault and she is all the more evil for it.

Also, Valerie Plame is, in fact, a babe. Liberals do have some attractive wimin. You might not be able to put up with their yapping for more than a few nights, but you'd still put up with them long enough to git 'er done.

[Doctor Raoul]

. . . 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."

If Kaplan put Coulter on as a commentator, they'd win the ratings war.

[Doctor Raoul]

Plame must have problems. Otherwise why did she settle for a dweeb like Wilson?

[Tallguy]

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."

If that's true, a smart manager would re-tool his product instead of p*ssing & moaning about the market. But then there aren't many 'smart managers' in the news business.

Besides, Rick, it might not be the fact that your newsreader is a 'woman', it might just be that 'particlar' woman. Why not try a 'conservative' female & do something really revolutionary?

[leadpenny]

Thanks. Of course it's his ability to draw people out during interviews that attracts me the most. The comedy bits are icing on the cake.

When it's finally "dog track" time for the I-Man, I wonder who could come the closest to replacing him?

[mimaw]

To make his old lady happy and ensure the Manhattan social circuit continues to embrace her he turned on the president and expouses the moonbats cry of Bush lied people died. He calls Cheney a war criminal. His heros are those lying pos reporters like Gregory, Russert Mitchell ect... If I didn't hate most lawyers I would sue you.

[mimaw]

To make his old lady happy and ensure the Manhattan social circuit continues to embrace her he turned on the president and expouses the moonbats cry of Bush lied people died. He calls Cheney a war criminal. His heros are those lying pos reporters like Gregory, Russert Mitchell ect... If I didn't hate most lawyers I would sue you.

[don-o]

A good deal of that is schtick. I wonder how you can be so well informed? I must assume you listen.

So, it's working for the old coot.

[Irene Adler]

"I am not sure that Imus isn't dead."

Dead man talkin'?

[never4get]

"Nah. Imus is every bit as unwatchable as Couric."

So true, the man is a blabbering, gizzard neck fool who surrounds himself with yes men who laugh continuously for no real reasons...How anyone can listen to or watch this pea brain is beyond me.

[Dionysius]

Hey, Imus -- so you got something right. You can still sit on it and rotate.

[Dixie Yooper]

Imus is a perfect example of the messenger destroying the messgage.

A Yooper is someone from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

[Dionysius]

Yeah, a truly frightening image -- Freddy Krueger in a ten gallon hat. Yippee-i-o-ky-AAAAAA!

[leadpenny]

I don't know what that means but I'll leave it there.

"Yooper."

I should have known, I grew up in Hillsdale.

[HamiltonJay]

I don't care if the person reading the teleprompter for my evening news has boobs or not... however I will never accept a BOOB telling me the news, regardless of whether or not she wears a bra.

Katie is a chearleading perky puff piece person, she was perfectly suited for what passes as AM "news"... she is an abject disaster in the evening news chair.

What's really annoying is there are pleanty of serious female television reporters out there, if CBS was serious about their evening news they would have picked a serious anchor... instead they thought they could take "perky" and make that primetime.... guess what.... doesn't work.

Whoever made the decision to put that insanely overpriced offer in front of this woman, should be summarily fired.

[leadpenny]

surrounds himself with yes men who laugh continuously for no real reasons...

I used to believe the country was divided along liberal/conservative lines. Anymore, I believe she is divided between those who get Imus and those who don't. And those who don't get the genius of Imus scare me.

For me, other than C-SPAN's Washington Journal or Imus, there is nothing else to watch on morning TV . . except maybe a test pattern.