Posted on 04/24/2008 4:37:55 AM PDT by abb
To judge by the ads, the most loyal adherents to CBS' quasi-journalistic programming are impotent and incontinent. It so happens that they share these afflictions with the network's actual news division. Katie Couric is reportedly itching to bolt her gig as the anchor of broadcast TV's worst-rated evening newscast. Last month, Shelley Ross lost her job producing The Early Show, the worst-rated morning newscast, after problems concerning temper tantrums and tequila parties. Most weeks, the perfectly decent Bob Schieffer, who will retire after the 2009 inauguration, sees Face the Nation to a finish as the third-rated Sunday show. And the only thing worse than the Nielsen numbers is the product.
Poor Katie, a victim of the poor health of her medium and of simple chauvinism, of unreasonably high expectations and of a stupidly high salary. For $15 million a year, you'd think she could at least pretend to be having fun up there, but—last Friday, at least—all her cheer was forced, and all her charm was canned. Going through the motions, she went through the news of the day—polygamists in Texas, pope in Gotham, some perfunctory stuff from the campaign trail, a dollop of business news. Somewhere in there was bit on the Pennsylvania primary featuring a snippet from Billy Joel's "Allentown."
The night's big enterprise piece was a report—thin with substance, thick with outrage—on congressional earmark spending on an aquarium in Chicago. "A taxpayer watchdog group thinks something fishy is going on there," said Couric. Poor Katie. The aquarium "sits on million of dollars in net assets," said whichever reporter it was. Hmm. I'm no not-for-profit expert, but isn't that called an endowment? The human-interest story was about a child who'd reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, and Couric kept teasing it in the oddest way: Boy versus mountain.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Network evening newscasts will go dark after the '08 elections and their news divisions disbanded.
ping
Do we have to wait until then?
How can we speed the process up?
Pay Couric her 15 mil for the next 5 or 10 years and bleed slowly with an inferior product.
"I'll do it Ma. He's my dog."
Yeah, CBS News has never been quite the same since the ‘What’s the frequency, Kenneth’ guy, left.
maybe they are realizing we dont like these morning show chuckle factories/celeb worship and want real news in the morning. I hope fox news listens and dumps faux and friends.
"..Ben Stein, the actor and economist, came on to do a commentary on the mortgage crisis in which he argued that federal funds should be devoted to aiding the dogs and cats disadvantaged by the fallout. Either this was exquisitely subtle satire, or everyone involved with the segment has lost his mind..."
If I didn't know better, I'd suspect this piece was written by Ann Coulter. It's good stuff.
I can’t resist a little touch of Shadenfreude here.
The network camped on its outdated laurels believing its own PR people far too long, disregarding instant 24-hour news sources, insisting the public stay in the old days of network gods.
Thank heaven it didn’t win its dedication to withholding the news from the people until a ‘convenient time’ for the network.
The people simply passed them by.
I don’t believe that we could do anything that the C..BS news producers are doing to kill of that division any faster.
CBS has a “news division”???
I hadn’t noticed one.....
Oooops corrrection to my spelling.
Schadenfreude - corrected.
“Travis…you know we’ve got to.”
“I know, Ma. But he’s MY dog…I’ll do it.”
My thoughts also is to bleed out CBS and then let old commie Walter Conkrite do the last show...where he will confess to aiding in mass murder in Vietnam & Cambodia by his lies on CBS....then he does the honorable thing for once in his life.
Never ceases to amaze me how this bunch has sat on their butts and let this network go to hell when everyone knew and still knows what the problem is. This is what happens when liberals are left in charge of multi million dollar operations or government budgets. I’m sure at this very moment they are hot at trying to find another brain dead liberal to take over and prove they are right. If they try real hard I think they could probably get Kieth Olberman, he would be a perfect fit.
For the amount of money they are paying Katie, they could buy FoxNEWS lock, stock and barrel, and put out a #1 rated newscast starting Monday.
where he will confess to aiding in mass murder in Vietnam & Cambodia by his lies on CBS....
then he does the honorable thing for once in his life.
A fitting ending for CBS News, I would watch that show.
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