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Katie Couric admits that her new gig as anchor of the CBS Evening News has been "a little harder than I thought it would be." "Some people out there are rooting for me to fail," Couric, 49, tells Esquire in its January issue. "You have to be unwavering in your convictions that you're doing something good, because there are a lot of circling vultures that will eat you alive." Couric points out that Esquire itself criticized her after her Sept. 5 debut. "You guys even take a shot at me," she tells the magazine. "You have something in the November...

NEW YORK TIMES writer Alessandra Stanley is set to kick NBC's TODAY show host Katie Couric when she is down -- kick her hard! Facing audience erosion, Couric "has grown downright scary: America's girl next door has morphed into the mercurial diva down the hall. At the first sound of her peremptory voice and clickety stiletto heels, people dart behind doors and douse the lights," Stanley is planing to smack in Monday editions, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE. NBC has turned TODAY and Couric "into a Marxist-style cult of personality. The camera fixates on Couric's legs during interviews, she performs in...

NEW YORK (AP) - For 487 weeks, viewers have made NBC's "Today" show team of Katie Couric and Matt Lauer their favorites in the morning. The steady rise of ABC's "Good Morning America" is threatening that dominance. So far this season, the "Today" ratings lead has averaged 662,000 viewers, down from almost 1.3 million last year at the same time, according to Nielsen Media Research. Five years ago, "Today" regularly won by nearly 2 million. There have even been a few days - the Monday after Pope John Paul II died and last Tuesday's Mariah Carey concert - when the...

Gag me with a perfect souffle. On the occasion of Martha Stewart's release from prison, Katie Couric just completed a conversation with one of Martha's good friends, Susan Warburg, that was much more sorority gab fest and sensitivity training session than anything resembling a journalistic interview. I half-expected them to lounge on big fluffy pillows on the floor while sipping hot cocoa with little marshmallows floating on top. Katie was emitting her super-empathetic body language and vibes, while dressed in a chic, glossy black leather (Naugahyde?) jacket - after all, Martha might be watching and you wouldn't want to look...