Free Republic

"Most Americans probably already know pretty much what's happened by the time they get home at night, with radio and the Internet and iPods," says retired TV newsman Roger Mudd. "So at 6:30 p.m., they don't want to sit in front of television for a half hour and have someone tell them what they already know."

CBS sending Couric to Iraq 'Evening News' anchor sets Mideast trip By MICHAEL LEARMONTH Get ready for Katie Couric -- Phase II. One year after Couric jumped from NBC's "Today" to CBS in a big-money talent deal, the "Evening News" anchor is embarking on a high-risk tour of Iraq and Syria to revive the broadcast. Announcement comes just days after an Iraqi translator working for CBS was killed in Baghdad. CBS said Monday the translator had been found dead following his abduction just hours after leaving work at CBS News' Baghdad bureau. Couric has never been to Iraq, and she...

Tonight, I'm... Watching Katie Not

by Mark Finkelstein September 5, 2006 - 08:39 Looks like CBS got itself a two-fer. Katie's not just an anchor - she's a comedian, too! The highlight of her extended interview with Harry Smith on this morning's Early Show, touting her debut on tonight's CBS Evening News, was her claim that what the "old media" has to offer in contrast with the new media is . . . "integrity and standards." Couric is apparently a jokester of the deadpan school, managing to get off the line without dissolving into guffaws. This from the woman about to take over the illustrious...

Charlie Gibson will become the "temporary permanent replacement" for ABC's Bob Woodruff, the New York Post's Cindy Adams says. "Translation: If and when Woodruff, who this week is on his feet and talking, is ready to be back playing anchor man -- he gets it. That is not expected to be this year. But when and if, it's his again." In the meantime, Gibson will co-anchor World News Tonight. "He very much wants this job and out of morning TV. The man's done enough cooking segments to last two lifetimes," Adams says, adding that "ABC will announce Gibson soon." ABC...

NEW YORK - CBS on Wednesday appointed its top sports executive, Sean McManus, to replace Andrew Heyward as head of a news division still searching for Dan Rather's replacement and seeking to rebound from last year's discredited report on President Bush's military service. McManus, 50, follows in the path of the late Roone Arledge at ABC as an executive who took over a network news division while still running sports. Heyward will leave two months shy of his 10th anniversary running the legendary news division, a distant third in the ratings in both the morning and evening yet still the...

Don't know if anybody else noticed on Monday night, but after reporting the "panel found no political agenda", CBS Evening News ran a second piece on others who disagree. They proceeded to show a Fox News clip followed by a Rush Limbaugh clip, noting: "On talk TV and radio, political bias was item number one." (I think the Fox News clip was of Neil Cavuto) So Fox News is now "Talk TV." While CBS continues to deny any bias, they smear Fox News as not being a credible news source, but putting it in the same category as Rush Limbaugh.

For some veterans of CBS News, the departure of Dan Rather from the network's evening newscast represents a kind of coda on a long, sad song of decline from greatness. The news organization that did the most to define broadcast news from the early days of radio through the golden age of television in the 1950's and 1960's has gone through a marked falloff in the last 15 years, probably suffering more than any other network from the shrinking of resources that matched its shrinking audiences. But the notion that Mr. Rather's decision to give up his anchor job is...

Andy Rooney's Loosening Grip On Reality - Edward L. Daley Famed CBS commentator and leftist curmudgeon, Andy Rooney, has once again humiliated himself on national tv, and someone needs to tell him it's time to hang up his microphone and move to a nice retirement home in Kissimmee, Florida, or some other octogenarian haven. Now, I understand that the number of people these days who actually watch him and his chest-thumping, brow-beating, document-forging pals on '60 Minutes' is equal to the number of folks who believe that Elvis is still alive and living in a trailer park just outside of...

Okay, I've decided to dip my toe into the water and post my first vanity thread. Hooray!You can think of this as a less polished version of NRO's very fine "Impromptus" section; I'm not using the exact title, lest I incur the wrath of National Review's legal department. So, for the time being, let's just call this "FreeRepublic Palaver." I know, the title's kind of lame, but it'll have to do for now. Anyway, I want to start off this discussion by posing a question to all of you FReepers living out there on the West Coast. Have any of...