What is the News?

In a sane world this would be ridiculous. However, it appears that we do not live in either a sane or egalitarian world. So, apparently Katie Couric sitting in the anchor’s chair and reading from a teleprompter for a major network’s nightly news is sadly the news!

Jill Abramson, the first woman to be the Washington Bureau Chief of the New York Times, and then later its Managing Editor, is tired of the First Woman to Do Something meme. I have to agree with her somewhat disheartendly. Unfortunately we still do have the First Woman meme.

That this one is at such a low level is totally disheartening, we are not talking about the leader of the Free World Here Folks! The fact that it is getting such press is even more disturbing. This is merely the job of reading the news. I haven’t heard that Katie Couric is going to be the Managing Editor of the CBS Evening News. Maybe I missed that. Correct me if I am wrong. My understanding is that she is going to be reading, and presenting, the news as devised by others.

Abramson states:

Despite the gains at the entrance gate, Ms. Couric's power is still unusual. None of the network chiefs are female and until one of their suits is worn by a woman it will be hard to say that women have really achieved equal clout in television news. Ms. Couric has hard reporting experience (she covered the Pentagon and the first Iraq war for NBC), but for the past 15 years on "Today" she's endeared herself with audiences through her chatty interviews and segments including her televised colonoscopy and dancing with Antonio Banderas.

With CBS eager to attract new and younger viewers, Ms. Couric will likely transport something stylistically different to the teleprompter. She clearly hasn't shed any of her girl-next-door demeanor. Last week, she composed and recited, with camp girl enthusiasm, doggerel for a Matrix award presentation to her pal, Cynthia Leive, the editor of Glamour, and interviewed Joan Rivers about her on-line dating experiences.

Every time I make a public appearance, I am asked whether 2008 will see the election of Condi or Hillary. Will a woman become president in my lifetime or my daughter's? I have no idea. But on Monday, I did meet Geena Davis, whose award was presented by her "Thelma and Louise" co-star, Susan Sarandon. Ms. Davis did get to be president, but her ABC show, "Commander in Chief," has struggled.

This is yet another transitional moment for professional women. The pioneers, like Betty Friedan and Sandra Day O'Connor, are gone or moving offstage. In our celebrity-besotted culture a woman can, like Martha Stewart, be down and then come back.

There will now be a female solo anchor. But there are still few women successfully leading the cornerstone institutions of our society. Maybe Katie Couric will become one of them. But unlike Walter Cronkite, I don't envy her.

Nor should any of us envy her. Ms. Couric has “big” shoes to fill and she will be held to a standard that none of those “shoes” who went before would be able to meet.

So, for all those readers out there who know that I love the Toronto Star, and Antonia, in particular, here is what she had to say on the subject, just because we always need the Canadian perspective:

First, because it's pathetic that it took so long for such a "milestone" to be met. The New York Times alone moved three stories.

But this isn't the Oval Office. It's sitting behind a desk and reading five minutes, tops, of intros and extros off a teleprompter while looking serious when the story is sad and perky when the story isn't.

Nobody would bat an eye in Canada if Alison Smith or Lisa LaFlamme were to step into the anchor roles at CBC or CTV.

Second, because implied in yesterday's copious coverage of this not unexpected "news" is that Couric, 49, who announced her departure on her 15th anniversary as co-host of Today, may not have the chops for the job.

Noted David Carr in the Times last month: "In the morning, Ms Couric is on for three hours at a stretch, pivoting between dead Marines and cute dolphins at marine parks. Her husky giggle, which has been music to audiences for almost 15 years, would not get much of a workout at night, and her legs, admired everywhere, would disappear under the anchor desk."

Which, upon second reading, is not as sexist as you might think.

That's because, as Carr concludes, "the fact that networks seem willing to concede that the best man for the job is clearly a woman means that it just isn't the same job any more."

And that's the point: The shows have lost their weight, influence — and audiences.

As Jeff Jarvis jawed yesterday:

I can’t help shaking my head at the hiring of Katie Couric to anchor the CBS Evening News. All the talk about getting rid of the oracular voice of news is meaningless. They simply replaced the goofy if stern-faced oracle with the perky and still-cute oracle. And the truth is, it’s not about the voice at all. It’s about the name. It’s about celebrity. This is halfway to hiring George Clooney to read the news (’I may not be a journalist, but I played one in a theater near you’).

A little sexist, no? The woman did do two hours a day of live TV for 15 years -- and kept her program at the top of the ratings. Sure there were cooking segments in there. But she also stick-handled some very tough interviews. That makes her more than capable of sitting behind a desk and pretending to shuffle some papers while reading a script.

(By the way, I have heard from a number of top Canadian TV female journalists today, who all agreed with my take. Ladies, please feel free to comment!!)

CBS' moldiest crust of bread Andy Rooney was really welcoming. Not.

I think everybody likes Katie Couric, I mean how can you not like Katie Couric. But, I don’t know anybody at CBS News who is pleased that she’s coming here.

Meanwhile, the right-wing buzzards have already moved into attack mode, going after both Couric and her replacement on Today, Meredith Vieira.

Appearing on the August 30, 2004 edition of the ABC daytime show "The View," Vieira - a former CBS "60 Minutes" reporter - echoed the most virulent hate speech of the far left, telling viewers that she attended the anti-Bush protest held in New York City on the Sunday before the Republican convention opened, insisting: "I didn't go anti-Bush or pro-Kerry. I'm still so upset about this war and I'm so proud I live in a country where you can protest."

According to the Media Research Center's NewsBusters.org blog, Vieira displayed a photo of herself marching with her pre-teen daughter and her husband, Richard, who was the senior political producer at CBS News for most of the 1980s. Behind her in the photo is a protest sign featuring a "W," for George W. Bush, with a slash through it.

That was not an isolated incident, NewsBusters reported, noting that earlier in 2004, while speaking of the Iraq war, Vieira said, "Everything's been built on lies. Everything! I mean the entire pretext for war." Moreover, in March 2003, as the United States prepared to go to war, Vieira argued that anti-war protests "should be consistent and repeated every day, I believe."

Golly. A reporter telling it like it is.

Funny, this makes me like Vieira even more.

Well, I want to know why Christiane Amanpour, another opinioned woman, isn’t the CBS news anchor. Maybe she doesn’t want to be tied down to the desk. But she is someone we could trust and believe in. She has heft! Though we don’t know about her legs or her shoe preferences!

JMHO in the year 2006, does the term Misogynist mean anything folks?