It’s official. Katie Couric is moving to CBS, and will become anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News later this year.
She will become the first woman to solely host a major network evening newscast.
Couric, 49, co-host of NBC’s Today show since 1991, announced last week her intentions to leave that show at the end of May.
According to a poll conducted by The Associated Press and TV Guide last Thursday though, people said “they would rather see her in the morning as opposed to the network weekday evening newscast on her own.”
Only time will tell if the move to CBS proves to be advantageous for the network and Couric, taking into account that her predecessor’s names were not only synonymous with the news, but became some of the most trusted names in the history of the business. The fact that they were all men makes this transition even more interesting.
But in fairness to Couric, this columnist decided to ask several local professional journalists their views concerning this issue and to share those views with our readers.
The following is a compilation of those remarks:
“It will be interesting to see how that transition evolves, because she is someone that people have woken up to for years. They’re not used to her hitting the viewing public with hard news, simply because she has done mostly features stories in the morning.
“Granted she did extremely well during 9/11 and the aftermath, but this is the nightly news – the 6:30 evening news – a program that has been male dominated for decades.
“The odds are in her favor though. She is well liked and well respected as a journalist. She doesn’t have any blights in her career – no snafus – no embarrassing moments.
“It’s good to see a woman as anchor of the evening network news, but one of the biggest obstacles she’ll have to overcome is that the viewing public is not going to take her seriously.
“She has been doing ‘cowboy journalism’ – ‘sensationalism’ too long, and besides, look at the journalists in whose footsteps she will be following. I mean she certainly isn’t an Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite or Bob Schieffer. But then again, none of us are.
“It’s going to be tough, and whether you like her or hate her, give her a chance.”
Journalism is a tough, demanding and sometimes cutthroat industry.
And while Couric is well aware that she’s following newsmen of prominence, and that Bob Schieffer has miraculously rejuvenated the CBS Evening News, audiences will have to wait until September to see how Couric fares in the ratings war, which incidentally should never be of any importance, but somehow through the years has become a defining issue for most major networks.
News must not be about ratings. It must be about reporting the facts as they are.
And if Couric sticks to the facts and reports the news as news, removes any and all biases she may have, and doesn’t editorialize during that half-hour, then she’ll survive.
But if she comes across as just another pretty face reading the teleprompter for the sake of ratings, and thumbs her nose at the time-honored profession of journalism, then she’ll most certainly drown.
“And that’s the way it is,”… so …”Good night and good luck.

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