Last night news broke that Katie Couric will be going to Iraq and Syria, anchoring the broadcast from the region beginning next Tuesday, September 4th. Though CBS Evening News EP Rick Kaplan bluntly declares that "he doesn't do anniversaries," it's hard not to remember that Couric's broadcast first launched last year right after Labor Day, on September 5th, 2006. Couric will be anchoring from Iraq next Tuesday and Wednesday, on both the anniversary day and date of her maiden voyage.

The announcement also came on the same day that a new book hit the streets: Katie: The Real Story, Ed "I Have An Issue With Powerful Women" Klein's latest hatchet job (unauthorized, natch). As the AP's David Bauder reports, CBS News has had this trip in the works for six weeks and is timed to examine the lay of the land in advance of the Petraeus report on the surge, coming mid-September. So it's unfair to assume that this trip was motivated by anything other than legitimate reporting and newsgathering, just as it was unfair back in March to suggest that NBC News sent Brian Williams to Iraq as a ratings ploy. Besides that point, traveling to Iraq is no picnic — even with all the precautions and safeguards that a deep-pocketed news network can provide, there is still the corkscrew landing that must be made into Baghdad airport (to minimize the chance of getting hit by a missile), the drive in on the infamous airport road, and, to the extent that they will be reporting outside the Green Zone, the very real dangers of being in Iraq. Anywhere in Iraq, actually. So, Katie and Rick, you'd damn well better wear that body armor, no grandstanding shots in a flak jacket just to look cool. You'll suit on up in Kevlar in 130 degree heat and like it, dammit!

But all that said, still — the timing is good. Everyone loves the nightly news wars (er, indeed), and all eyes would have been on Katie anyway next week (with probably a few long knives drawn for good measure). Here she gets a jump on the competish by being the first outlet to Iraq around the Petraeus report, and manages to deflect - or at least dilute - not one but two potentially unflattering stories (book and ratings). If she pushes it in Iraq and gets good, raw stories from the field and advances this much-needed ball, then that will be a pretty nice trifecta to mark the beginning of a new year.

(But we can't help wondering — since security IS a factor, why set up this exclusive for David Bauder, complete with body-armor try-on, at all? Announcing trips to Iraq is usually avoided - that's why there are always these "surprise" visits - and the reason they're avoided is so that the important personage parachuting in isn't made a target. So, PR was obviously a factor here. We're just sayin'.)

In other news, Couric has finally and definitively proven "Access Hollywood" wrong. Take that, Billy Bush!

Katie Couric To Report From Iraq, Syria [AP]

Related:
Access Hollywood Misquote: Katie Couric WOULD Go To The Middle East [ETP, July 2006]

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