Who Killed Katie Couric?

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And now for your daily dose of boardroom intrigue.

Earlier this week, someone killed the nation's first solo woman evening news anchor. Specifically, someone told the press about a meeting in February in which Katie and some senior CBS executives discussed whether Katie should remain an unpopular anchor of CBS Evening news or just give up and quit. The moment this nugget hit the wires, Katie became a lame duck. The only question now is not "if" she's history, but when.

So who killed her? Because don't think for one second that the person who leaked the news of the meeting didn't know that that was exactly what he or she was doing.

If the NYT's report this morning is correct, there are four suspects: CBS CEO Les Moonves, CBS News president Sean McManus, Katie's agent, Alan Berger of the Creative Artists Agency, and Katie herself. Why? Because they were the only ones in the meeting.

Odds are, it was one of the two CBS execs, probably Sean. CBS doesn't want to acknowledge that one of the main problems with the CBS Evening News is that "evening news" shows are obsolete, so it has to blame Katie (who, it is true, was more beloved in her morning slot). CBS also, however, doesn't want to be seen as cutting and running on the nation's first solo woman anchor, especially after it paid so much to get her there.

So how best for CBS to ditch Katie? Make it look like they had no choice. Or, rather, make it look like leaving the anchor slot might have been Katie's choice. ("We tried to talk her out of it, but she decided that [INSERT NEW JOB HERE] was a better fit"). Odds are this is what happened: CBS just killed Katie.

On the other hand, maybe it was Katie herself. One of the reasons Katie isn't resonating with viewers in the evening news slot is that she's never seemed that comfortable in it herself. This doesn't mean she can't compete with the serious bid dogs of hard-core journalism -- of course she can. It just means that what she was best at was what she was doing before, the mix of light, heavy, and featury stuff on the morning shows (America loves to start the day with beautiful, smart, and perky, and Katie embodied that).

So maybe Katie and her agent decided to pave the way for her departure by leaking news of the meeting, perhaps in an attempt to head off the inevitable chatter that she had been canned. If so, this strategy backfired: Most news coverage suggests implicitly that she's getting canned. Katie and her agent are probably smart enough to have known that this is what the coverage would suggest, so we doubt she or her agent were the original leaker.

So who killed Katie Couric? Odds are it was CBS, most likely Sean McManus.

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Comments

[lazlogasky]

I have high respect for Cour5ic just bcoz I've seen her broadcast and realized that it isn;t bad as anyone thought... it's actually better than ABC and NBC and Couric speaks with more heart. More power Katie!!

[Exit]

She is just too silly to be a serious news person. She needs a show like Martha Stewart or something. Connie Chung and Carole Simpson fit the model of a serious female news anchor.

[allpoliticiansaretraitors]

Anchor? Isn't that the object that one uses to:

1) Stop something from moving

OR

2) The object used to sink something


Either definition seems to fit Katie and her gig as news 'anchor'. I've no idea if she's any good at this job, but I always thought she was terrible on the Today show. BTW, Diane Sawyer has both humor and gravitas...Perhaps SHE'd like a shot @ the job.

[WilliePilgrim]

Hmmm..Anchor. That's a good title. It describes what that person's role is when it comes to the journalistic endeavor to prepare and bring us the news. In no way does it imply that they're the captain, or the navigator or the bosun or even an able bodies seaman. They are an achor. Why the networks pay them so much is because they need them as a draw to bring in advertising dollars. So why not get an attractive or high profile one since what the audience want to know is more about sex scandals and sports celebrities. There is no obligation to do public affairs anymore... I find the notion of an achor doing journalism as comforting as if I were on a boat and instead of having the captain or navigator to guide the boat, the crew went up to the bow of the boat and asked the great mute weight designed to keep the boat from going anywhere, where it is that the boat should go. Oh, sure an anchor is a journalist sometimes, but why expect an anchor to do any news reporting? What we have here, to borrow the old Strother Martin line from Cool Hand Luke, is "a failure to communicate". They pose, posture and pretend but communicate? What exactly? The roll of the eyeballs, the smirk? Really? The idea of replacing Couric with Chris Matthews strikes me as yet another attempt to get ratings and not integrity. So, really, who cares?

[BatedBreath]

I haven't watched cbs news since they threw Dan Rather under the train. It has nothing to do with Katie Couric.

[obsessed]

If this is actually true - thank god somebody is putting her out of her (and our) misery. Have you every listened to "Reporter's Notebook"? She's the most unscrupulous and transparent of the Bush-enablers - the poster girl for everything that's wrong with our pathetic corporate media. I find her significantly more offensive that Fox News.

[longnow]

It is much easier to get someone who will not get emotionally
mixed up with what might be lies, or half truth reporting.
The solution? Get someone who is totally uninterested
in world affairs or news. If she's told to nail the liberals
this week she will do it. If she's told to tell the truth about
conservatives she will do it, if she's told to balance the truth
with an opposing lie, no problem, as long as it's "balanced"
and bland and corporately satisfying. Don't worry, corporate
news will find it's way into your head one way or the other.

[mellene]

CBS just wants another parrot who will say anything they're fed to the public from the corporate suits. Newscasters are becoming the used car salesmen of this era. I'm so sick of nothing but repeat lies by the media that you can't believe anything they say anymore.

[dairyair]

Henry, HENRY, you didn't answer me a while back. HOW DOES A WALL STREET CROOK get to post articles in a somewhat newsworthy ezine?
Ripping off any more innocent people lately, HENRY?

[VictorLudorum]

Katie Couric is seated on the slippery chair that Dan Rather was on ,someone created a EXCHANGE on it...........................

[PuddyKatz]

I always like those two lady anchors on the PBS news! But somehow I just couldn't take to Katie. I stopped watching as soon as she came on. She seemed out of her depth and phony!

[Ozy]

Ah, This is another instance of scapegoating for Les Moonves .

In all the years I have followed this guy it has been astonishing how he has maintained his executive washroom key with the fake stature and phony or poor track record of accomplishments for failing upward.

My question is what does Les have on the management or better yet who's his daddy?

I would have kicked the under performer out six years ago!

Katie shot her self her first week trying to reinvent her feet into Dan Rathers giant shoes. Can you say "Free speech segment with Rush Limpbrain?" Please! Katie, go back to what you did best or even better just be a human being

[Horst]

A bubble head reading a Tele-Propmpter. Who cares?

[americanwhocares]

The real issue is why does Leslie Moonves still have a job? He is desperately trying to cover his backside for the huge mistake he made with Ms Couric and the salary she is paid along with pushing Dan Rather out when he reported the truth about our draft dodging president. If CBS had any intelligence (doubtful) they would fire Leslie Moonves in a New York minute.

[WordManMI]

Could it be that the story is actually the other-way-around? Did Katie kill CBS Evening News??? Given that all three broadcast networks were changing anchors, more or less, during the same time frame, this was a golden opportunity for CBS to regain some of it's past glory. ABC's move to put Charlie Gibson on has improved their ratings position. NBC was clearly vulnerable and either ABC or CBS could have scored a big hit. ABC did and CBS didn't.

With Couric demanding such a high salary, CBS News was forced to to go economy-class. The rest of their news division suffered thanks to Katie. Just look back at her earlier desires to do broadcasts abroad. CBS just didn't have the spare cash to do so, till they scraped up enough to send her to Iraq for a week. Hiring her was a bad move from Day One. She never had the journalistic 'creds' that Cronkite, Rather, Brokaw, Jennings or even Gibson and Williams had. She wasn't a match for Diane Sawyer, who kicked Katie's butt in the morning show slot. Face facts, Couric is over-rated. I can see her replacing Larry King and excelling at that. But doing 'hard news' has never been her forte.

[dr4Will]

who gives a rip when a puppet gets the shove out the door--believing the anchor is part of the job--no one believed this fake!