Insta-Review: CBS Evening News with Katie Couric
Steve Safran September 5th, 2006
BY STEVE SAFRAN
MANAGING EDITOR
LOST REMOTE
It’s surprisingly webby. With more production value than you’ll see anywhere else, The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric debuted tonight, and it has a different look and feel than its competitors. It has very good integration with the CBSNews.com website. That alone is reason to consider it a success. A straightforward journalistic outing, the show is a news magazine, with hints of a web sensibility. People expecting to see “Katie Lite” will be disappointed.
There is a decided effort to keep Katie on cam. The show opens with her standing in front of a video wall, teasing what’s coming up. Then, in a very interesting choice, CBS has Walter Cronkite announce the name of the show. Gravitas on a plate for the appetizer.
Then it was mostly all-business. The A-Block was hard news. Lara Logan’s report on Afghanistan was a traditional news package. Jim Axlerod’s report from the White House had an odd bit of production in it: as President Bush talked about the historical figures Lenin and Hitler, the producers chose to have a sort of three-box with historical file of the dictators next to Bush. You can bet the conspiracy theorists will scream about that. I expected some back-and-forth between Katie and Jim, just as Bob Schieffer had been doing. Instead, it was a quick wrap. The producer in me bets this was a “we’re short on time, so wrap out of this” spur of the moment decision, rather than a plan. The show is pretty dense, after all.
The segment “freeSpeech” is billed as a forum for people to express themselves unfiltered and uninterrupted. In a fascinating choice, they had Morgan Spurlock railing against the news media for portraying us as “a nation divided.” Spurlock called for “real civil discourse,” saying without that “it’s just showbiz.” Very webby, that.
The show teased the web in every block. The teases were story-specific, as they should be, rather than the old “go to our website” generic tease. Excellent integration. But we’re not thrilled here at LR about the decision to block different time zones from watching online until airtime. That’s still old-think. Put it up for everyone.
There is a ton of pre-pro and camera movement here. The packages have lots of animations that are consistent with the new look. The camera trucked during a longform interview with Tom Friedman. For me, the movement was a bit much. It’s a little too “local news.” But I get back to the idea of making something different – and this is certainly different.
The newscast made heavy allusions to its historic past. Rather than simply showing the new picture of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’s baby on Vanity Fair, CBS chose to put it in the context of famous pictures it has shown in the past. Hence, we saw the 1959 coverage of the birth of Prince Charles give way to the picture from Vanity Fair of young Suri Cruise. It was a deft way of saying “Newscasts have always had this kind of lighter fare, so don’t go saying how Katie is going all ‘celeb’ on us.”
Let’s face it – they’re trying to get more younger women to watch now. So LR Spouse sat down with me. For the most part, she liked it. CBS News can be encouraged that this demo sample of one gave it a favorable rating. Katie’s delivery threw her a bit at first. “Maybe it has something to do with her expression,” she said. “There’s a lightness to it. Maybe I’m just used to the guys delivering it.” Still, LR Spouse liked the story selection and the lighter segments at the end. “Overall,” she added, “I’d watch it again.”
And then at the end, a very webby notion: the open source signoff. Katie tells us she has been asked what her signoff will be and admits she hasn’t come up with a good one. Then we see a montage of signoffs past: Edward R. Murrow’s “Good night, and good luck,” Huntley and Brinkley saying “Good Night Chet,” “Good Night David.” Uncle Walter saying “That’s the way it is,” Dan Rather’s always controversial “Courage” (nice) and then Ted Baxter from the Mary Tyler Moore show saying “Good night – and good news” and LR fave Ron Burgundy’s “You stay classy, San Diego.” Coming out of that, Katie announces she’s looking for the audience to go online and suggest their own signoffs. I imagine the goofy ones will be as interesting as the serious ones.
So, all sorts of references to Serious Anchors in History. I didn’t need quite so many - I got the point. But this was obviously not a coincidence on this first night. CBS News is trying to put Katie Couric in a new context for viewers who are used to her morning show persona. It’s a deft dance – mixing the personality her fan base loves with the serious business of an evening newscast.
19 Comments Add your own
1. Alyssa | September 5th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
I haven’t watched it yet (stupid commute). Any shades of Jessica Savitch?
2. Judy | September 5th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
What is with the left side of her mouth, it barely moved! Too much botox?? Also the head tilt to the right was uncomfortable to watch. Content was ok, but I would have been good with her own choice for a sign off, no need to be cute.
3. flotsam | September 5th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
Webby? You are seeing spiders my friend and not their product.
More like watching CBS Sunday Morning which is a fine fine broadcast for a Sunday morning and with about as much news content. Let’s see what it looks like in a week or four.
4. kar | September 5th, 2006 at 6:26 pm
It felt like The Today Show at night. Same exact persona.
She looked strange. Can’t place why exactly. I won’t watch again.
5. Rob | September 5th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
I get it. She’s at night. She’s serious Katie not fun Katie and she had to reset her alarm clock and figure out what to do with all that cash Les Moonves ponied up for her.
The sign-off montage showed some wit with the turn from Cronkite and Huntley-Brinkley to the likes of Baxter and Burgundy. Comparing the Prince Charles baby pics to Katie Holmes’ kid … I get it. Other people have done it, so we can do it too.
Katie’s crew doesn’t know the meaning of the word subtle.
But the compelling thing wasn’t Couric which, I admit, I watched hoping for a train wreck. I gotta say Lara Logan’s story on the Taliban was freaking incredible. Steve Hartman’s story … hey, its the Phonebook and dartboard map guy. I’ll watch him do a story with a dead cockroach because he’ll squish a story out of that cockaroach. And Morgan Spurlock’s railing against the media superimoised with some WWF smackdown? Priceless.
In the end, Katie was the sideshow. The content was kept me tuned in. Then again, I work on an assignment desk facing three big screens with ABC, NBC and CBS tuned, so its not like I had an option.
6. El Dangeroso | September 5th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
Whoever decided to split-screen video of Stalin and Hitler when Bush referenced them needs to be fired. What is this, “Pop-up Video”?
I would have appreciated some harder news, maybe an in-depth investigation instead of all the fluff that coated the second half of the show.
Spurlock was the highlight, though.
7. MadInquirer | September 5th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
And a last question before leaving the thread and knowing the sun rises again tomorrow despite this momentous event: that did not move the earth off its orbit.
What kind of deal did CBS News make with Vanity Fair for first use of the Cruise child? Surely they didn’t give it away for the love of Katie and Rome and Les the Moonster.
8. Charles | September 5th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
You know, seeing all the (brilliantly produced) stuff they crammed into that half-hour, I can see why Couric mentioned that she would like to expand the news to a full hour. With her (apparent) half news/half lifestyle format, a full hour would work great for her.
I’m usually never home to watch the evening news (And if I was, ABC’s where my heart is at), but I think Couric did a great job and kudos to the Evening News staff for re-inventing the format.
9. thedetroitchannel | September 6th, 2006 at 5:45 am
it was a choice between mowing the lawn and watching Katie.
sounds like i made the right choice.
i edged too!
10. Carl Moore | September 6th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
She’s a lightweight and it shows.
11. Gene | September 6th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
I was more interested in the set, especially the curved video wall in the desk. Lovely!
12. John | September 6th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
MadInquirer:
I was wondering the same thing. Then later last night I read an insert that came with this month’s CN Traveler magazine (I’m a couple weeks behind on my mags!) Anyway, CBS is all over that insert with promos for its coverage Friday of Fashion Rocks here in NYC, a largely Conde Nast event. Dang backscratchers.
13. Larry Larsen | September 7th, 2006 at 9:39 am
Katie: You should end your news broadcast with “I Love Liberals”
Here’s one conservative that will not watch you any longer. Keep up this bias reporting and your market share will only go the way of Air America–!!
14. Anonymous | September 7th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
I am sixty years old, an attorney, and I have been a staunch CBS News fan all of my adult life.
Well, I’ve had two editions of the “new look,” to observe and to think about it.
And I am extremely jaded and disappointed. To the extent that their ratings rise, to that same extent I think we will be witnessing the numbness and shallowness of the American public.
The newscast is now a theatrical undertaking, and the program itself does not even suggest that is any longer an informative news program.
CBS tauts the new music, the new set. They can no longer point with pride to the experience and savvy of the anchor — because clearly there is none. Katie had years of experience interviewing pie contest winners, atheletes, movie stars — the fodder of the morning screen. But she makes no claim to a gestalt knowledge of the present world conditions, politics, hostilities or coalitions.
This woman now stands at the start of the news, her fingers castled in body-language superiority — then during the “new” theme music dashes to be seated when back on camera. The wardrobe efforts are also hyperactive, in line with the proclaimed efforts to make this the new Show of Shows.
I watched enough morning TV to watch her face lift these past years, a clear effort to remove her naturalness and her “girl next door” impression. I didn’t get it then — and the results are really catastrophic to the news program now. She is no longer the “girl next door;” moreover she is an impersonal media blob without human substance.
Then on Tuesday she sat down with the political epitomization of the same pointless personal oblivion, G.W. Watching the two of them go — well, not head to head, since there would have been the sound of empty echoes — the two of them exchanging their scripted dialogues, it just made me gasp, wondering what has become of us? Here we have the best of the best? Both for the media AND the political system?
It made me wonder whether CBS News has been cheating us all along. Maybe Rather and Cronkite had no brains or news experience either, but just breezed in an hour before air and reviewed the script with no personal understanding either.
Have you been dirty-arming us all along?
I will be watching the ratings. And if it happens, I will grieve the prolonged rise of yours. It will mean that we have truly traded our national intelligence for the “news”: the new face, the new music, the new set, the new face lift, the new dress, etc. etc.
15. Rita | September 9th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
CBS has made a huge miscalculation in tampering with the evening slot. Hard news was hard to find in the initial broadcasts. And Katie is no Bob Schieffer. They even ruined the set and the music! I could stand it no more when that Spurlock idiot started his screaming in the freeSpeech segment, and I changed the channel to NBC. Why waste valuable news time with soft, boring interviews? That’s what the Sunday morning shows are for. For that matter, NBC has made an error in my view in hiring Meredith Viera as Katie’s TODAY SHOW replacement. She was dull as dishwater on WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE. Someone like Campbell Brown would have been a lot better suited. Katie should have stayed on TODAY where she excelled and made it a great morning show. By moving to the CBS evening news, Katie has (unintentionally)ruined both it and the TODAY show. What a pity!
16. Patti | September 14th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
I am amazed how much time and effort goes into critiquing the person delivering the news and yet, the horrible content is accepted without rancur. If I were Katie, I would sign off by saying”Don’t shoot me, I’m only the messenger.”
17. Sharyn L. DiFazio | October 2nd, 2006 at 12:05 pm
I love katie, i love katie, i love katie…………but not at night.. and i really loved her old face and humor…..But i am willing to hang on a bit longer waiting for her inner strenght, wisdom and cunning to kick in and then maybe me and a lot of other people will be saying….i love katie, i love katie, i love katie…..even at night!
18. rosebud | October 16th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
sooooooo, when someone going to address the baaaaad facelift????? in HD????
19. Joan | March 24th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Why does Katie have to get a facelift to stay on-The news anchor men can show wrinkles! She’d look more real AND make aging beautiful if she hadn’t got rid of the wrinkles.
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