News on television is a big fat “me too” industry and CBS thought the way to break away from the pack was to pick Couric. But the underlying news was the same. So they start to tweak and make the news softer, mushier, more palatable to people without teeth or brains. Wrong move.

The way to break away from the pack is to behave completely differently from the pack, to reinvent television journalism, right from the reporters in the field up to the studio anchor (assuming you keep the anchor). The news must be gathered and organized and presented in a wholly new — and substantive — way. Couric couldn’t do that. Indeed, any single anchor choice — male or female — couldn’t do that.

The kind of changes that would bring me, as a late 30’s viewer, into the fold will have to come from the top and jammed down the throats of all the preening self-important “journalists.” I want news, not flourish. I want insight, not babble. I want information, not celebrities. I want to be treated as though I actually graduated from high school, college and grad school.

Right now, with Couric, the CBS Evening News feels more like “Big Brother” (the other CBS abomination) than a newscast.

The local CBS affliliate’s weekend anchor is a reporter who is clearly uncomfortable sitting in a studio reading a prompter - which makes their newscasts rather painful to watch - therefore I don’t particularly like watching them.

In your eyes, “is it a man thing, or is it this reporter/anchor who shall remain nameless?”

Its the person, not the gender.

Given the demographics of people who watch the broadcast, a little reluctance to hear it from a woman isn’t totally implausible.

- Diane Sawyer
- Christiane Amanpour
- Cokie Roberts
- Charlayne Hunter-Gault
- Campbell Brown

If CBS had ever looked at tape of Katie anchoring NBC Nightly News (which she did from time to time), they would have realized that a straight newscast just isn’t her strong suit. The only chance she would have had at succeeding at CBS is if they’d tossed out the anchor desk completely, along with the traditional intro-package-tag newscast format.

CBS had a great thing going when Schieffer was filling in — he turned it into a newscast about the news. He talked to reporters, his delivery was authoritative but not condescending, and he knew when to get out of the way. The ratings were going up!

They should have looked for a permanent anchor, male or female, who could build on that success. Any of the women above could have done that.

I can’t imagine a worse transition than Bob to Katie. If you want to build a newscast around her, fine, but you’ll have to build a ‘Today’ at night format for it to have any chance of success.

I’m saying this btw, but I don’t know what I’m saying; didn’t write it. Blame my intern.

I can’t remember whether Elizabeth Vargas had the co-anchor chair long enough to know whether NBC was getting decent ratings. I don’t particularly care for her, and she doesn’t have Sawyer’s innate star power, but I suspect she could have managed it solo as well if she’d been given a good shot at it on a well-produced program.

Ever notice how Wolf Blitzer breathes during sentences, but never between them? Yeah, he’s hard to listen to for extended periods.

A). They are performers (weak ones at that) then being solid journliasts.

B). They rode the coattails of their predecessors in other tv outlets.

C). Both A&B

D). All of the above.