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It’s been one year for Katie Couric at the anchor desk of the “CBS Evening News.”

And the media isn’t hesitating at all to give her a letter grade, a progress report, some premature obits and some “stay the course”s to mark the occasion.

But nearly unanimous in all the coverage is the fact that CBS News apparently overshot its goal, choosing not only to install a new anchor and begin a new era, but also to use that occasion to redefine the entire concept of the network evening newscast – and therefore capture the younger audience.

And that it didn't work out.

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So …it’s the Tuesday after Labor Day, and we scrammed early last week.

Did we miss anything?

I mean, aside from Bush's surprise visit to Iraq and Katie’s Baghdad trip (more on that later) and the no-hitter and Senator Craig’s post-dated resignation – well, you may have seen us discuss it on “Reliable Sources” this past weekend – and Appalachian State and Hurricane Felix and that new book on President Bush, not to mention Jerry Lewis going all Andrew “Dice” Clay on his telethon.

Yeah, we mean aside from those things.

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We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the biggest story of the day in MediaLand: Joe Hagan's New York Magazine piece on Katie Couric and the "Evening News." The piece includes some choice quotes from the "Evening News" anchor, including this one, about whether she ever questions her decision to come to CBS News: “I mean, of course. I’m human. I’m not going around, ‘Dee-da dee-da dee.' I have days when I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what did I do?’ But for some weird reason, they don’t happen that often.” Go here to check it out.

One of the perils of working at CBS News is that you are constantly asked questions about Katie Couric. (The most common, incidentally, is "What is Katie really like?" Which, for the record: She's nice. Now stop asking. Please.)

Sometimes, thankfully, Couric-centric conversations get beyond that. One topic that got bandied around this weekend: Why, exactly, Couric has come under such intense scrutiny from the press corps.

Sure, the "Evening News'" ratings struggle and personnel changes are a legitimate story for media watchers. But as I pointed out last April, Couric was already the focus of a staggering number of stories before her first day. You just get the feeling that there is something about the "Evening News" anchor that has struck a nerve with media types. They seem to relish examining her struggles, a tendency perhaps best exemplified by this Philadelphia Inquirer hit job from April.

The reason for the antagonism, in my opinion, has something to do Couric's reputation as "perky," an adjective that one would have a hard time applying to Edward R. Murrow. You see, media types don't like "perky." They see themselves as Defenders Of Serious Journalism, and for the most part, that's a good thing: We need somebody trying to maintain a standard of quality journalism in an environment in which ratings pressures can sometimes push news programming towards lowest common denominator content.

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“We have a precious amount of time on the CBS 'Evening News' and I don’t think we need to ever utter the name Paris Hilton.”

--"Evening News" Anchor Katie Couric, speaking at a WBZ radio sponsored breakfast in Boston. The last two times Hilton was mentioned on the "Evening News" were on April 2, 2006, in a story about video games, and June 4, 2005, in a story about Marilyn Monroe's belongings being auctioned. The stories predated Couric's start at the "Evening News."

"My reaction was that Katie Couric asked questions that the American people are asking themselves, and I think they were completely legitimate questions. And I think the American people deserve answers from me and from Elizabeth to those questions. I mean, I'm asking America to support me and vote for me as their next president, and I think part of the evaluation of a candidate for president is a personal evaluation of the character and integrity and honesty of a candidate. So, no, I thought the questions were fair. Tough. I thought they were tough, but they were fair."

--John Edwards on the questions asked by Katie Couric in her controversial "60 Minutes" interview with the Edwards.

Last night on "60 Minutes," Katie Couric interviewed John and Elizabeth Edwards. Many of those who commented on the story on CBSNews.com felt that Couric was too hard on the couple.

"I was shocked and saddened at Katie Couric's lack of compassion and the nastiness of her questions," wrote "brlaks." Another commenter, "l8c6," called the interview "cold and improper," while "sharonc50" wrote, "I couldn't believe the hostility [Couric] showed towards the Edwards."

A portion of the commenters, meanwhile, defended Couric.

"Katie Couric asked the very tough questions that needed to be asked and gave the Edwards the opportunity to respond in full," wrote "kasey444." Commenter "fred7231," meanwhile, wrote "I'm quite surprised by the tone of the comments toward Katie Couric. She did her job."

Some viewers may have felt it unseemly to talk about the political implications of a health crisis like the one the Edwards family is now going through. But it is also necessary in light of the decision by the couple to stay in the presidential race. That decision prompts voters to consider all sorts of important questions, not least of which is whether John Edwards could run the country effectively while also dealing with his wife's illness.

As "fred7231" wrote, it is Couric's job to ask those questions. And it's the Edwards' responsibility to address them. If Couric had offered up softballs, she wouldn't have given the couple an opportunity to do so.

Another issue raised by some commenters was Couric's reliance on the journalistic convention of prefacing criticisms with the phrase "some say" instead of sourcing them to someone specific. Here's an example, from the interview, of what I'm talking about:

Couric: Your decision to stay in this race has been analyzed, and quite frankly judged by a lot of people. And some say, what you're doing is courageous, others say it's callous. Some say, "Isn't it wonderful they care for something greater than themselves?" And others say, "It's a case of insatiable ambition." You say?

Commenter "bb2881" wrote this in response: "Katie-stop using the fox news tactic of 'some people say' If you're going to ask 'tough' questions, be tough enough and have the guts to quote whoever is saying it." A number of commenters, expressing similar views, argued that Couric should have sourced the criticisms to conservatives like Rush Limbaugh.

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We've already discussed one theory to explain the ratings struggles of the "Evening News" today. Let's throw another one out there: Gender. New "Evening News" Executive Producer Rick Kaplan has suggested that "[h]aving a woman in the anchor chair is something the audience needs to get used to," and over the weekend, Gail Shister of the Philadelphia Inquirer said this on CNN's "Reliable Sources":

As much as we'd like to think that as a culture, that we have progressed to the point where it doesn't matter, I think that in news particularly, there is a sense that there is not the -- I hate the "G" word, but the gravitas when a woman gives the news, as opposed to a man gives the news. You also have to understand that the average news viewer tends to be older, 60 and older, so they are more entrenched in the tradition. And the tradition, until Katie Couric came in September, was white, middle-aged men.

Last week, Rebecca Dana wrote a piece in Slate asking if Couric's "rocky start" means trouble for Hillary Clinton in her presidential campaign. She wrote that both the anchor and chief executive jobs have certain similarities: "It's not simply that both jobs are traditionally male. It's that both demand a certain stage presence—an intangible sense of authority, divorced from direct, measurable accomplishment." According to Dana's sources, there is still a "small but unmovable percentage" of the American public uncomfortable "hearing serious, scary things" from a woman. That presumably applies when it comes to both the Oval Office and anchor chair.

That may indeed be true. But a small percentage isn't necessarily enough to sink a candidate – or an anchor. And it's a mistake to extrapolate from too small of a sample. Couric and Clinton may both be women, but their similarities don't go much beyond that. Neither should be treated as the magical embodiment of womanhood through which we can understand our culture. That doesn't mean, however, that Kaplan and Shister are wrong.

Check out this "Notebook" from Katie Couric. We're with you, Katie. And so are these people. Now let's just hope the right folks are listening…

Just One Word: Plastics: As Exact Editions notes, "A company called Plastic Logic with a clever technology from the University of Cambridge has raised $100 Million in Venture Capital funding to build a factory for plastic semi-conductor subtrates." (The Financial Times has the story.) Why should we care? Because the technology means "a foldable, re-usable, high-resolution, glare resisting, print-carrying, cheap surface" – one that makes it possible for people to wear newspapers or magazines on their t-shirts. Writes Adam Hodgkin: "Can you imagine what a tube [that's British for subway] journey is going to be like when half the occupants are wearing today's newspaper and the other half is trying to peer at the relevant column?" (via Greenslade)

Another Proud Moment In Journalism: After Monday night's brush fire destroyed six homes in an exclusive Malibu community, the media flocked to the area looking for celebrities whose homes had been ruined, the Los Angeles Times reports. "There was a flurry of activity as actress Suzanne Somers and her husband, Alan Hamel, pulled up in front of their burned-out house in a black Cadillac Escalade," notes the Times. "TV cameras were yanked from their tripods as tabloid show crews clustered around the actress — best known for her role on the television series 'Three's Company' — while she stepped past her burned Jaguar convertible into what had been her home's front courtyard." (At least Somers had some class, noting that it wasn't as though she'd lost a child in Iraq.)

Katie Couric Coverage Worth Reading: Rebecca Dana's New York Observer piece on the "Evening News" anchor is that rare piece of journalism about Couric that's actually worth your time. Notes Dana: "One of Ms. Couric’s innovations—or corruptions—of the form is that she occasionally offers up her own reaction to the stories that appear on her broadcast. A vestige of her chattier Today Show days, these frequent interjections are the subject of much deep thought and close analysis in the halls of CBS—and the subject of sniggering elsewhere in television news." Says Couric: “I think that, probably it may be off-putting at times to some people who are used to a very, very buttoned-up newscast that doesn’t have much leeway for an occasional glimpse of personality.”

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