All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Each week we invite someone from outside PE to weigh in with their thoughts about CBS News and the media at large. This week's guest, Garrett M. Graff, is editor-at-large at Washingtonian magazine, where he covers politics and media. He is also the founding editor of mediabistro.com’s Fishbowl D.C., a blog that covers media in Washington. As the CBS "Evening News" searches for a new anchor, Graff suggests that the network spend less money on anchor talent and more on investing in foreign coverage.



We don't want you to think PE is a hotbed of anti-Couricism with two straight "Outside Voices" on the topic. We pick people to ask each week but we don't tell them what to write and do not select them based on what we think they may write. That's the deal, but since all of our contributors are newshounds, they tend to focus on topics that have been in the headlines. As always, the opinions expressed and factual assertions made in “Outside Voices” are those of the author, not ours, and we seek a wide variety of voices. Now, here's Garrett:


Last week in this space, Matthew Felling, Media Director for the Center for Media and Public Affairs, argued that CBS shouldn’t hire Katie Couric to be the anchor of the CBS "Evening News." I agree with him, although not because she’s not the best candidate. Instead, don’t hire Katie Couric because she’s too expensive.



Rumors, which have of course fueled the whole Couric boomlet, say that her potential salary would range from $15 million to $20 million. And, regardless of whether Couric is a talented journalist or “merely” perky morning talent, there are more important things for the network to spend that money on.



With the vision for its new "Evening News," CBS has a unique opportunity here to be the shining news organization on a hill. As other news organizations continue to retreat from an increasingly complicated and smaller world, CBS should use that “Couric budget” to be America’s place for serious, thoughtful international news.

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