Outside Voices: Tom Fenton On How The "Evening News" Can Be Number One
(CBS)
(CBS)
The publicity generated by the hiring of Katie Couric and the new management’s keen interest in the third place “Evening News” broadcast have given CBS a chance to become the news leader that it once was. A dispirited news organization has been given a shot in the arm and a burst of energy. Let’s hope they make the most of it.
There is no question that Couric will attract new viewers and encourage former ones to come back. All the babble in media circles about whether she is the right person for the “Evening News” audience is nonsense. Couric proved her worth in one of the toughest arenas in the news. Her years in the long morning format at NBC showed beyond doubt that she knows her stuff, can think on the hop, and is very user friendly. If she can do that, she can meet the requirements of an evening news anchor, which in fact are less demanding.
What Couric does not have is the years of experience of the old generation of anchors – Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and the late Peter Jennings – in reporting news from abroad. Her competition will not have that either. But what she may lack in the foreign department can be made up by the sort of stories her show puts on the air.
The anchor, after all, is not the news. The anchor is the person who introduces the news – what the British call a “news presenter” or “news reader.” In the long run, what will count most for the new “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” -- and what will retain the viewers who come to sample her wares -- is the news itself.
Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.
