Our Mailbox Runneth Over
Well, it's been a quiet week at "Couric and Co." And it's only Wednesday.
The mailman nearly suffered a hernia hauling in sacks of comments over Monday's "freeSpeech" segment. (We took a few packages that were ticking and threw them in the creek…) Surf around the CBS News website and you'll find all sorts of ideas and opinions about this. A tell-tale sign that this was going to be an especially interesting week: nearly every comment, on every post, for the last three days, has had something to say about "freeSpeech," no matter what the topic.
Personally, I was struck by how many of the people who posted began their comments with one word: "Shame." As in "Shame on you, Katie Couric." (I might mention here that the majority of people wagging their fingers and using that word would proudly label themselves free-thinking, tolerant, progressive, maybe even liberal. Tolerance, it seems, has its limits.) I was also struck by how the tide seems to have turned. Over the last 24 hours, a growing number of e-mails and comments have been in support of Brian Rohrbough and his views. A friend of mine who runs a conservative blog says that's not surprising. She told me that most people who agree with Rohrbough would not be inclined to watch CBS, and when they heard through the blogosphere grapevine that "freeSpeech" was causing a kerfuffle, and that abortion and evolution and Christianity were being mentioned, they wandered over to take a look.
Now it's hitting the papers. Media maven Howard Kurtz (who, I swear, should be played by Ray Romano in the movie version of his life) has written about the controversy in this morning's Washington Post.
And you'll find more down the street, where Vaughn is busily corralling kittens at Public Eye.
Take a look, and then take a look around. We're continuing to get comments all over the place.
And it's still only Wednesday.