Katie Couric Says Goodbye
My general thoughts and opinions on the media monolith that is Katie Couric are as ever-changing and drastic as the many hairstyles that the NBC sparkplug has donned over the years. Sometimes I love her. I mean, I’ve always found her very attractive and sexy (in that “I want to throw you around the room” kind of way). She’s was more cute than anything else; a trait I’ve associated with sexiness all my life (I think I might have been molested by a small fawn when I was a kid). I remember an episode of Dawson’s Creek where Dawson admits to Joey Potter that he regularly masturbated to Couric every morning (this might have been the first or second episode, and it was meant to represent the signifying moment when Dawson and Joey’s relationship ostensibly changed forever). But sometimes I hate her. Couric was always smiling, always had a goofy presence; the kind of personality that boundless cynics would compare to the antichrist. She was truly America’s sweetheart; a national treasure like apple pie, steroids and over eating.
Katie Couric spent 15 years at NBC’s Today Show; and for every one of them she was number one in the ratings. It wasn’t even close. A couple of times, ABC’s Good Morning American made a slight surge, but the Today Show repeatedly beat them down like a red headed stepchild (apparently, CBS and FOX have just been clueless for the last decade and a half; hardly making a whimper in the morning news show ratings wars).
And while some of this colossal success can be attributed to the likeability of Matt Lauer and the fat and skinny versions of Al Roker, the real star was always Katie Couric.
Katie Couric is a shapeshifter. One minute she’s dancing around with Julia Louise Dreyfuss and the next she’s grilling Hillary Clinton for being a weak little bitch and a lousy role model. This was the dynamic which made Couric the ultimate MORNING news host.
In the morning, American people can only take their hard news in small doses. They NEED to see a crapload of filler while their caffeine soaks in. But with that said, they also need the facts. They can’t show up at the office and not know what’s going on in the world; what if Eleanor in accounting thinks I’m ignorant or worse, boring, because I didn’t know that 4,000 people died in an earthquake in Indonesia. It is a tricky balancing act, and Katie Couric was the fucking Nadia Comaneci of the morning program.
That is to say, she could get her silly on, just as fast as she could buckle down and be serious. This sounds simple enough; but it’s the kind of quandary that banished Paula Zahn to cable newsâÂ?¦for life. It wasn’t easy but Couric was the master; the ultimate sensei.
And then she threw it all the way; and for what? For 15 million dollars? For the right to be known as the first solo, female, network news anchor in primetime television history? I don’t know; it’s probably a combination of the two, and I’m not really sure it’s the right choice.
I can’t say that I’m rooting for Katie Couric to fail since I don’t watch morning or evening news on any of the networks (I get all my news like any good American does these days, from one of the three unnecessary, 24 hour cable news outlets). I do have to admit that I put $50 bucks down on the over/under for Katie Couric’s tenure as the prime CBS newsperson (I took the under on 15 months), so I guess I do a have a vague rooting interest.
Who knows, only time will tell. It’s only been four months since the great Dan Rather passed away, and I think we all need to ask ourselves an important question; how soon is too soon?
