Old White Men Deliver News Best
May 14, 2007The MSM keeps clucking about Katie Couric’s (and that of CBS News) failure to win the evening news ratings race. In fact, America’s sweetheart is mired in third place.
Linda Mason, CBS News senior VP of standards and special projects, said on CBS’ Public Eye site that the public “seems to prefer the news from white guys, and now that Charlie’s (Gibson’s) doing so well, from older white guys. I guess they want the reassurance of a Walter Cronkite.”
In February, I attended a lecture where Anderson Cooper of CNN interviewed Walter Cronkite, who, yes, is still alive and still pretty lucid. While it is reassuring to have someone like Cronkite (who doesn’t know who Paris Hilton is) deliver the news, it’s Cronkite’s experience jumping out of planes in Normandy and Cooper’s street reporting in New Orleans that give them gravitas and credibility, not their white hair and male chromosome set.
Couric’s brand of perky doesn’t play. I’m not sure who the major networks are fighting over on the national news; I can’t remember the last time I made “an appointment” to watch it. Is it still on at 6:30PM?
