WaPo's Givhan Lauds 'Conquering Couric' Photo Shoot, Ignores CBS Layoffs

On Sunday, Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan took a break from her usual ogling over Michelle Obama and praised the glitzy fashion shoot of CBS anchor Katie Couric in an article headlined "Harper’s Bazaar hails the conquering Couric, a power broker in stiletto heels."

Nowhere in the article does Givhan discuss the bad PR echo after the layoffs of "dozens" at CBS News, where network suits surrounding the "conquering Couric" declared she would make no pay concessions to save the little people. (Isn’t it a little funny when a news organization won’t offer a precise layoff number to other media?)

Instead, Givhan lauded the anchorwoman for daring to obsess over her own image and add some "sexy," and for helping get those wonderful Obamas elected:

Couric stands atop two TV sets, one with a still shot of her interviewing Palin during the presidential campaign and the other with a shot of her speaking with President Obama at the White House.

It's a victory photograph -- Couric as the conquering and influential anchor -- and it not so subtly sends a message about cause and effect: The Palin interview influenced the Obama win. Couric is on top of her game, at least in this photo story -- no matter that her "CBS Evening News" lags in the ratings.

There’s also no one in the story who thinks she looks ridiculous with her hair slicked back like the Fonz and with eye makeup that makes her look like a raccoon. Givhan instead backs up a colleague at the magazine (which could explain the puff piece?) in defense of Couric’s glamour bender:

Couric "is really an attractive woman, and in case anyone hasn't noticed, it's been widely reported, she has great legs. There's no reason, in this day and age, why any woman has to compromise her attractiveness to do the job," says Laura Brown, the fashion/special projects director who oversaw the photo shoot, and an editor for whom I have written. "When coming up in the industry, you tend to dress the way people think you should dress; she has earned the right to be sexy if she wants."

The celebrity self-centeredness of the whole shoot should remind TV news watchers of Charlie Gibson’s departure, as what Eric Deggans called the last of the old-school anchors who took their jobs seriously. He didn't feel compelled to look sexy in fashion mags or crack wise on 30 Rock about having random sex with strangers. Can anyone imagine Walter Cronkite in either sideline? 

At the Jezebel blog, someone named simply Irin thinks it’s all "retrogressive" in tone:

I support Katie Couric's right to pose as sexily as she wants to. Fashion shoots are fun and she looks great at whatever age. It's part of her job, like it or not, to be someone people want to look at or watch. But do we have to pretend that the display of the traditional beauty of someone on television, as seen in a fashion magazine, is somehow fresh and progressive? Show me Candy Crowley in Balenciaga (or, um, in sweatpants?) and maybe I'll be impressed.