The highlight of her extended interview with Harry Smith on this morning's Early Show, touting her debut on tonight's CBS Evening News, was her claim that what the "old media" has to offer in contrast with the new media is . . . "integrity and standards."
Couric is apparently a jokester of the deadpan school, managing to get off the line without dissolving into guffaws. This from the woman about to take over the illustrious Dan Rather Forged Document Chair, named in honor of the hoax perpetrated by the old media and peremptorily exposed by that lacking-in-integrity new media. Is the irony lost on Katie that the opening for her job occured because Dan Rather was sacked over the exposure of his lack of integrity and standards?
Would Katie care for a more recent example? Take the way the MSM trumpeted L'Affaire Plame for more than a year, only to bury the story unceremoniously when it turned out that rather than representing a diabolical Bush administration plot to out a CIA agent, an anti-war State Department official was behind the disclosure.
Even closer to home for Katie was the recent tale of her amazing Fauxtography Beach Diet.
Katie's rib-tickler arose in the context of a chat apparently conducted on Harry's apartment balcony overlooking Central Park. Smith observed that for the first time the Evening News would be available online for viewing at any time. Replied Couric:
"I don't really see it as a fight between old media and new media. I think old media has a lot to offer even if we are old. And I think that some of the integrity and the standards and the great reporting that you find in traditional mainstream media, to give that an outlet in newer technological forms, is only a positive thing for everybody."
Katie will be performing all week - don't forget to tip your waitress!
Mark Finkelstein lives in the liberal haven of Ithaca, NY, where he hosts the award-winning, web-casted TV show Right Angle. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net
