Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales is still smarting from feminist protests (and knife-attack threats) over his dismissal of ABC's choice of Christiane Amanpour to take over This Week on Sunday mornings. In his Tuesday chat on the Post website, a questioner said he wouldn't watch if Larry King was eventually replaced on CNN by Katie Couric:
You "can't stand" K-K-K-Katie? (that's not a reference to the Ku Klux Klax; it's a reference to an old song). I love her so, but if I call her "cute" the feminists will swoop now on me like the winged monkeys in The Wizard of Oz (and perhaps take out all my stuffings and throw them around).
If you have ever spent even ten minutes with her in person, you might change your tune, but then her job is to teleport herself, personality intact, into your home and just disarm you to blazes. For all that, I think Diane Sawyer has more authority as an anchor -- more "gravitas" though that is an overused word, especially in Washington -- and I feel more comfortable getting news from her. But on CNN, taking over Larry's show, Katie wouldn't have to give news; she could just talk.
On the pure television front, it's probably true that the King show would be more suited to her don't-say-perky appeal. But if she tried that "demotion," what is to guarantee that CNN won't just have another struggling network-refugee Paula Zahn/Campbell Brown hour?
