Another Woman Fails in a High Profile Leadership Role

Forums: Media, News, Women, Sexism, Gender
Email this Topic • Print this Page

Quote:

NEW YORK – Katie Couric is leaving her anchor post at "CBS Evening News" less than five years after becoming the first woman to solely helm a network TV evening newscast.
A network executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Couric has not officially announced her plans, reported the move to The Associated Press on Sunday night. The 54-year-old anchor is expected to launch a syndicated talk show in 2012 and several companies are vying for her services.
Couric's move from NBC's "Today" show was big news in 2006, and she began in the anchor chair with a flourish that September. She tried to incorporate her strengths as an interviewer into a standard evening news format and millions of people who normally didn't watch the news at night checked it out. But they drifted away and the evening newscast reverted to a more traditional broadcast.
After those first few weeks, the "CBS Evening News" settled into third place in the ratings and is well behind leader Brian Williams at NBC's "Nightly News" and second-place Diane Sawyer at ABC's "World News."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110404/ap_on_en_tv/us_tv_cbs_couric

Not a surprise at all, as she has been a disaster for the network from the start. We will not see anyone try that again for awhile.

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 9 • Views: 5,560 • Replies: 58

@hawkeye10,

Couric quits, and that means that is a failure for her as a woman? How many men quit or are fired? What does their "failure" tell us about men? This is selective bias at its most hawkeye.

A
R
T

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Lots of men have failed to keep ratings leadership in that same role. I'm not seeing realistically how much of a failure she was. Network gave her 5 years - a very long time considering how the ratings 'suffered'. I'll bet the network STILL made lots of money off her employment in the meawhile, or else she'd have been fired in year one.

Oh and you cited another woman in network prime time news leadership role "second-place Diane Sawyer at ABC's "World News." Another failure, too, right?

2 Replies

@Ragman,

I'd also say her interview with Sarah Palin was the most iconic moment in the 2008 election. It got a lot of attention and set the mood for a lot of the electorate.

Hawk's own post notes that of those above Couric in ratings is Diane Sawyer, and it also notes that other networks are eager to get her. I think most people would love to have that kind of "failure."

A
R
T

1 Reply

@failures art,

Bingo, we're singing the same song. The interview(s) with Palin told the story of what a lightweight player Palin is/was/will be. Couric did her job, though, I'm not quite sure how hard of a job that one was to accomplish.

Couric is recognized and trusted by the public at large at this point in her career. Hardly should she be considered a failure in even by the harshest critics. Who is her competition? They don't come across to me as head-and-shoulders above her.

0 Replies

@Ragman,

Quote:

I'll bet the network STILL made lots of money off her employment in the meawhile, or else she'd have been fired in year one.

IDK, there was talk about cutting her after the second year after they had given up on her, but it did not happen. I think the reason was that it would be a PR disaster. Like with Julie Taymor I think what we saw was that it is very difficult to unload women who fail because they play the victim card so well. You can never get rid of a woman strickly on merits and the economics, the stink will always being that she is getting the shaft because she is a woman and she was never given the chance or the support to succeed. , The lesson is that not hiring a woman in the first place is the responsible course of action.

2 Replies

@hawkeye10,

Network management is heartless. If there was any remote amount of credibility to what you're saying she'd have been gone by year # 2. But for them to drag it out to year #5? No way. Peddle that bridge elsewhere.

You still didn't address Daine Sawyer's primetime news leadership as #2.

2 Replies

@Ragman,

Quote:

After two years of record-low ratings, both CBS News executives and people close to Katie Couric say that the "CBS Evening News" anchor is likely to leave the network well before her contract expires in 2011 -- possibly soon after the presidential inauguration early next year.

Ms. Couric isn't even halfway through her five-year contract with CBS, which began in June 2006 and pays an annual salary of around $15 million. But CBS executives are under pressure to cut costs and improve ratings for the broadcast, which trails rival newscasts on ABC and NBC by wide margins.

Her departure would cap a difficult episode for CBS, which brought Ms. Couric to the network with considerable fanfare in a bid to catapult "Evening News" back into first place. Excluding several weeks of her tenure, Ms. Couric never bested the ratings of interim anchor Bob Schieffer, who was named to host the broadcast temporarily after "Evening News" anchor Dan Rather left the newscast in the wake of a discredited report on George W. Bush's National Guard service.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/09/katie-couric-likely-to-le_n_95943.html

So, why didn't they pull the trigger? I think it is because Couric decided she had a contract that she wanted to get paid for, the CBS did not have the stones to deal with the PR assault that would have taken place with any exit plan that did not have Couric falling on her sword.

0 Replies

@Ragman,

Quote:

You still didn't address Daine Sawyer's primetime news leadership as #2.

Interesting...I did not know. I always liked Sawyer when I used to watch TV, I am happy for her success.

1 Reply

@failures art,

Quote:

This is selective bias at its most hawkeye.

AGREE

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

Now I understand your preferences. You like and respect sexy Republican blond babes (Diane slept herself to the top of TV.) You dislike an intelligent friendly woman who moved up based on her hard work and talent while she cared for her children and her dying husband.

I admire Couric more than Sawyer.

BBB

1 Reply

i just see this as the continuing failure of network news (although cable less i only watch a network news show (Global National in Canada))

what, for most folks is the appeal of the nightly anchor in 24 hour cable and internet news

0 Replies

Katie Couric was in a leadership role? Horseshit. I don't look to news anchors to provide leadership, and anyone who does deserves the mess they will make of themselves.

2 Replies

@Setanta,

good point

0 Replies

I thought Couric did an excellent job interviewing Sarah Palin.

Couric's personal commentaries on issues in the news, however, sounded very superficial in comparison to other news anchors.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Quote:

Katie Couric was in a leadership role? Horseshit. I don't look to news anchors to provide leadership, and anyone who does deserves the mess they will make of themselves.

News anchors traditionally have had a substantial hand in designing the product. Couric did as well, as not only the set but the whole approach to delivering the news was revamped with her substantial input. Anchors also traditionally have had a lot of say day to day in what stories get covered, how much time each gets, and who does it. I am not sure if Couric had this.

1 Reply

@wandeljw,

Quote:

I thought Couric did an excellent job interviewing Sarah Palin.

That's great....out of 4+ years of work you can come up with a few minutes that were good...

1 Reply

@BumbleBeeBoogie,

Quote:

I admire Couric more than Sawyer.

I have not watched much TV in years, but Sawyer has spent some of her career working on a decent journalism platform (60 minutes) , where as Couric never showed that she was good at anything more than the morning fluff. It is no shock at all that Sawyer is better at the primetime anchor gig. Sawyer has a gravitas that Couric does not.

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

So you are under the opinion Hawkeye that we all should or would have a library of good interviews or whatever to point to at our finger tips for her works or anyone else?

Hawkeye if you happen to keep such a library of her interveiws perhaps you would be kind enough to points out times where she did not preformed up to standards?

The burden in any case would seems to be your as you are the one taking the position that she fails and that her failure have some connection to her female plumbing.

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

That's just so much typical babble of yours--news anchors don't occupy "high profile" leadership roles; no matter how much bullshit you spread on this field, nothing's gonna grow.

0 Replies

Another Woman Fails in a High Profile Leadership Role

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know