Katie Couric

Today, Katie Couric is sitting down with Joe Lieberman for the first on-air interview with the Senator since the Democrats voted on Tuesday in favor of allowing him to retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee.

The interview will take place in Washington and appear on tonight's CBS Evening News.

TVNewser reports that afterwards Ms. Couric will return to New York where she will be making her first appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman since her famous candid camera moment on the show, during one of the craziest days of her life back in September.

And now the fun part begins.

The New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller has an A1-promoted story headlined Internal Battles Divided McCain and Palin Camps, in which she reveals all about the Republican candidates' failed bid for the White House. This comes a day after Newsweek broke new ground on the Governor's campaign trail spending spree and Carl Cameron told FOX News (FOX News!) that the woman New York Times columnist Bill Kristol favorably compared to Andrew Jackson didn't know what countries were in NAFTA or that Africa is a continent. (This clip comes via Andrew Sullivan.)  read more »

Felix Gillette sits down with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, who says, "I really would like more time," said Ms. Couric. "Because I think time is not our friend at the Evening News."

Leon Neyfakh looks at Steve Rubin, publisher of Doubleday, and writes, "Steve Rubin would like everyone in book publishing to know that the 16 people who were laid off from Random House’s Doubleday division last week lost their jobs because he thought it had to be done, not because the new guy in corporate told him so."

Gillian Reagan spends some time with Kevin Ryan, "the former CEO of DoubleClick, the modest web start-up that morphed into the largest online ad-serving company in the world. In July 2005, the company was sold to the private-equity firm of Hellman & Friedman LLC for $1.1 billion. Google bought it last year for $3.1 billion, nearly double the size of their payout for YouTube."

Plus: Bolstering New York's Media Industry... Fall books... Times Real Estate Section Ad Dearth.

On the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 31, Katie Couric sat down in the Olympic Flame diner at the corner of 60th Street and Amsterdam, and ordered a cup of coffee. Outside, the weather was mild. Beams of sunlight streamed through the window. A woman dressed in some sort of elfin costume strolled down the sidewalk.

Ms. Couric said that as a kid, her mother liked to dress her up on Halloween as a drunken doctor. The coffee arrived.

O.K., Ms. Couric, it’s trick or treat time: What would you want from CBS, the network that paid you a reported $15 million a year to lure you from your perch at NBC’s Today?

 read more »

The Web is revving its engine for tomorrow's big night. Here's where you can tune in on your computer and your iPhone:

ABC News is offering live streams of its own TV broadcast and they'll have Web cams at the McCain and Obama campaign headquarters. CBS News will be offering county-by-county, up-to-the-minute results with live blogging, and a simulcast of its TV coverage, starting at 6:30 p.m. Around 2 a.m, Katie Couric will live chat with viewers on CBSNews.com and CNET.com. MSNBC has a neat results widget, which posts real-time results to your blog or Facebook profile. CNN YourRaces allows you to customize your own tracking tool (with local races too), and then watch the results in real time through CNN's site or on your  read more »

Today, Salon's Rebecca Traister has a terrific essay analyzing the success of CBS's Katie Couric, CNN's Campbell Brown, and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow during this year's presidential campaign.

From the piece:

While pondering the meaning of this year's 18 million cracks in the White House ceiling, we might easily have missed the shower of shards falling from other glass domes, like those atop television newsrooms. In the final weeks of October, days before what many consider the most crucial election of our lifetimes, the probing interviews, fine-boned analysis and buzzy commentary showing up on television screens and Internet browsers all over the country are often delivered not in the deep rumble of a wizened Uncle Walt but in a higher register belonging to one of several female newscasters to have kicked ass, taken names and otherwise owned the coverage of the 2008 election.

 read more »

Ana Marie Cox, former Washington Editor of Radar, conducted a long interview with CBS News political analyst-turned-McCain-Palin campaign advisor Nicolle Wallace for Tina Brown and Barry Diller's Web site, The Daily Beast. (The Observer's Felix Gillette spoke with Ms. Wallace earlier this month.)

Early on, Ms. Wallace jokes that she walks her dog, Lily, "in Central Park with a group of wonderful, flaming liberals who I love and I love their dogs," but soon enough, Ms. Cox gets down to some serious questioning:

What are the media lessons people can learn from this election?

I think the networks have re-emerged as the arbiters of what story gets through.  read more »

Last night on the CBS Evening News, as part of the excellent ongoing series, "Presidential Questions," CBS News' Katie Couric asked both presidential candidates about the last time they had cried and why.

Their responses:

OBAMA: This one is pretty easy. It was Malia, my 10-year-old daughter's birthday party. We were in Montana. And you know, she's a Fourth of July baby. So often times, during this campaign, we'd be traveling during birthdays. And so we were in this small hotel, I think a Holiday Inn. And we had this big public thing. The staff organized for a smaller family party.  read more »

"My personal theory is that she’s something that they can’t grasp," CBS News commentator-turned-McCain advisor Nicolle Wallace tells Felix Gillette of Sarah Palin. "They don’t know how to process her. She is beautiful, accomplished, successful, pro-gun and pro-life. They’ve never seen all those things in one package. She totally disorients many in the liberal media, especially a lot of the women."

John Koblin reports that Moneyball author Michael Lewis will be leaving Portfolio and The New York Times Magazine for an exclusive gig at Vanity Fair. "In the pantheon of great narrative journalists, Michael Lewis is pretty much at the top," says VF editor Graydon Carter. Plus: Times Metro Section’s Big Flatbush Wake

Who will write the great non-fiction account of this election, wonders Leon Neyfakh. "[A]re these not extraordinary times? Even the skeptics seem to agree that this election has been one of the most captivating and unpredictable in history..."

Plus: Drop.io... Buffalo Guys... Darren Aronofsky.

Before Nicolle Wallace took over the role of senior adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign, the wrangling on the evening news in recent weeks over Sarah Palin’s performance in interviews with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric might have been the kind of on-air debate she relished.

“Governor Palin did fantastic,” the 36-year-old told The Observer in a telephone interview on the afternoon of Oct. 6.

But since she took on this high-level communications job with the campaign in May of this year, Ms. Wallace has had to relinquish her spot as a G.O.P.-credentialed commentator for CBS News.

Her analysis would have been provocative: In the aftermath of the Palin-Couric encounters, pundits took turns pummeling the Alaska governor’s apparent lack of preparation and arguing about just how much the interviews had damaged her credibility as a vice presidential candidate.  read more »

Today, Sarah Palin sat down for an interview with Carl Cameron, the chief political correspondent for Fox News. In one portion of the interview, Mr. Cameron asked the Alaska governor about her recent stumbles in interviews. Governor Palin took the opportunity to take a shot at Katie Couric of CBS News. (This comes via Politico's Michael Calderone.)

Here's what Governor Palin said:  read more »

With Katie Couric's stash of amazing Sarah Palin footage running perilously low, we thought we'd check back in with the CBS News anchor's personal YouTube channel.

Lucky us!

Turns out that yesterday, Ms. Couric posted her latest candid camera video, which was shot last week at the University of Mississippi on the eve of the first presidential debate.

There, Ms. Couric catches wind of a banner bearing her name hanging outside the university's Delta, Delta, Delta sorority.  read more »

In case you missed it last night on the CBS Evening News, there was another jaw-dropping moment between Katie Couric and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

As part of the ongoing series called Vice Presidential Questions, Ms. Couric had just finished asking Ms. Palin why she disagreed with Roe v. Wade (she had asked the same question to vice presidential candidate Joe Biden earlier).

Here's what happenend next.  read more »

Tonight's CBS Evening News will feature more of the interview Katie Couric conducted yesterday in Ohio with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Over the past week, the ongoing series of Couric-Palin interviews has developed into one of the most fascinating, must-see sub-narratives of the 2008 campaign. Tonight's episode promises not to disappoint.

Courtesy of CBS News, the transcript:

Gov. Palin at Monday’s event in Columbus, OH: I do look forward to Thursday night and debating Senator Joe Biden. We are going to talk about those new ideas, new energy for America. I'm looking forward to meet him too. I've never met him before.  read more »

Earlier today, Katie Couric caught up with Senator John McCain and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who were campaigning in Ohio.

At one point during the interview, Ms. Couric asked about an apparent difference in positions between the two politicians on the same ticket.

"Over the weekend, Gov. Palin, you said the U.S. should absolutely launch cross-border attacks from Afghanistan into Pakistan to, quote, 'stop the terrorists from coming any further in," said Ms. Couric. "Now, that's almost the exact position that Barack Obama has taken and that you, Sen. McCain, have criticized as something you do not say out loud. So, Gov. Palin, are you two on the same page on this?"  read more »

Observer Beijing correspondent Tom Scocca, via IM, on what this might have looked like if Sarah Palin had stuck with sports TV:

tomscocca: COURIC: "Governor Palin, do the Jets have a chance in the AFC East?"

PALIN: "The Jets, well, in what respect? In respect to playing football? With the east? It's important to remember that they're in the American--the American Conference, and, um, not only that but in the East, and one thing I know is that in America, in the Americans, you can do anything if you stay with it, as I, as I see the Jets--you know, New York! It's a big city and a city that can make champions, in anything, let alone--you know, football, Katie.

 read more »

Today, Katie Couric sat down with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for the third on-air interview with the elusive VP candidate since the Republican convention.

The interview will air tonight on the CBS Evening News. In the meantime, CBS producers have posted a brief clip from the interview on their Web Site.

First impressions: no scenic Alaskan backdrop (like with ABC's Charlie Gibson). And no letting down of her hair (like with Fox News' Sean Hannity). Also: much more pink clothing and increased chatter about another Great Depression.

On Saturday, Sept. 6, Drew Griffin, a correspondent for CNN, arrived with his camera crew at the home of Chuck Heath, the father of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin.

Mr. Griffin was there for an interview. He had landed in Wasilla, Alaska, three days earlier, fresh off the Hurricane Gustav story, and was now charged with reporting on the life of the charismatic Alaska governor for a CNN documentary to be called Sarah Palin Revealed. There, alongside the driveway of Alaska’s first dad, Mr. Griffin saw something he’d never seen before: A 15-foot tower of stacked moose antlers. Holy Alaska!

 read more »

It's official: CBS News has announced that Katie Couric will get a shot at interviewing Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

From the release:

Katie Couric will spend two days traveling on the campaign trail with Governor Sarah Palin on Sunday, September 28 and Monday, September 29, conducting an exclusive interview to be broadcast on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric beginning Monday (29). Coverage will continue on Tuesday, September 30 on The Early Show and CBSNews.com. Coverage of Couric's travels and interview with the Republican Vice Presidential nominee will include behind-the-scenes access and Palin with Senator McCain as they campaign in battleground states.

According to reports on Politico and TVNewser, the McCain campaign's new "lipstick on a pig" web ad has been removed from YouTube after CBS's lawyers objected to its use of a quote by CBS News' Katie Couric, which the ad took out of context.

Steve Krakauer of TVNewser has the story:

The clip is from one of Couric's Reporter's Notebooks back in June when she criticized the media for some of the coverage of Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign. The McCain ad, which was hastily produced for the Web, implies Couric is being critical of the Obama campaign. A more complete quote from Couric's June Notebook: "Like her or not, one of the great lessons of that campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life, particularly in the media."

Katie Couric will anchor the CBS Evening news from the Gulf coast on Monday night, CBS News announced today.

More from the CBS press release on the network's hurricane/convention coverage:

--CBS News Correspondents Cynthia Bowers, Randall Pinkston, Byron Pitts, Dave Price, Tracy Smith and Hari Sreenivasan will report from the area for all CBS News broadcasts.

--The Early Show's Harry Smith will anchor from the area beginning tomorrow morning (7:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT), along with Early Show Weather Anchor Price.

--CBS News' live Republican National Convention primetime specials-Monday, Sept. 1 through Thursday, Sept. 4 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET; check local listings) will include coverage of both the hurricane and the RNC.

 

Verena Von Pfetten, the living editor of The Huffington Post who chose to live-blog The Huffington Post Oasis for The Huffington Post, has had enough of live-blogging.

"I've given up on the liveblogging because I've got waaaaay too much other shit to do. But it was fun while it lasted," she wrote in an e-mail.

She's moved onto other assignments for her Living Section, but it hasn't stopped the media celebs, exhausted by the slim pickings at the "Media Spa" in Media Pavilion 4 and the Captain Morgan lounge in Media Pavilion 2, from dropping by. Charlie Rose and Katie Couric are the most recent dinosaurs who traveled out of the media perimeter at the Pepsi Center for their own Ayurvedic consultations and free samples of Pangea Organics Egyptian Geranium with Adzuki Bean & Cranberry Facial Scrub.

The Commission on Presidential Debates announced today the roster of moderators for the three presidential and one vice-presidential debates coming up this fall.

PR Newswire has the details:

First presidential debate
Friday, September 26
The University of Mississippi, Oxford, Miss.
Jim Lehrer
Executive Editor and Anchor, The NewsHour, PBS

Vice presidential debate
Thursday, October 2
Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.
Gwen Ifill
Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour, and Moderator and Managing Editor,
Washington Week, PBS

Second presidential debate (town meeting)
Tuesday, October 7
Belmont University, Nashville, Tenn.
Tom Brokaw
Special Correspondent, NBC News

Third presidential debate
Wednesday, October 15
Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y.
Bob Schieffer
CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent, and Host, Face the Nation

Not on the list: Katie Couric, who was the only broadcast evening news anchor not to moderate a single debate in this year's primary season.  read more »

VH1 has yet another fashion-themed reality show coming this fall. The subtly titled Glam God is brought to you from stylist Phillip Bloch and Vivica A. Fox, and will crown the next celebrity stylist. [The Cut]

In an interview with an Israeli newspaper, Katie Couric compared herself to Hillary Clinton, claiming that sexism is more tolerated than racism. [NY Daily News]

Lauren Conrad, who just last week bailed on a Humane Society charity event, has reportedly continued her diva behavior in the Hamptons this past weekend. After flying in via chopper to host a party at Lily Pond, Ms. Conrad arrived late and was anti-social.  read more »

During the prolonged political primary season this year, CBS News was the only major American commercial network news division not to successfully sponsor a single debate. But it looks like CBS execs are trying to get an early jump on the general election.

To wit: yesterday Veterans for Common Sense--a consortium of military and veteran nonprofit groups--announced that they are teaming up with CBS News to sponsor and produce a town hall forum, focusing on issues facing the military and veteran communities.

According to yesterday's release, CBS News and their partners have invited Senators Barack Obama and John McCain to participate in the event, which would take place at the Bell County Expo Center in Belton, Texas (near the Fort Hood military base), at 9 p.  read more »

Declaring the president of the United States the "Worst Person in the World," is apparently no biggie these days, what with his historically low approval ratings and all that. But saying the same about Katie Couric?

Outrageous! (Historically low ratings may not apply in this case.)  read more »

The jewelry collection belonging to Christina Onassis, daughter of shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, will be auctioned off at Christie's in London. It's expected to bring in about $5.8 million. [WWD]

Brandon Davis stopped into Lily Pond and Dune in the Hamptons over the weekend, but didn't pay for the bottle service. [P6]  read more »

Gossip Girl's Ed Westwick and Chace Crawford post their very private photos on the very public Photobucket. And there is one where Chuck--sorry, Mr. Westwick--is in bed with a girl! [Gawker]

Steven Tyler said he checked into rehab to treat a foot injury, which is of course a specialty of Celebrity Rehab's Dr. Drew. [US Weekly]

Meanwhile, Kirsten Dunst, is being questioned going to rehab for depression since Cirque Lodge said it does not admit people to treat just depression. [Radar]  read more »

Ever since word of Katie Couric's supposed lame-duck status at CBS News spread far and wide across the Internet last month, the ratings at her evening news show have continued to drop.

Now, Steve Krakauer at TV Newser is reporting that CBS Evening News with Katie Couric hit a new low last week.

"The broadcast averaged 5.33 million Total Viewers and 1.54M in A25-54." reports Mr. Krakauer. "The week of April 21, the previous low, the broadcast drew 5.34M Total Viewers and 1.58M in the demo."

In the latest clip in what we like to call the "Candid Katie" series on YouTube, Ms. Couric gets down with Bette Midler at a ‘60s-themed benefit on the Lower East Side.  read more »

In the new issue of The New Yorker, television critic Nancy Franklin takes a look at Katie Couric's performance on "The CBS Evening News."

Her verdict?

Not super!

"Couric's interpretation of the role of anchor led her to repress the qualities that drew people to her in the first place, and she often comes across as hollow and robotic," writes Ms. Franklin. "I'm never as aware that anybody is reading from a teleprompter as I am when I'm watching Couric."  read more »

On Friday, May 9, counterintuitively lewd comedian Sarah Silverman appeared at Columbia University’s Alfred Lerner Hall in a benefit show for Project A.L.S., which raises money for the study and treatment of a not-very-hilarious neurodegenerative disease. Instead, her monologue evoked an old favorite: starving African children. “I don’t send them money,” Ms.  read more »

On Tuesday April, 22, Steve Krakauer of TV Newser was the first to report that CNN's suspender-wearing newsman Larry King had re-upped with the cable news network through June 2011.

   read more »

The North Carolina Democratic Party has just announced that the proposed April 27 presidential debate in North Carolina has been officially cancelled. The star-crossed debate would have been hosted by CBS News--and would have been Katie Couric's first opportunity to prove herself as a debate moderator on a national stage.

From the web site for the North Carolina Democratic Party:  read more »

Felix Gillette braves the crowds outside NBC's Today Show to find Katie Couric's most loyal fans. "'Katie’s hot,' said Craig Bellew, who was visiting from Clarkesville, Ga. 'She should come right back here. I grew up watching her on Today. And it’s easier to say her name then—what’s the other girl’s name? Anyway. She’s hot.'

Speaking of Ms. Couric, John Koblin looks at how a whiff of a story (Katie Out at CBS?) becomes conventional wisdom in our Print 2.0 world. The New York Times. 'It used to be you came in the next day and your editor would say, "Well, we won today," or she’d say, "Looks like we got beat like a drum," and that would be the end of it. Now it’s this ongoing game of catching up and staying ahead.'"  read more »

On Monday morning, shortly after 7 a.m., Mark Sollars, a chatty teenager in a gray hooded sweatshirt, stood in a crowd at Rockefeller Center and glanced over a police barricade at the alfresco portion of NBC’s Today studio.

Sensing a potential interview subject, NYTV pounced. So what exactly should Katie Couric do next with her career?

“Katie should come back here,” said the young demo-defying Today fan. “This is where she belongs. Everyone loved her here.”

Nearby, production assistants had decked out a slab of Today’s outdoor set in Western décor (haystacks, etc.), in anticipation of an upcoming feature on lasso lessons.  read more »

On Friday, before he got sidetracked, Senator Barack Obama suggested that he might bow out of a proposed April 27 debate in North Carolina to be hosted by CBS News and moderated by Katie Couric and Bob Schieffer, reports the Charlotte Observer.

"In a telephone interview with the Observer to discuss his economic plan, Obama doubted whether a proposed April 27 debate at Raleigh's RBC Center would fit with his schedule," reports the Charlotte Observer.  read more »

Filling out the rumors floated in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, today the New York Times reports that a “wide-ranging discussion” about Katie Couric’s future took place among CBS executives back in February:

 read more »

The Wall Street Journal reports:

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.  read more »

• 3 comments