What is Dan Rather really trying to accomplish? This is from My Way News.
While referring to Couric as a “nice person,” Rather said “the mistake was to try to bring the ‘Today’ show ethos to the ‘Evening News,’ and to dumb it down, tart it up in hopes of attracting a younger audience.”
Moonves, speaking at an event in New York Tuesday morning sponsored by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, called the remarks “sexist” and said he was surprised at the amount of negative coverage Couric was receiving.
Moonves is right. The remarks are sexist. Rather doesn’t agree, this was part of his response on Fox News.
Look, this isn’t about Katie Couric. It’s nothing to do with her gender. Anybody who reads what I wrote and what I said knows that that’s true.
Nothing to do with Katie Couric?
Ethos
The character or disposition of a community, group, person, etc.
Nothing to do with Katie Couric? Well, what are you referring to when you say “ethos” of the Today Show, Dan? Do you think that Katie had nothing to do with the “character and disposition” of the Today Show? Katie Couric was the face of the Today Show.
Nothing to do with her gender? What does the word “tart” refer to here? He’s not talking about a small fruit pie. He might as well of said “whore it up”. The word “tart” is definitely referring to gender. So, he didn’t say; “Katie Couric is dumbing down and tarting it up”, he was talking about ethos. Ethos my ass. Dan’s trying to play lawyer ball.
In further response to Moonves, Rather went on to say…
What he’s trying to do is change the subject. And, I find it insulting and I find it disappointing, that’s a better word, disappointing. That Les Moonves, who knows a lot about entertainment, would try to mask the real point with that line of attack.
More bush league lawyer tactics. Rather was the one that said, “dumbing down” and “tarting it up”. He is the one on the attack. Moonves is responding, defending his show and anchor. He is on the defense.
More of Danno’s Fox spiel.
My lament is that there once was a line between entertainment and news.
This is priceless. Dan Rather of “courage”, “Kenneth”, and memo gate, the guy that pioneered the technique of inserting himself into the story on network news, is concerned about the news turning into show biz. Danno, you were a big part of erasing the “line” between entertainment and news.
So what is Dan Rather trying to accomplish with all of this? Ironically, the answer is showbiz.
When he said “dumbing down” and “tarting it up” on the MSNBC interview (see yesterday’s post) he made sure he got both digs in twice. He did it twice to make sure that it didn’t go unnoticed. “Dumbing down” and “tarting up” are pre-conceived phrases. They are designed to cause a stir. When he goes on some cable show nobody is watching, to plug his own cable show, and says something controversisal it will become news. It’s no different than Will Farrell going on the Today Show and acting half drunk when he is promoting a movie. It’s no better than the type of stuff Paris Hilton pays people lots of money to conjure up. It’s P.R. It’s showbiz.
Here is the complete Fox News interview where you can see Danno feebly explaining his remarks, lamenting the fact that news is the entertainment business, laughing at his own stupid jokes and pimping his own show.
And in closing, also from Fox News, here is Katie Couric’s producer Rick Kaplan’s response to Rather.
“This is someone who should go through his life quietly.”
“We had to build back from when Dan left,” Kaplan said. “What’s really upsetting is that the same people are still here doing the news as when Dan left; those are the people he’s criticizing. A lot of people at CBS are disappointed that he said that.”
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Tags: Dan Rather, Katie Couric
cindy wrote,
Ive always understood that “tarting up” had its origins with working girls or women in general making themselves up in a manner scandelous as compared to local ladies auxiallry but take it now to mean dressing soemthing up in a gaudy way to make it look better than it is…well katie couric does just that… what works well for a morning show even if shes reporting or interviewing on an important topic does not work for an evening news broadcast…a male equivalent would be ryan seacrest reporting on Iraq…the person and the material just dont jibe…maybe dan does have a problem with female broadcasters but in the instance of couric hes right
and moonves should defend his show his network and his new hire that he had approval of…he should do it in principal and in practice it hides how cloying and tootheless a lot of the cbs newscasting has become after the several seasons of the shit rather stirred up before he left that doubtless cbs felt they had to make up for…”well we can make the evening news cast a little “friendlier” and less hostile after all we still have 60 minutes”
and yes dans collquialisms do inject more himself then say cronkite or brinkley and huntley ever did…but he kept those outve (for the most part) his straight news boradcasts and used em for interviews or discussions inside the broadcast or the 10-12 hours of improv broadcasting you have to do on election nights
and oh my a guy with his own show to promote saying shit stirring controversial things…except for oreily olberman lou dobbs bill maher joe scarbourough etc etc ad infinitum who does that?
Link | June 14th, 2007 at 1:21 pm