TVNewser columnist Gail Shister joined Howard Kurtz on Reliable Sources yesterday to discuss Katie Couric‘s possible exit from the CBS Evening News. Shister described the dilemma:
It’s an impossible situation. She can’t win for trying, because when she came in, they were talking about reinventing the newscast, which is what they did, and it was soundly rejected by the traditional news viewers who wanted a more traditional newscast. So, she gives them a more traditional newscast, and now she’s just like the other people. So basically she can’t win.
Later, Kurtz gave his “two cents” on the matter:
I mean, if you look at the cold, hard Nielsen numbers, yes, you would have to say that Katie Couric has failed. But drawing nearly seven million viewers a night is not failure compared to other forms of media delivery. Going to Iraq, anchoring on Super Tuesday, interviewing General Petraeus, that’s not failure either. If “The Washington Post” circulation goes down, we don’t say the newspaper has failed. So I think we’ve been too quick to throw that word around.