With tomorrow marking one year since Katie Couric began anchoring the CBS Evening News, there’s no shortage of commentary on the occasion. In the L.A. Times, Matea Gold writes that CBS has “gone back to the fundamentals as they try to shake off the disappointment of Couric’s debut season.” Gold says that while “veteran CBS staffers…are particularly gloomy”, Couric herself is “more optimistic and engaged than she has appeared in some time.”
In today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, Douglas Durden asks if Couric is “cursed by being first”: “Like Barbara Walters, the first female evening news co-anchor 30 years ago, Couric, first woman to solo anchor a network evening newscast, had almost too much riding on her.”
And from New York’s Newsday: Verne Gay writes that the “inaugural years for any major-league anchor are customarily rough. Tom Brokaw was tagged a lightweight by the press, Dan Rather was ridiculed… Don’t even ask about Barbara Walters or Connie Chung.”