Couric Watch: Hartman Says “Anybody Would Be Thrilled To Have Katie”

Rome Hartman has known Katie Couric since they both worked in Washington in the late ’80s, Gail Shister says. So what does the new executive producer of the CBS Evening News think of the Today Show host?

“We haven’t been in touch in many years,” Hartman says. “There’s a lot of speculation, and I don’t want to contribute to it. I think she’s wonderful, and everybody knows that. Anybody would be thrilled to have Katie Couric.”

(Of course, Hartman’s promotion to EP “is seen as a temporary assignment,” this week’s B&C notes. “If Couric comes aboard, she’ll want to handpick the person who runs the flagship newscast.”)

> Also: “The anchoring job of the evening news is still the most prestigious job in American journalism, certainly in television journalism. It is the pinnacle,” former ABC newsman Robert Zelnick tells the Los Angeles Times…