Hewitt: CBS “Bought Diet Coke” (Couric) “And Turned It Into Bottled Milk”

Back in March, Katie Couric‘s longtime producer and close friend Nicolla Hewitt left CBS News, “ostensibly because there were no more interviews left for her to book on the Evening News.”

Couric “personally authorized” Hewitt to talk to Joe Hagan for this blockbuster piece.

Hewitt says: “I don’t think CBS was ready for the change they said they were. They bought Diet Coke and turned it into bottled milk. They totally changed the brand.”

Most significantly, according to Hewitt, “the network began to renege on its promises and stopped giving Couric the support she needed to pursue news or command the news division. Management ‘nickel and dimed’ her on ambitious enterprise stories and deferred to what Hewitt called the ‘old guard’ at 60 Minutes on interviews that belonged to Couric.”