If Joe Hagan’s New York Magazine article “Alas, Poor Couric” is correct -- that Katie Couric slapped a fellow male editor in anger “over and over and over again on the arm” -- she should be fired immediately.
It appears that feminist spin control is already working overtime. The early release on Drudge indicates “It had seemed like a joke at first, but it quickly became clear that she wasn’t kidding”. But an “insider” claims otherwise: "Look, it wasn't serious, whatsoever.”
But Couric grudgingly agrees that her act was not a mock act: “I sort of slapped him around,” Couric admits. “I got mad at him and said, ‘You can’t do this to me. You have to tell me when you’re going to use a word like that.’ I was aggravated, there’s no question about that.”
This morning, Couric dropped her own countermeasures pointing fingers at CBS, painting them as rigid fuddy-duddies holding her news broadcast back – in spite of all the changes at CBS Evening News making the show “more personable, more accessible, a little less formal, a little more approachable,”.
Sorry, Katie – changing the subject does not change the subject.
Couric and a few other feminist “news” hounds blame sexism for Couric’s failure. I disagree. Being an exciting “reality” talk show personality who gets on-air colonoscopies does not qualify one as a serious news reporter or analyst.
If there is any point about sexism to be made, it is that news does not feminize well. News junkies want the straight stuff not filtered by pink sunglasses bespectacled with catchy bling. In fact, it would be sexist to not hold Couric to the same standards of professional behavior others are held to in the workplace – including the standards on workplace violence.
Couric is a card-carrying feminist who thinks adherence to feminism is more important than facts – revealed when she accused Suzanne Sommers of “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” for proving that feminist statistics on “Football Sunday” domestic violence are hogwash.
Couric now wants a free pass to move feminist faux-patriarchalism into the CBS news room. This would be a smart move only if CBS wants its news show to be rated against Oprah – and lose there too.
Here is the take-away that CBS has yet to realize: at the gut level, most Americans know that feminism suffers from an insurmountable credibility gap of its own making. Americans believe in equality, but know that feminism is no longer a vehicle working for it. Most Americans will never accept a self-absorbed feminist activist as an oracle of wisdom or fact. Mark Twain forespoke CBS’s management mistake this way: “Never teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.”
If a male news anchor slapped a female staffer even once, he would be out the door before the news even hit the streets. Physical violence is never acceptable in the workplace – even if your name is Katie Couric.
David R. Usher is Senior Policy Analyst for the True Equality Network and President of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, Missouri Coalition
