Katie Couric, Whore
Mac and I were on KOPT (AirAmerica) radio yesterday morning doing our monthly gig, and the reaction to my little "Rocky" mashup was gratifying. So if you'd like to download the mp3 (1.3 megs, 2:47) click here: http://www.hartwilliams.com/!rocky.mp3 Right click and choose 'save as'. Makes a great ice-breaker at political rallies. Now ...
859 articles this morning trumpeted the ascendance of Katie Couric to the CBS news anchor's chair. It is supposed to be yet another, increasingly meaningless, "FIRST" for women -- although I remain unconvinced that Couric is, in fact a woman. If yesterday's performance was any indication, she is a triumph of audio-animatronics, as robotic as they come, but a remarkable simulacrum of human life. ("The skin is so lifelike!")
859 articles discuss the finale of the GOP putsch of CBS news (finally getting even for Edward R. Murrow's shellacking of Senator Joe McCarthy). None notes the death of news. None notes that Couric entered the studio a whore, with Viacom acting as her pimp.
I must apologize to whores everywhere for the comparison, here. Still, if the soiled lingerie fits, one must wear it, and Viacom/CBS/Katie Couric left such a foul stench in the bedclothes of the national discourse that the metaphor is more than appropriate, and, again, I apologize to whores for it. Because I've known some decent whores. I didn't see a thing last night that was decent at all.
Consider the headline in the San Jose MERCURY NEWS: "Couric's CBS debut includes first photos of Cruise baby"
What a succinct summary of the redux of CBS news! Scooping the NATIONAL ENQUIRER! Whoo hoo! The whores and pimps of tabloid row must be green with envy (or veneral pox, take your pick).
It was, friends, gawdawful. Couric looked like she was either attempting to force gravitas to ooze from her pores, else she was severely constipated. Fine: some first night flop sweat is understandable, but it was PHONY. False. Ersatz. Fraudulent. Fake. Bogus. Sham.
Almost as bad as the coverage of the disaster. Here's some leads (names not suppressed so as not to protect the criminally lame):
For thirty years since I left high school, I have listened to an unending litany of joyful shrieks as anything that a woman had now done was the equivalent to Neil Armstrong's "one small step." After awhile it grows tedious. And after still longer, it grows offensive.
And, finally, as with the coverage of the disaster of last night's broadcast, it becomes criminal: as if Kouric's gender were the ONLY thing that mattered, and as if it covered for what was, in fact, an amateurish performance on a soft news show unworthy of the soft-news bilge that Couric used to shovel out in her prior incarnation on NBC's Today Show.
[For those of you who are still grappling with it, I'll attempt to help you out: Equality means just that: No more; no less.]
Haven't we moved beyond the circus side-show freak modality of viewing women? Is her genitalia REALLY such a big deal unless her performance is sexual? (Which it wasn't.) Are we still astonished that a woman can speak, read, write, operate heavy machinery?
Good lord. Grow up, America. Of course they can.
[And, if this offends you in any wise, then riddle me this: When will the moment come in our march to 'equality' that people AREN'T viewed through an exclusively genital lens? When WILL people be seen based on what they do and who they are, and NOT on the position they take for urination? Or on secondary sexual characteristics most often seen as useful in the mammalian suckling of young? I'd really like to know. Meantime, I will continue in my satanic manner to view people as people, and judge them by their deeds and words, and not by their plumbing.]
Of course, the Boston Herald takes the prize for the most revoltingly sexist lead:
I give up.
Doesn't ANYBODY get that this sexual obsessiveness is JUST as demeaning to the women as the men? I mean wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where Katie Couric might have gotten the job without having to flash her breasts? Or just because CBS considered her qualified?
The problem with this mindless tokenism is that it strips the woman who actually DOES accomplish something of her fundamental personhood and humanity: it makes it seem that IF she didn't have tits and a cunt, then she wouldn't have gotten the job! Schweet bouncing buddhas.
Stop it. (The media was disgusting in its obsession over the gender of the newsperson, and not at all interested in the quality of that news.)
I don't give a shit, frankly, whether Katie Couric sits or stands to pee: the only thing that ought to matter is whether or not she did the job, and the blunt answer is NO. Unless, of course, her job was to act as a media whore for a propaganda machine oiled and maintained to keep the public from its "right to know." (That "right to know" that the vile media have flogged for two centuries as the excuse for their most egregious excesses, and now use as the cover for their betrayal of that very 'right.' Were there justice, we'd take these blow-dried phonies out and horsewhip them in the public square.)
And in that respect, Murrow must be spinning in his grave. But then, ANY journalist worth his salt should be. Or well on the way to that dank destination. Truth is increasingly meaningless, while style is all. Thus, PEOPLE Magazine reviewing the broadcast. The "news" broadcast.
Tom Shales got the lead right in his Washington POST article this morning (until, that is, he crashed on the sexist shore of genital evaluation):
Can no one in America just LOOK at the newscast? (Or should I say, the NON-newscast?) But, to be fair, Shales DID nail the fundamental sexism that marked the debacle of Couric's debut on the new, de-Ratherized CBS News:
The story that "stood out" -- as if one turd could be seen as exceptional in a dark cesspool of faux nooz, or truth noir -- was the story on the big oil strike in the Gulf of Mexico. Rather than lead with the story, as NBC Nightly Nooz did, they shunted it to the middle of the broadcast (no pun intended), with a pre-commercial teaser about the segment entitled "Eye On Your Money."
Having announced the oil strike, the reporter visited the drilling rig in the gulf, then waxed poetic about the troubles the oil companies have had, a bad thing that happened during Katrina, and how it won't have any immediate effect on the price of gas -- As THOUGH it possibly could! So much for giving a damn about "your money." The story was unfocused, dream logic: incoherent, leading to no actual point, and featured one of the great moments of clueless popularization ever recorded.
"How much oil is that?" oozed the unctuous CBS newsman, condescending to we, poor, unwashed. "Let's put it this way, with that much oil, you could drive your car 55 million miles."
(Quote and numbers may not be exact.) Unbelievable: you take an incomprehensible figure (billions of barrels of oil) and translate it into an equally incomprehensible analogy (leaving aside the fact that not all oil translates directly into gasoline, but also provides asphalt, paraffin, plastics, etc. etc. etc.) Having never driven a mere MILLION miles, I have no idea what the hell the idiot was talking about.
But then again, it is perfectly consistent with the report, which was supposed to be about a big oil discovery, and how it affects your pocketbook, and could manage to illuminate neither bit of information. Crackerjack stuff.
Even the comatose Howard Kurtz at the Washington POST noticed: "But it was mostly about Anthony Mason touring an oil rig, with more of the correspondent in the piece than is customary in nightly news reports."
Couric interviewed Tom Friedman, NYTIMES columnist in a fundamentally pointless and irrelevant bit of moronic fluff, and introduced a "new" feature, which is nothing more than a national version of the old Fairness Rule 'guest editorial.' The editorialist was the fellow who shot the documentary "Supersize Me" and he cried out for civility in public discourse.
Fine. When you identify a schlock documentarian as an "author," THIS author has some civil discourse for you, CBS and Katie: FUCK you. That's right: FUCK you, and fuck the snake you slithered in on.
Just because you aren't journalists doesn't mean that because you call yourself by that title you get to call non-authors "authors." Keep your vile distortions and lies to yourself, and I'm sick to fucking death of civil discourse. I've tried to reason with the right wing fucks, and now I'd just as soon shoot the bastards as talk to them.
Speaking of which, the "free speech" segment will feature Rush Limbaugh on Thursday. (I guess three hours a day wasn't enough for the drug-addled gas bag).
There was more, but I leave it to you, gentle reader, to check out the 859 articles and stories about the non-event that Katie Couric's taking the helm at CBS' not-the-news turned out to be.
Compare and contrast this with this short and to-the-point post on Preemptive Karma today:
MSM Doing a Bang-Up Job!
It was reported yesterday that a big part of the media hype over the Couric anchor-drop was a story about James Horner (Oscar-winning composer of soundtracks, including Star Trek II, Titanic, Braveheart, Field of Dreams, Apollo 13, and other modern classics) who was trying to compose the new "theme" for the Katie Couric show, all 10 seconds' worth ... Well, let the Wall Street JOURNAL complete the odious tale:
Of course the problem isn't Katie Couric, per se. But she's the whore who laid down for her paying customer, Viacom. There is no "moral superiority" in this cesspool. It's just a cesspool: one that's stealing your right to know, and, therefore, your democracy from you. And if you aren't mad, then you're a collaborator, and history itself, and your children will judge you harshly for rolling over and playing dead.
Speaking of which ....
Of course, The Washington POST's lickspittle "media critic" Howard Kurtz creamed all over himself in his article today. You'd have thought that Joe Pulitzer himself had risen from the grave for this landmark event:
When journalists who are morons review moronic exercises in journalism, the output is sure to be moronic. Way to go, Howie. You've justified our faith in you. ("Media critic" my ass. Kurtz is the lapdog antithesis of media criticism, and if EVER we needed criticism of a supine and subjugated media, it's NOW, kiddies.)
Yeah. She's running a contest for her "signoff" line. You heard that right. I've got a suggestion: "We're CBS and you're fucked." It's short, sweet, and, more to the point, the truth.
And besides, the whole "newscast" was "me" news, in case you hadn't noticed. Me: Katie. Me: Anthony Mason. Me: Lara Logan.
And, finally, here's how to be a sexist dumbass using the Queen's English:
Just remember to always use a condom: You don't know where that anchor's chair's been.
Courage.
.
859 articles this morning trumpeted the ascendance of Katie Couric to the CBS news anchor's chair. It is supposed to be yet another, increasingly meaningless, "FIRST" for women -- although I remain unconvinced that Couric is, in fact a woman. If yesterday's performance was any indication, she is a triumph of audio-animatronics, as robotic as they come, but a remarkable simulacrum of human life. ("The skin is so lifelike!")
859 articles discuss the finale of the GOP putsch of CBS news (finally getting even for Edward R. Murrow's shellacking of Senator Joe McCarthy). None notes the death of news. None notes that Couric entered the studio a whore, with Viacom acting as her pimp.
I must apologize to whores everywhere for the comparison, here. Still, if the soiled lingerie fits, one must wear it, and Viacom/CBS/Katie Couric left such a foul stench in the bedclothes of the national discourse that the metaphor is more than appropriate, and, again, I apologize to whores for it. Because I've known some decent whores. I didn't see a thing last night that was decent at all.
Consider the headline in the San Jose MERCURY NEWS: "Couric's CBS debut includes first photos of Cruise baby"
What a succinct summary of the redux of CBS news! Scooping the NATIONAL ENQUIRER! Whoo hoo! The whores and pimps of tabloid row must be green with envy (or veneral pox, take your pick).
It was, friends, gawdawful. Couric looked like she was either attempting to force gravitas to ooze from her pores, else she was severely constipated. Fine: some first night flop sweat is understandable, but it was PHONY. False. Ersatz. Fraudulent. Fake. Bogus. Sham.
Almost as bad as the coverage of the disaster. Here's some leads (names not suppressed so as not to protect the criminally lame):
- People Magazine: "Frankly, it was all very unedifying..." (of course, PEOPLE Magazine talking about "edifying" is like Michael Savage talking about "reasoning together.")
- "Katie Couric became the first female solo anchor of a network newscast last night, the culmination of pointlessly intense media interest and a significant ..." SF Chronicle
- "Katie Couric's debut as CBS anchor came on a slow news day. But she filled her half-hour broadcast with new segments and feature stories." Chicago Sun-Times
- "The most talked about TV program of the season came off without a hitch last night when Katie Couric made her debut as the first solo woman anchor in TV ..." Louisville Courier-Journal, KY
- "A woman anchored the CBS Evening News alone Tuesday night, and the House of Murrow did not fall down." Houston Chronicle
For thirty years since I left high school, I have listened to an unending litany of joyful shrieks as anything that a woman had now done was the equivalent to Neil Armstrong's "one small step." After awhile it grows tedious. And after still longer, it grows offensive.
And, finally, as with the coverage of the disaster of last night's broadcast, it becomes criminal: as if Kouric's gender were the ONLY thing that mattered, and as if it covered for what was, in fact, an amateurish performance on a soft news show unworthy of the soft-news bilge that Couric used to shovel out in her prior incarnation on NBC's Today Show.
[For those of you who are still grappling with it, I'll attempt to help you out: Equality means just that: No more; no less.]
Haven't we moved beyond the circus side-show freak modality of viewing women? Is her genitalia REALLY such a big deal unless her performance is sexual? (Which it wasn't.) Are we still astonished that a woman can speak, read, write, operate heavy machinery?
Good lord. Grow up, America. Of course they can.
[And, if this offends you in any wise, then riddle me this: When will the moment come in our march to 'equality' that people AREN'T viewed through an exclusively genital lens? When WILL people be seen based on what they do and who they are, and NOT on the position they take for urination? Or on secondary sexual characteristics most often seen as useful in the mammalian suckling of young? I'd really like to know. Meantime, I will continue in my satanic manner to view people as people, and judge them by their deeds and words, and not by their plumbing.]
Of course, the Boston Herald takes the prize for the most revoltingly sexist lead:
- "Katie may have leg up, but it's not on news Boston Herald, By Mark A. Perigard. CBS is spending $15 million a year on Katie Couric. That comes to $7.5 million per shapely leg."
I give up.
Doesn't ANYBODY get that this sexual obsessiveness is JUST as demeaning to the women as the men? I mean wouldn't it be nice to live in a world where Katie Couric might have gotten the job without having to flash her breasts? Or just because CBS considered her qualified?
The problem with this mindless tokenism is that it strips the woman who actually DOES accomplish something of her fundamental personhood and humanity: it makes it seem that IF she didn't have tits and a cunt, then she wouldn't have gotten the job! Schweet bouncing buddhas.
Stop it. (The media was disgusting in its obsession over the gender of the newsperson, and not at all interested in the quality of that news.)
I don't give a shit, frankly, whether Katie Couric sits or stands to pee: the only thing that ought to matter is whether or not she did the job, and the blunt answer is NO. Unless, of course, her job was to act as a media whore for a propaganda machine oiled and maintained to keep the public from its "right to know." (That "right to know" that the vile media have flogged for two centuries as the excuse for their most egregious excesses, and now use as the cover for their betrayal of that very 'right.' Were there justice, we'd take these blow-dried phonies out and horsewhip them in the public square.)
And in that respect, Murrow must be spinning in his grave. But then, ANY journalist worth his salt should be. Or well on the way to that dank destination. Truth is increasingly meaningless, while style is all. Thus, PEOPLE Magazine reviewing the broadcast. The "news" broadcast.
Tom Shales got the lead right in his Washington POST article this morning (until, that is, he crashed on the sexist shore of genital evaluation):
A title change would seem to be in order. Maybe "The CBS Evening No-News." Or "The CBS Evening Magazine." Or "30 Minutes."You are invited to read it. It makes several good points, but when Shales decides to comment on Couric's attire, I realized that he'd slithered from media analysis to fashion show critic with only a slight grinding of gears and very little smoke.
Whatever it was, Katie Couric did a brisk, engaging job of getting the strange new show off the ground last night as, at long last -- and after one of the most relentless hype hurricanes in history -- she debuted as the first woman to be solo anchor of a major network newscast. K-Day had come at last!
Can no one in America just LOOK at the newscast? (Or should I say, the NON-newscast?) But, to be fair, Shales DID nail the fundamental sexism that marked the debacle of Couric's debut on the new, de-Ratherized CBS News:
"Yesterday, though, was apparently a no-news day in the opinion of Executive Producer Rome Hartman, the staff and Couric herself, since the half-hour began with a '60 Minutes'-style piece on the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.But why are we surprised? I don't bother trying to get my news from ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN or MSNBC. (At least with Fox, you know you're being conned, although I don't watch them either). My 99-year-old father-in-law gave up on CNN last month. He'd given up on all the rest earlier, and after a century of reading the newspaper, and watching the news, he can't believe this crap either. He cancelled his subscription to the local paper months ago when he decided that there wasn't any actual NEWS in the newspaper.)
"The real purpose of this report was to show off Lara Logan, the intensely telegenic reporter who serves as foreign correspondent. She went undercover in Afghanistan, much as Rather had done many many years ago. But as a woman, Logan said, her Taliban hosts 'insisted I cover everything but my eyes.'
"The story was in fact largely about her -- about how dangerous it was to do the story, about what a big, "unprecedented" exclusive it was (Brian Ross seemed to have much the same story on ABC's 'World News Tonight' with Charles Gibson) and how she had to tippy-toe away from the camp through a minefield, led by a guide."
- Deseret News: "Couric's newscast wasn't without showbiz elements. It was either very brave or very stupid to unveil the 'exclusive first photos' of Tom Cruise's baby on Couric's first night, opening her up to charges of being a lightweight..."
The story that "stood out" -- as if one turd could be seen as exceptional in a dark cesspool of faux nooz, or truth noir -- was the story on the big oil strike in the Gulf of Mexico. Rather than lead with the story, as NBC Nightly Nooz did, they shunted it to the middle of the broadcast (no pun intended), with a pre-commercial teaser about the segment entitled "Eye On Your Money."
Having announced the oil strike, the reporter visited the drilling rig in the gulf, then waxed poetic about the troubles the oil companies have had, a bad thing that happened during Katrina, and how it won't have any immediate effect on the price of gas -- As THOUGH it possibly could! So much for giving a damn about "your money." The story was unfocused, dream logic: incoherent, leading to no actual point, and featured one of the great moments of clueless popularization ever recorded.
"How much oil is that?" oozed the unctuous CBS newsman, condescending to we, poor, unwashed. "Let's put it this way, with that much oil, you could drive your car 55 million miles."
(Quote and numbers may not be exact.) Unbelievable: you take an incomprehensible figure (billions of barrels of oil) and translate it into an equally incomprehensible analogy (leaving aside the fact that not all oil translates directly into gasoline, but also provides asphalt, paraffin, plastics, etc. etc. etc.) Having never driven a mere MILLION miles, I have no idea what the hell the idiot was talking about.
But then again, it is perfectly consistent with the report, which was supposed to be about a big oil discovery, and how it affects your pocketbook, and could manage to illuminate neither bit of information. Crackerjack stuff.
Even the comatose Howard Kurtz at the Washington POST noticed: "But it was mostly about Anthony Mason touring an oil rig, with more of the correspondent in the piece than is customary in nightly news reports."
Couric interviewed Tom Friedman, NYTIMES columnist in a fundamentally pointless and irrelevant bit of moronic fluff, and introduced a "new" feature, which is nothing more than a national version of the old Fairness Rule 'guest editorial.' The editorialist was the fellow who shot the documentary "Supersize Me" and he cried out for civility in public discourse.
Fine. When you identify a schlock documentarian as an "author," THIS author has some civil discourse for you, CBS and Katie: FUCK you. That's right: FUCK you, and fuck the snake you slithered in on.
Just because you aren't journalists doesn't mean that because you call yourself by that title you get to call non-authors "authors." Keep your vile distortions and lies to yourself, and I'm sick to fucking death of civil discourse. I've tried to reason with the right wing fucks, and now I'd just as soon shoot the bastards as talk to them.
Speaking of which, the "free speech" segment will feature Rush Limbaugh on Thursday. (I guess three hours a day wasn't enough for the drug-addled gas bag).
There was more, but I leave it to you, gentle reader, to check out the 859 articles and stories about the non-event that Katie Couric's taking the helm at CBS' not-the-news turned out to be.
Compare and contrast this with this short and to-the-point post on Preemptive Karma today:
MSM Doing a Bang-Up Job!
It was reported yesterday that a big part of the media hype over the Couric anchor-drop was a story about James Horner (Oscar-winning composer of soundtracks, including Star Trek II, Titanic, Braveheart, Field of Dreams, Apollo 13, and other modern classics) who was trying to compose the new "theme" for the Katie Couric show, all 10 seconds' worth ... Well, let the Wall Street JOURNAL complete the odious tale:
... for the past three months, Mr. Horner has been working on what he says is one of the biggest challenges of his career: Writing a 10-second clip of music that will introduce Katie Couric each weeknight on the "CBS Evening News." The process has been strenuous, in large part because Ms. Couric and CBS brass wanted him to pour an ocean of imagery into a musical teacup.Yeah. Wind through the wheatfields, which is a lot of what the news content of last night's "Premiere" reminded me of. Infotainment, with less and less info and more and more tainment. Alas. One can either laugh or cry, but I find myself doing both.
"It must be urgent and serious, yet light," says the program's executive producer, Rome Hartman. "Flexible, yet memorable. Regal and encompassing the grand history of CBS News, yet moving forward."
The music couldn't sound too similar to the "Roman fanfares" of NBC and ABC, Mr. Horner says, adding, "Katie told me she wanted something that reminded her of wheat fields blowing rather than Manhattan skyline."
Of course the problem isn't Katie Couric, per se. But she's the whore who laid down for her paying customer, Viacom. There is no "moral superiority" in this cesspool. It's just a cesspool: one that's stealing your right to know, and, therefore, your democracy from you. And if you aren't mad, then you're a collaborator, and history itself, and your children will judge you harshly for rolling over and playing dead.
Speaking of which ....
Of course, The Washington POST's lickspittle "media critic" Howard Kurtz creamed all over himself in his article today. You'd have thought that Joe Pulitzer himself had risen from the grave for this landmark event:
Katie Couric broke the mold last night. Her "CBS Evening News" was more magazine show than news show, more "60 Minutes" than Cronkite headline service. In fact, the number of full-fledged stories about something that happened yesterday amounted to -- let me count here--one.Yeah, Howie. Who the hell needs "news" on the news? I mean with that journalistic quality being "pretty high" (which is, coincidentally, what Kurtz seems to have been while watching the show and/or writing his "review) and all.
From her "Hi everyone" greeting to her closing appeal for people to go to the CBS Web site to suggest a signoff line, you knew you were looking at something different.
And the journalistic quality was pretty high.
I'm sure some will say there wasn't enough news in the "Evening News." And they will have a point. But that's the tradeoff if you're going to do longer, more textured pieces and new features on a half-hour broadcast.
When journalists who are morons review moronic exercises in journalism, the output is sure to be moronic. Way to go, Howie. You've justified our faith in you. ("Media critic" my ass. Kurtz is the lapdog antithesis of media criticism, and if EVER we needed criticism of a supine and subjugated media, it's NOW, kiddies.)
Yeah. She's running a contest for her "signoff" line. You heard that right. I've got a suggestion: "We're CBS and you're fucked." It's short, sweet, and, more to the point, the truth.
And besides, the whole "newscast" was "me" news, in case you hadn't noticed. Me: Katie. Me: Anthony Mason. Me: Lara Logan.
And, finally, here's how to be a sexist dumbass using the Queen's English:
Couric's debut a news milestoneI guess CNN, Fox, MSNBC and the rest don't count. Just the old "big three," right? A "big three" that's becoming increasingly irrelevant, and, if Katie Couric's "performance" (literally) last night is any indication, rightly so.
Times Online, UK
The newscaster Katie Couric became last night the only woman to head an evening news programme on a US television network when she presented her first edition of the CBS EVENING NEWS.
Just remember to always use a condom: You don't know where that anchor's chair's been.
Courage.
.
posted by ed waldo at 7:31 AM
6 Comments:
So Eduardo, how come there are no comments after most of the day has gone by?
Sorry, but me and the other two people who read you must have had other things to do today.
[prior comment has been deleted]
Sorry, 'pophore' but you don't get to promo a pay-porn website as a 'comment' on this blog. You're welcome to promote your business (assuming it's legal and all) via the normal routes. s'OK? OK.
You know?...I think you wasted too much effort in trying to tell, to talk us about something so unimportant than another bitch just getting millions, that nobody bother to put comments on this. Don't feel bad about it. Just talk about important issues and we will get into it.
Anonymous #2:
I didn't bother to answer the first "anonymous" who is just monitoring the ongoing series for their employers and is, evidently, feeling bitchy. But if you'll go over to "BlueOregon" you'll see how many clicks this got just there, and then multiply that by the number of remailings that this blog has from regular remailers with their own mailing lists, you'll understand why the first comment really wasn't worth replying to.
I know you're trying to make us feel better about our "failure" but, as usual with rightie trolls, their facts are actually fictions.
Normally I just let the comments ride -- I don't believe in deleting comments, unless, like pophore, they cross the line into the clearly inappropriate.
Correction: LeftyBlogs Oregon (all posts)
I have a sign-off suggestion for Katie:
"Leave the money on the dresser."
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