Quite right, Drudge's story is understated. So is there any special reason the Broadsheet piece speaks of a "frenzy" and "circus" and describes media folk as "ready to soil themselves with excitement?" Are we facetiously implying that media are in fact downplaying the significance of Ms. Couric's likely ascension to the anchor chair? Trust, they're saving the milestone analysis for when there's, you know, a story to write.

For what it's worth, Drudge's prominent lead link and image concern the complaints against and by Rep. Cynthia McKinney after her run-in with Capitol Police. There's your media circus. Looking forward to Broadsheet's take.

I don't think the issue is so much that Katie Couric is a woman, it's more that she's ber amount of time perfecting her look, incen holding a not-very-serious journalism job for a many years. I don't know if it's her fault or if it's the Today's show fault, but Katie has spent a LOT of time doing "on-air weddings", fluffy interviews with celebs, cooking in the Today Show kitchen, chatting with Grandma's on the sidewalk outside the studio, etc, etc, as have most the other hosts there. She also has spent a failuding lots of hair color changes, lots of sexy shoes, showing a lot of well-toned leg, and gobs and gobs of shimmery lip gloss. None of this adds to a serious journalist image.

I had to stop watching the show a few years ago when it go so "fluffy" so I don't know what it's like now, but the serioius interviews seemed to really take a back seat on that show. Katie did at one point seem to have more ability, but I don't really know. And if you think I'm being sexist, no, I don't think Matt Lauer is particularly suited to the CBS job either, for the same reaons.

I agree with the gist of Rebecca's piece, but then, I don't understand the cult of personality that seems to spring up around news anchors in general. It really puzzles me that the moves and travails of Couric (or Stone Phillips, or Brian Williams... I'm doing this from memory, and I'm running out of names) makes the news. Is there a charisma I'm missing? Do many latch onto them because they're gateways of information? Is it a parental complex? I mean, hardly any of them strike me as exceedingly attractive, so it can't be the glamour factor. Or can it?

Slate did a tongue-in-cheek piece a few weeks back on the "Aryan sisterhood" of female newsjournalists/anchors, and through that piece I found the TVHeads messageboards, where a bunch of people breathlessly detail the changes in shows, networks, hair, haircolor, and sweaters in their favorite anchors (nearly all female anchors, by the way). It seemed to be mostly guys in the forum, and it was more than a little creepy. I wonder what kinds of relationships these men have with their mothers.

I mean, I don't watch the Big Three's network news or any of the morning shows (that's Brad's sleepy time), so maybe that's it, but then again, I found Chancellor Merkel's election noteworthy beyond the political implications.

How is this going to make women look any better? It's like having Paris Hilton hosting "Meet the Press." That's hawt.

Maybe you have to live on the East Coast to understand why anyone would care which millionaire talking head sits where.

Katie Couric is a person who or maybe her agent is a master at the promotion of Katie Couric. I agree with the writer who referred to her non-journalistic "fluff". She is someone who gives a story to her audience like she should be announcing for one of the celebrity-stalking entertainment shows.

Before Peter Jennings died, I would watch the ABC evening news with an occasional video bounce to CBS Evening News at a commercial break. I intended to continue doing that when the announcement was made that Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff were taking over his anchoring position. I have continued to do that since Bob Woodruff suffered his injury in Iraq - I suppose to kind of honor the news program that gave us Peter Jennings and stuck with him even though the type of journalism he cut his teeth on is pretty much non-existent now due to corrupt corporate control of the airwaves.

I think I'm really through with TV now. I will not watch anyone else on ABC World News Tonight if Vargas is an ass and goes to the VIEW for God's sake. I will certainly be leaving the CBS news alone with the old guard totally gone - no Rather OR Schieffer and only Katie Couric’s insincere mug to look at.

I once thought that nothing could take me away from one of my all-time favorite pastimes - watching TV. This Couric thing has really done it. She doesn’t deserve another dime and unless she grows some journalistic skills, she doesn’t deserve the anchor position. I am thoroughly disgusted - it's the last straw that's toppled over the stack of crap that includes 1) the freeze out of good writers after their last strike in Hollywood which brought the sickening onset of reality TV; 2) the endless pharmaceutical commercials that grow longer and longer and clearly show where the money from the high cost of prescription drugs is going. These commercials - particularly in the time of the evening news shows - illustrate another of my frustrations – (3) that these pricks have LINED UP THE COMMERCIALS! You can no longer go from one program to another and take a good surf because they all air their commercials at the same times and for the same length of time. Then there are 4) no more seasons. The current "seasons" are designed to get you carving out a time in your week for "Lost" or "24" or some other half decent show and then they friggin' air reruns in what used to be the middle of the season. There are like quarterly seasons - your evening is basically ruined unless you become a super sleuth (more of your precious time) to make sure you're not sitting down to something you've already seen when your expectation (from past experience) is to see what is happening next in a story line one week after the other until the 13-week season is over.

The result of these shenanigans is to be roped to the TV with advertising shoved down your throat whether you want it or not and have you sniffing like a dog after their asses while they shit out rotten, substandard programming.

Oh, by the way, A & E, NBC, Court TV, Dateline and the other shows can repackage murders that happened years ago over and over and over and call them new shows and they still won't be new - not new crime or new shows. They are designed not only to reignite the fears of average Americans about crime, but to let these money-grubbing networks make money off of old shit that's already been done. They don't have to pay anyone new for this stuff except maybe an announcer or voice actor narrating the regurgitation.

No consumer power = no motivation to perfect your product (carmakers, Airlines, pharmaceuticals, insurance mobsters, grocers and agribusiness, etc., etc., etc.). That’s the result of one of our fascist government’s favorite party lines that “addresses” what they call "excessive litigation". Consumers, your modes of recourse are dwindling fast.

Yes, this is a rant, but I KNOW television and it is big business and it's doing the same things in the entertainment forum that all business is doing in every forum and industry in America except for a few companies with integrity that are limping along trying to serve the community with no industry support at all.

People need to get hip - really, really fast. I think I’ll take my newly available TV time and write some more letters and attend some more protests and boycott some products that are detrimental my health and my budget.