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Walter Cronkite Says Katie Couric Show 'Coming Around'
"CBS Evening News With Katie Couric" is getting an important endorsement from legendary newscaster Walter Cronkite, one of Couric's predecessors in the anchor chair.
The 89-year-old Cronkite said that he's a fan of her newscast.
"It seems to me it's coming around," Cronkite said during the News & Documentary Emmy Awards ceremony Monday night in New York. "It's like any other brand-new program; it has to feel its way through, but I think it's doing quite well." [Editor's Note: Read more about the Katie Couric experience at CBS News and get this FREE Offer from NewsMax. Click Here Now!]
Cronkite's newscast was known for its just-the-facts approach to the news and along with NBC's "Huntley-Brinkley Report" set the tone for the evening news that exists to this day. Yet in her debut, Couric's approach to the newscast has been more featurey. The former "Today" co-anchor has been anything but shy about adapting the stolid newscast, introducing elements like "Free Speech" into the program.
And in its first week, an independent analysis showed that there were fewer hard-news pieces in the "CBS Evening News" than its competitors, NBC and ABC. But Cronkite said he wasn't worried.
Story Continues Below "It seems to me it's coming around. I thought the first week or so I was a little concerned, but they're moving more of the news of the day into the program," Cronkite said. "I think its balance is a little better than it was in the beginning, and I think it's looking quite good."
Cronkite also paid compliments to Bob Schieffer, Couric's immediate predecessor, who stopped the bleeding after Dan Rather's messy departure in March 2005. Rather took over for Cronkite in 1981. Cronkite, who keeps an office at CBS, lent his voice to the opening of Couric's first newscast September 5. Couric, for her part, provided the narration for an "American Masters" special on Cronkite's career this year. Rather didn't appear on the special.
Meanwhile, Couric's competitors Charles Gibson and Brian Williams, presented at the News & Documentary Emmys on Monday. (Both newscasts won awards as well, with Williams taking home an award for Hurricane Katrina coverage and "World News Tonight" winning for Peter Jennings' "Where Things Stand" series from early 2005.) Gibson joked: "You may have heard there is some competition" between the newscasts. But he added that "we're all in fine voice" and that he's just pleased that people are paying renewed attention to the newscasts.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved. [Editor's Note: Read more about the Katie Couric experience at CBS News and get this FREE Offer from NewsMax. Click Here Now!]
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