Former CBS and NBC anchor-turned-far-left quack Katie Couric sat down for a print interview released Sunday with Oliver Darcy’s website Status in which she claimed that “trust” in the legacy press has declined because of “corporate ownership” from the likes of David Ellison at CBS and Jeff Bezos at The Washington Post. She also gave the broadcast networks a “D” grade for their ability to take on President Trump.
Darcy sidekick Natalie Korach conducted the Q&A, first wondering “what...is the most existential threat facing legacy news media organizations” and “why do you think many people no longer trust mainstream news organizations.”
Couric had the wherewithal to recognize the two are separate because the former has been present for some time, with “the way that people are getting their news and information has completely and utterly transformed” with the rise of the internet.
But on why people no longer trust liberal, elitist media, Couric couldn’t identify either one of those qualifiers as self-inflicted hindrances to connecting with working-class Americans.
Instead, Couric told on herself by citing two newer media owners whose moves in the last two years have been two small ticks to the center:
The trust issue, I think, is connected to the fact that corporate ownership and journalistic integrity don’t always align. We’re seeing that certainly at CBS as this merger is waiting to get approved, and I think you see it at the Washington Post, where the interests of the owner [Jeff Bezos] and Amazon aren’t necessarily copacetic with the interests of investigative and take-no-prisoners journalism. So that’s impacting trust. There are also so many alternatives in terms of news sources, so they’ve become less relevant in the media landscape.
Fact-check: Pants on fire. What a farce to insist moves by two dinosaur news outlets appeal to all Americans, with an occasional diversification of stories at CBS, and the “free markets, free people” mantra in The Post’s opinion section, are causing trust to crater across the country.
The most laughable answer was her letter grade for how ABC, CBS, and NBC have “handl[ed]...pressure from the Trump administration during his second term”:
D. It’s not an F. But unfortunately, the stories coming out of “60 Minutes” about trying to direct the storytelling in a way that is less offensive to the administration or that fudges the truth is a total embarrassment. It’s hard to measure, but there is probably some anticipatory obedience, if you will.
She added that she didn’t “think this everywhere” and “I don’t want to paint everyone with a broad brush,” although FCC Chairman “Brendan Carr has had a chilling effect on some media out there.”
Perhaps the most comical part of the left’s pile-on against CBS News has been a revelation that these people do not regularly consume the outlets they claim to have dominion over.
If they had, they would have seen stories like last week’s CBS Mornings had a story from immigration reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez lamenting an older, white Texas male sobbing over his much-younger illegal immigrant girlfriend being deported. Or how about July 29’s CBS Mornings defending Fauci and the need for gain-of-function research?
In both cases, the fact that CBS still employs Margaret Brennan and The Washington Post still has journalists like Philip Kennicott means they’re anything but MAGA mouthpieces.
Couric also huffed about the Ellisons overseeing CBS News’s parent company, Paramount Skydance. Without offering specifics, Couric said their ownership has been “very concerning” and “from everything I’ve read, Larry Ellison is a big supporter of Donald Trump and that is concerning.”
To Couric’s credit, though, she didn’t take the bait when Korach tried to have her tap-dance on a grave they’ve long dug for CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil and his poor ratings.
Instead, Couric stated what should be obvious, which is the decline in ratings are “more a trend line of network evening newscasts” with an increasingly “much older audience, and that’s been the case for quite a while.”
Korach conveniently left out the fact that Couric’s CBS Evening News was also a third-place show.
Couric did chalk up CBS Mornings’s decline to the management change, arguing an exodus of those viewers might have been due to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s cancellation.
Later, they closed by touting the supposed success of Katie Couric Media, and Korach invited her to name which “big-name anchors and correspondents” who “have left corporate media” have built something “independent...that can actually last.”
Couric’s answer spoke volumes about what a decades-long crock it was to insist she was anything other than a far-left, conservative-hating crank:
MeidasTouch is doing some exciting things. I’m friendly with Tara McGowan, who’s doing Courier News. Obviously, Tucker Carlson has been enormously successful in his venture. Megyn Kelly has been very successful in creating her content. I think a lot of people are out there becoming entrepreneurial. When you talk to them, they feel very liberated by their ability to make decisions quickly, to not have to deal with the bureaucracy.
