Tag Results for Katie Couric

"Beat the Press" panelists sound off on their rants and raves of the week: Topics include the Tea Party closes its doors to the media; Candy Crowley's new gig at CNN; demanding more transparency from South Hadley school officials following a student's suicide; Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly square off; and Katie Couric's photoshoot for Harpar's Bazaar.

We've all done it.

I'm talking about receiving that gift we didn't need and then giving it (repackaged, of course) to someone else who might actually find it useful. The fact that we saved a little cash? So much the better.

Well, increasingly it seems that local radio is becoming a home for re-gifted television news. On "Beat the Press" Friday, one of Emily's items during the panel peeves fourth segment was actually an attaboy to WBZ Radio, which has started carrying the first 10 minutes of the CBS "Evening News" as part of its evening programming.

Last Thursday, the Boston Herald's terrific Jessica Heslam reported on her Messenger Blog that Worcester's WCAP (980 AM) will today become the first radio station in the country to carry the audio portion of ABC's "World News Tonight" with Diane Sawyer from 6:30 to 7 p.m.

Both Emily and Heslam had a glass-half-full reaction to the news. Heslam called it "great news for commuters who aren’t home in time to catch the evening news." Emily loved it as well, although she wasn't happy with how WBZ clumsily handled the transition out of Couric's show back into their one Traffic on the Threes, saying the CBS broadcast seemed to fall off the cliff.

For journalists who for years have resented the steady loss of news programming on radio, it's an understandable first instinct to praise any re-introduction of high-quality news programming to the audio airways. Radio stations, meanwhile, get to save money by not having to produce the news themselves.

But the question remains: Does re-purposed television audio make good radio? "60 Minutes" has broadcast its audio feed for years, but "60 Minutes" is ... well, "60 Minutes." The show's  stories are generally compelling enough to overcome the fact that, sometimes, it's hard to make sense of what's going on without seeing the pictures.

It's an issue for anyone who re-purposes their television audio for radio, including those of us here at WGBH with "Greater Boston: Radio Edition," our new Saturday broadcast of the audio portion of our "Beat the Press" show and a selection of the week's highlights from "Greater Boston" that airs at 2 p.m.

What do you think? When radio stations repackage television news audio is the broadcast half empty or half full?

The publication of Sarah Palin's new book, Going Rogue, has the former GOP Vice-Presidential candidate on virtually every media platform. Oprah Winfrey promoted her interview as a “world exclusive.”  ABC News just called it “exclusive.” Newsweek’s cover photo of Palin has been called sexist.  How has the news media portrayed Palin?

"Gosh, we've got this wild, wild West of the Internet," Katie Couric says during her first Facebook chat, "Unlimited real estate - doesn't mean anyone's looking at your house. But what the heck?"

It's an awkward, somewhat brave Facebook foray for the flip-flop-clad Couric (who claims she had to ditch her painful heels). But it's also part of a strategy.

The CBS evening news has lagged behind ABC and NBC almost since the beginning of Couric's tenure in 2006.  During the 2008-2009 season, for example, Couric raked in just over 6 million viewers, while ABC logged close to 8 million, and NBC topped the competition with nearly 8.7 million. More important, perhaps, Couric did relatively poorly with viewers between 25 and 54 (1.8 million, as opposed to 2.36 and 2.6 for ABC and NBC respectively).

So Couric - who, with Diane Sawyer's arrival, will no longer reign as the only female anchor - is looking to establish a presence online.

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