Even presidential ticket one-on-ones can't pull Katie Couric to top

Katie Couric landed interviews with virtually every player on the presidential ticket, including strategists and members of Congress, but her ratings appear to have hit the wall. The New York Times tried to defend her performance, among other things pointing out her interviews with Gov. Sarah Palin did attract an additional audience on the Web via YouTube. And the paper quotes a CNN executive calling Couric “one of the very best journalists out there.” It’s useful to compare two of Couric’s interviews, and once you view these, I welcome your comments. As I viewed them, I was surprised at my own reaction.

In the videos below, note the sharp contrasts in technique. Note the smiles for Sen. Joe Biden and the complete pass on his dramatic FDR gaffe, a gaffe caught by most Americans if they’re older than 21 years anyway. Apparently Couric didn’t recognize the gaffe, a fairly large one considering for Dems, FDR is the equivalent of Ronald Reagan for conservatives. Is an anchor who is clueless about FDR qualified for her job, and can you by any stretch of the imagination call her one of the “very best”? Why would media give her a pass about her own gaffe?

It begs a question. Who vets these anchors?

Personally, I didn’t find Palin’s remarks nearly as worrisome as mass media pundits and columnists have claimed. Palin has limited experience doing TV interviews of this nature and doing them with mass media celebs can be unnerving. Just as Sen. Barack Obama improved his one-on-one techniques, Palin will too. I’ve noticed his famous ‘uh-uh-uhs’ have substantially decreased over time, except during his interviews with Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly. Biden has basically not changed in any regard and I doubt he will.

The NYT has the lowdown on the wall ‘CBS Evening News’ has hit. For the week of the Palin interviews, Couric drew “just under 6 million viewers” compared to last year’s draw of 6.2 million viewers. The newscast was in 3rd place after ABC and NBC.

*Videos are used for commentary and review.