Katie's Premiere

I watched Katie's debut last night. In a word, meh.

The evening news, network-style, is not useful. An encounter by a reporter with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Chevron found a gusher. After that, it was all dibs and drabs of non-news. A shot of the hearse carrying Steve Irwin's body and the line I always hate, "for more on this story go to our website at..." Hello? I thought it was your job to tell me the story.

The Republicans have decided that immigration isn't important enough to deal with before the election but Katie didn't mention that. We did get to see W likening terrorists to "Lenin and Hitler". Again. The first male prince in 412 years was born in Japan, settling, for now, their kerfuffle over succession. But that wasn't noted. What we got were the first ever photos of Suri Cruise (who appears to be, in fact, human). These were offered during the introduction of one of two new bits which had a lead along the lines of "something we like to call 'There's No Time for Indepth Reporting so Here are some Pictures of a Famous Baby'.

And just in case you weren't sure that network news divisions are now under the auspices of the Entertainment department, Katie ended by telling us that she still didn't have a sign-off and so we were treated to a montage of "goodnights" by the more stellar lights of journalism who came before her. Which in the end only succeeded in verifying that the times have changed and network news has no gravitas anymore. So like I said, meh.

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