Katie Couric - Reporter or Advocate?

[eanax]

www.washingtonpost.com
By Lisa de Moraes
Tuesday, August 14, 2001; Page C07

Katie Couric, Reporter or Advocate?

Katie Couric doesn't need to leave the "Today" show and join the talk-show circuit to do on-air advocacy work on controversial subjects, à la Oprah or Rosie. She's already doing it on "Today."

Yesterday morning, for instance, at the end of a taped interview with the mother and brother of confessed child murderer Andrea Yates, Couric told viewers where to send contributions to the Texas woman's defense fund; the address also appeared onscreen.

"Any money left over will be given to women's charities dealing with postpartum depression and psychosis," added Couric, who is arguably the most influential journalist in America today. Heck, she persuaded hordes of Americans to get colonoscopies simply by having her own, on-air, in March 2000. Couric's National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance, formally launched that same month, raised more than $10 million in just a few weeks, the Associated Press reported. Which is why most major media companies, including Viacom and AOL Time Warner, reportedly are courting Couric to headline news programs or talk shows, as her NBC News contract comes up for renewal.

Couric gave the detailed information about the defense fund -- which was set up late last week -- right after Yates's mother and brother told NBC News correspondent Jim Cummins that they need help paying the legal bills.

"Six people since March, you know -- I just got through paying for my husband's expensive funeral" after his death from Alzheimer's disease, Yates's mother, Karin Kennedy, told Cummins.

Added brother Andrew Kennedy: "The prosecution has unlimited funds. And in a case like this, we're talking about the general expenses of half a million, a million dollars. We don't have that kind of funds."

Still, "Today" spokeswoman Allison Gollust insisted yesterday afternoon that the producers were not worried that inclusion of the defense fund address before the murder case is adjudicated might have given viewers the impression that Couric and/or NBC News subscribe to the idea that Yates was indeed suffering from postpartum depression and psychosis when she drowned her five children, one at a time, in a bathtub on June 20.

Nor are they worried that having Couric tell her 6 million viewers this information might lead them to believe that Couric and/or NBC News believe Yates's actions were defensible if she suffered postpartum depression at the time.

"I don't see how it would suggest that NBC is agreeing or somehow supporting" the defense, Gollust said. "Today" has posted addresses for defense funds before, she said, although when asked if any had been given before a ruling in the case, she said she did not know. Gollust said the show does not have a policy about providing defense fund addresses or 800 phone numbers.

"This is a story that has generated a tremendous amount of interest from our viewers. We thought it was information that might be useful to them," she said.

But yesterday afternoon, after the "Today" segment had rerun twice on MSNBC, NBC News decided to remove the defense fund information before it ran two additional times. "When we realized it might send the wrong message, we didn't include it in the piece," Gollust told The TV Column late yesterday.

The defense fund details also were not included in a cut-down version of Cummins's interview last night on NBC's evening newscast.

Gollust says that running details of the Andrea Pia Yates Defense Fund was not a condition of getting the interview for "Today," and the decision to include the information was made by show executive producer Jonathan Wald, who's been in the post for just three months.

Yates has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to two charges of capital murder in the deaths of three of the children -- the eldest, 7-year-old Noah; John, 5; and the youngest, 6-month-old Mary. She has admitted drowning all five children, also including Paul, 3, and Luke, 2.

District Judge Belinda Hill had imposed a gag order on lawyers, witnesses and investigators in the case but because she allowed Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal to announce last Wednesday that he will seek the death penalty, she allowed the defense team to announce it was setting up a defense fund.

Contacted yesterday by The TV Column for comment on the "Today" show segment, Harris County Prosecutor Joseph Owmby said, "The judge issued the gag order to prevent this type of thing from happening. . . . This has been a most enlightening experience to me in regard to the press -- other than that, I can't comment."

Saturday afternoon's violent weather can be blamed for plenty of dark TV screens throughout the Washington area, but local Pax affiliate WPXW was hit even earlier last weekend.

Channel 66 went dark at about 7 a.m. Saturday due to an electrical malfunction in its Fairfax Station office, said WPXW chief engineer Harold Sharland. A Dominion Power electrical feeder leading into the building "burned up," damaging the transmitter that allows the signal to go out, he told The Post's John Maynard.

The station remained off the air for the next 30 hours.

If that wasn't bad enough, WPXW's transmission tower was struck by lightning just before 7 p.m. Saturday. The lightning took out the building's power and phone lines and damaged other internal equipment, said Sharland, who, Maynard reports, sounded like he'd had a really bad weekend.

The Pax signal was back up on reduced power just after 1 p.m. on Sunday and returned to full power yesterday afternoon.

[Fordman50]

uhhh, mk. Katie at least has a set. that smug little fluff boy, Matt Lower is lame. Hey in TX they kill you first then have the trail. I can see where she's coming from I guess. I didnt see it.

------------------
Winner of the "peoples Choice award" for supreme advocate for the people!

I'm not "always right", it just seems that way

Spelling is for kids! I think you got the point!

[Powerboss]

She is not a reporter, she is most definetly an advocate, a liberal advocate.
I refuse to watch garbage television like that.

------------------
Man — every man — is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
Ayn Rand

[CGord]

Originally posted by Powerboss:
She is not a reporter, she is most definetly an advocate, a liberal advocate.
I refuse to watch garbage television like that.

Hehe, so you watch conservative advocates on a different garbage television station instead! We all listen to the lies we want to hear.



------------------
-Curt

"There ought to be limits to Freedom."

[eanax]

Originally posted by CGord:
"There ought to be limits to Freedom."

There already are...


Anyway, as far as Couric goes, of course she's an advocate. She's biased just like the rest of the media talking heads (all of it - FOX included).

[Powerboss]

Originally posted by CGord:

Hehe, so you watch conservative advocates on a different garbage television station instead! We all listen to the lies we want to hear.

Perhaps some specific examples please.
Who, where, what story?
I dont deny there is 1 network that leans to the right and 4 that are blatantly left but I dont and most conservatives make no bones about it. At least on the 1 that leans to the right you get both sides of the story, with the others its just leftist propoganda.
And I can provide countless examples.
The left seems to think they are trying to fool people in stating they are unbiased in their reporting, that is deceitful and disingenious.
Yeah, Im Dan Rather, I persued Nixon (as he should have) until he went down, I never mentioned Chinagate and said impeachment of Clinton was "just about sex" and a Republican witch hunt. I recently attended a Democrat fundraiser and got caught. I have stated on National TV Bill Clinton is an honest man. Im totally unbiased. Yeah Right!



------------------
Man — every man — is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
Ayn Rand

[CGord]

Originally posted by eanax:
Originally posted by CGord:
"There ought to be limits to Freedom."


There already are...


Anyway, as far as Couric goes, of course she's an advocate. She's biased just like the rest of the media talking heads (all of it - FOX included).

That quote was shrub's reply at a press conference when asked about the satirical website www.gwbush.com.

------------------
-Curt

"There ought to be limits to Freedom."

[This message has been edited by CGord (edited 08-22-2001).]