Zip It, Katie

I watch the Today show every morning while I’m procrastinating on getting ready for work, and lately I’ve been distinctly relieved on the days when Katie Couric isn’t there. I’ve been finding her increasingly annoying to the point that I can barely stand to listen to her.

I wasn’t always this way. I used to love Katie Couric. I used to want to BE Katie Couric. But then, I also used to like babydoll dresses with platform Mary Janes and/or baggy flannel shirts over bodysuits and baggy jeans and boots.

Here’s why I don’t like Katie Couric anymore:

  • Ever-weirder hair and fashion choices (although I can’t really talk; see above). I guess it’s no reason to dislike someone, but when you add this up with everything else, it matters.
  • Obnoxious tendency to play dumb with her coworkers and to play smart with her interview subjects. Neither tactic works.
  • Poor interview techniques that are driving me BATSHIT effin’ CRAZY.

Wait. Bullet list over, because this is serious. This is the thing that’s really getting to me.

It doesn’t matter if Katie’s interviewing someone about a pair of shoes, or about heart disease, or about criminal corporate lobbyists (thanks, Mike) – I can pretty much bet my morning Diet Coke that she’s going to do any or all of the following:

a) Interrupt/talk over the guest;
b) Ask questions and then feed the guest the answers she wants;
c) Interject her personal opinion, sometimes supporting it with bullshit “facts,” sometimes to the point that the interview heads into yet ANOTHER All About Katie kind of direction;
d) After completely hijacking the interview, interrupt the guest again for running over the allotted segment length, and get all impatient when the guest tries to finish his/her damn sentence.

Maybe Katie should just have a show where she’s the star and everyone pays attention to her and we get to sit for hours on end and listen to whatever Katie thinks is important. Oh, wait. We already have that. It’s called THE TODAY SHOW.

And also, did anyone see that episode a few weeks ago when they brought Richard Simmons on the show and Katie took him down to the control room and tried to make all the staff members in the control room drop what they were doing and work out on the spot, and THEN proceeded to begin singling out staff members who needed to get into better shape? On the air?

I wish I could make this shit up. You know you’re in trouble when Richard freakin’ Simmons has to steer your segment back to a place where it’s in good taste.

I used to think that Katie was very smart and with-it and really respected how hard she’d worked to make it so far in her field. I also used to think that she had some kind of extra-special intelligence because she went to UVA, but as it turns out, I know plenty of dumbasses with degrees from The University (as they call themselves). I don’t know if she’s changed, or if I’ve just learned more, but I don’t think she’s the kind of “journalist” who’s a good example for anyone these days.

I might have to find something else to listen to while I’m getting ready for work in the morning. As it is, I realized recently that I’m watching approximately four hours of television news coverage a day – or, at least I have it on – and since I also read news on the internet, maybe I need to find something more useful to do with my time. Like knit a damn sweater or something.

12 Replies to “Zip It, Katie”

  1. It’s her recent hairstyle choices that get me. Probably because I’m completely superficial and all.

    And yeah, I totally wore those EXACT outfits in H.S. — babydoll dresses and flannel shirts over bodysuits. Flannel over bodysuits? What were we thinking?

  2. I like Katie sometimes, but sometimes she doesn’t seem like she’s researched enough about the interview topic. She interviewed someone this morning (I think it was Howard Dean) and made some invalid statement and when he called her on it she said something like, “Oh, well I guess we’ll have to research that and get back to our viewers.”

    But I really can’t stand one of the co-anchors on the Today show. I can’t remember her name, but she’s always doing the work-out segments or “relationship issues” segments and she irritates the hell out of me.

    Obviously, I passively watch this show. It’s really just background noise.

  3. I’m pretty much with you on the Katie rant. One thing I can’t figure out is her eye makeup and lipstick. It always looks so freaking weird.

    And, another thing she always throws into interviews to sound like a smart, tough journalist, is “frankly”. It’s her way of telling the guest she thinks he/she is an idiot. I can’t stand it when she does that.

    One thing I do like about her is her choice of warm, winter coats. She seems to have good taste in that department. So yay, for that.

  4. I like that they’re letting Al do interviews now instead of just weather, cause he’s funny as shit.

  5. This has nothing to do with Katie, but it is about the Today Show. Last semester in Comm Theory we were talking about agenda setting in the media, and our professor showed a clip from the Today Show when some woman was reporting from a flood in PA or somewhere and she’s rowing around in a freakin’ canoe or some shit like the water is just SO deep and in the middle of her report two guys WALK by her and the water is only up to like their shins. Hilarious.

  6. A favorite look of mine from the ’90s: Bodysuit with baggy jeans. “I’m tiny on the top and have an ass a mile wide that I’m dseperately trying to hide!” Also, bodysuits? Tough times in the bathroom stalls.

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