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Katie: a friend we've grown to know - and trust

By SUE CARLTON
Published May 31, 2006

Weekday mornings, we have a ritual at our house, a delicate ballet involving the TV remote.

At 7 a.m., I click on the Today show. Katie-Matt-and-Al live, news, weather, entertainment, plus screaming tourists waving silly signs outside the New York studio which gives me the chance to start my day with a little Florida weather superiority.

When I leave the room, my husband comes through and switches to CNN.

I pass by again, click, and Katie's back, talking to, oh, Laura Bush or J.K. Rowling. Later, my husband will hit CNN again. And so it goes, until one of us finally leaves for work.

Tomorrow, I relinquish the remote. Because by then, Katie will be gone, so what's the point?

I realize I risk a severe mocking here, but I like Katie Couric. It's much cooler to dismiss Katie (that's what we call her, Katie) as a free-floating dot of dandelion fluff, too cute for real news. (At a reported salary of somewhere around $15-million, plus her new gig as the first solo female national news anchor when she takes the CBS chair in September, I'm guessing Katie's got her hate blockers on.)

Yes, the line between entertainment and news can be blurred into oblivion on shows like Today, alarming if that's the only place you get your information about the world.

But, c'mon. If I want to talk global warming, withdrawal from Iraq or assorted outrages committed by various governments, I'll go looking for Birky-wearing, deadly earnest, determinedly unmadeup Amy Goodman.

At a party, I'd rather talk to Katie.

She was the smart girl in your college dorm, deceptively cheerful, more studier than partier. You always suspected under all that perkiness, she'd one day run the joint.

Yes, she spent years hugging animals on the set and interviewing puffedup celebrities who had nothing remotely interesting to say.

Yes, she put in years on the parade circuit, performing hours of idiotic banter in an excruciating endurance test.

Her attempts at acting - a movie bit here, a sitcom appearance there - were touchingly awful.

She also spoke competently with important political figures, including presidents. Regularly, she sat across from the most interesting person of the moment: John-John or O.J., Hillary, Tony Blair, the Central Park Jogger, the Runaway Bride.

When the news was serious, turned out she didn't have a squishy center after all. Katie was like the world's most competent mother in the emergency room after her kid fell out of a tree and broke an arm.

As her own celebrity grew, she was bad-mouthed for her short skirts, critiqued on each haircut, judged on every highlight job. (Remember that terrible mistake of a do that made her head look like the top of a button mushroom? And weren't some of us thinking, oh, been there?)

When professional women were trying to figure out the politics of wearing open-toed shoes to the office, Katie was already wearing them on screen. Trust her on this.

Okay, it wasn't foreign policy. It was just getting ready for work in the morning.

She handled the 1998 death of her husband, Jay Monahan, with exquisite dignity, and then with purpose.

Nothing mawkish or maudlin; she went away and she came back a little sadder.

Then she pushed for colon cancer awareness, even had that infamous on-air colonoscopy credited with inspiring more people to get tested.

Try pulling that one off with grace.

Some people don't think Katie's got the chops to sit behind that anchor desk, plus do time on 60 Minutes, that her own celebrity will make for a colossal flameout.

I'm betting on a solid, smart, dependable news version of the Katie Couric we already know.

She won't laugh as much. Some of us will miss that. Not to mention the shoes.

Sue Carlton can be reached at carlton@sptimes.com.

[Last modified May 31, 2006, 04:47:09]