CBS anchor Katie Couric strongly defended her 2008 campaign interviews of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, telling a Los Angeles audience Wednesday that her questioning of the GOP vice presidential candidate struck a blow for “old-fashioned” journalism.
Expressing concern about the growing popularity of opinion journalism on TV — which she said amounted to “ideological convection” — Couric said the interviews worked because she kept ideology out of it. “I did it the old-fashioned way,” she said.
Couric accepted a Cronkite Award at the University of Southern California for her Palin interviews. Other Cronkite awards, presented by the Norman Lear Center, went to George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC’s “This Week,” to the public television news program NOW, with host David Brancaccio, and to several local TV news organizations.
Couric spoke with passion about her Palin interviews, which became one of the campaign’s defining moments when Palin stumbled under sharp questioning. Some conservatives criticized the interviews as unfair and designed to exploit Palin’s inexperience. But Couric said one reason they had such power is that they didn’t come from the left or from the right. “Score one for the … MSM,” she said.
After parts of the Palin interviews were played for the audience, Couric said, “No matter how many times I watch that interview I find it absolutely mesmerizing.” She noted that her reference was to Governor Palin, not herself.
Earlier, in a discussion with other Cronkite winners, Couric expressed pointed concern about the fast decline in newspapers’ economic viability. “We rely a lot on print journalism to set the agenda at times,” she said. “It worries me…[h]ow are we going to establish a business model that supports journalists?”
Some of the same forces that are damaging newspapers are afflicting network news as well, but Couric and Stephanopoulos said therein lies a silver lining. “If they come they want real news,” he said. “It’s one of the benefits of the shrinking audience.” Couric, who does a bit of blogging at CBS, said she admired some of the blogging she sees. But, referring to comments she sees on Web sites, she added: I’m appalled by the level of ignorance and hate. “Some of it, she said, “is clearly damaging to civil discourse.” Couric said in the old days, newsroom secretaries would toss letters like that in the trash can.
Couric said she chooses to blog and Tweet sparingly. “I don’t think anybody gives a rat’s ass whether I am about to eat a tuna sandwich,” she said.
You can watch the controversial interview here.