For the record, I am trying to be fair with Katie Couric for her cancer crusades. Just ten days ago, I posted on this site that one of her colon cancer awareness campaigns may have taken a more evidence-based turn - a turn for the better.
But now she's on a six-city tour preparing for her CBS anchor debut in September. And wherever she goes (at least from news stories in the Los Angeles Times, Dallas Business Journal, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune), she is involved in cancer fundraisers - so far for the American Cancer Society and for the Ronald McDonald House in Minneapolis.
Such advocacy involvement is an ethical breach. If she's a journalist, she must be impartial. How convincing would her reporting be (or that of a CBS newscast she anchors), if the American Cancer Society is accused of mismanaging millions of dollars in funds in the future? How impartial would her reporting be (or that of a CBS newscast she anchors) if the cancer causes she publicly supports take stands that are contrary to the best medical evidence? (Something she herself has done with her colon cancer awareness campaigns in the past.) And does her crusading on behalf of cancer causes convey to news viewers that cancer is more important than heart disease (America's leading killer), HIV/AIDS, the uninsured, etc? These are some of the ethical reasons why a journalist's involvement in causes is problematic.
But maybe she shouldn't be viewed as a journalist. As the tour suggests, she is packaged as a perky personality celebrity.
But not in the eyes of WCCO Minneapolis anchor Don Shelby, who, in introducing Couric at one event according to the Star Tribune, invoked "news legends Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite -- comparisons that even had Couric shaking her head."
Gag me. I have studied Edward R. Murrow. I teach my students about Edward R. Murrow. And Katie Couric, sir, is no Edward R. Murrow.
Good night and good luck, if this is the future of CBS News.
Posted by schwitz at July 13, 2006 07:18 AM | TrackBack