I suppose I should examine why I don't watch Katie Couric. But I have a hard time working up the mojo. My indifference to her is comparable to why I don't care who wins American Idol, Survivor, or The Bachelor's rose. It's just not my thing. If it's yours, great. But I just don't care.

This past week has seen The Wall Street Journal break what is supposed to be big news that Couric will not stay on past this fall's election and that she may be gone before the tulips are up here in Minnesota. Then, The New York Times jumped in with a dissection of Couric, and the LA Times did a good job of dissecting all of CBS's financial woes, all of which combined had a great deal to do with WCCO-TV redlining weatherman Paul Douglas from its "overhead" costs. Then today, we have Jeffrey Dvorkin, NPR's former ombudsman (who out there remembers the Star Tribune's short-lived ombudsman/Readers' Representative?), bemoaning the screwed-up priorities at CBS when it shells out $75 million for a  "celebrity anchor" while reducing its foreign bureaus from twenty-eight in the 1970s to five or maybe seven today. (There's a scrap going on with Dvorkin's commenters on that matter.)

The line from Couric to Paul Douglas is pretty obvious and not worth belaboring. On the one hand, both suddenly represent an expendable cost in a down market although $15 million a year is a lot more than the $500–$700k WCCO was laying out to Douglas. On the other hand, I'll continue to argue that Douglas came a lot closer to delivering the job-description goods for his money than Couric has for hers. Either way, TV news' long-held belief in the extraordinary value of "celebrity" news performers is coming under intense scrutiny.

(One detectable line of muttering out of 'CCO is how many middle class, behind-the-scenes employees will be sacrificed in order to maintain 'CCO's pricey anchor-succession bench in expectation of Don Shelby's departure in 2010. In essence, the question is: "If the value of expensive anchor talent is suddenly open for full review, why not make those cuts now and save the bodies needed to deliver the actual product, on-air and online?")

The "don't get me started" screed in here is that by gutting the actual content-providing elements of his news division, CBS boss Les Moonves, a former CBS entertainment division chief—and a damned glib guy over cocktails, I can tell you from direct experience—, left himself and his news minions with little other choice than to play the "celebrity" card and save money by flogging cheaper-to-follow stories (round-the-clock campaign horserace stuff) whenever possible. (The $7 million-a-year CBS is spending on its Baghdad bureau isn't exactly helping coverage of other significant international stories.)

Here's a question with no possible answer: How much more do you think we Americans would know about North Korea, China, Robert Mugabe, and our close, dear friends in Saudi Arabia if our major television news networks sacrificed "celebrity" appeal for reporting chops? (In terms of a solution, there's always the BBC model, where citizens are charged roughly $100/year for reporting that is far, far more varied, detailed, and nuanced than what we get from any of our commercialized news dogs. The cost person person for PBS here in the States? About $1.40/year, and the usual suspects are always screaming about "socialized media.")

Anyway, Couric. I've caught her act a few times—early on when she had that ill-formed "Free Speech" segment (and she was showing a lot of leg) and periodically over the months, including a couple nights ago when she was in Britain interviewing Prime Minister Gordon Brown. And I have examined my inherently dark, reptilian, misogynistic attitudes.

And I still gotta tell you, she seems affected. Worse. Silly affected. Even with Brown, as dour a wonk as you can imagine, she gave off the same this-close-to-giddy vibe I've seen her get with George Clooney. You almost expect her to ask for his autograph. To be sure, the hairy-backed pros, guys such as Bob Schieffer, Dan Rather, Ted Koppel, etc. have all done silly interviews, where they were either too respectful or too confrontational for their own good. But with Couric, there is always this sense that "I" am on camera.

I'm tempted to say that she feels like someone always working too hard for a "meaningful relationship," a heartfelt, earnest connection, whether with her interview subjects or her audience at home. I never had the feeling Peter Jennings, for example, ever gave his "yearning to connect" that much thought. Sometimes dispassion is a virtue.

Maybe it is misogyny on my part. Maybe I am so screwed up, I can't stand the thought of being told about Hillary's latest campaign screwup by a female TelePrompTer reader. But I think I'm deeper than that. Not much maybe, but a little.