Retouching me, retouching you

As soon as I heard that Katie Couric's image had been retouched in the CBS promotional magazine Watch!, I pulled out my copy ... but had trouble telling where the nips and tucks had taken place.

Howard Mortman gives us a side-by-side that makes it unmistakably clear what CBS's promo butchers were up to.  Plus a funny reaction quote from Bob Schieffer.

Link: Extreme Mortman.

Comments

[KC Cicero]

Why is this news?

Do we think even Walter Cronkite's publicity foto showed warts and all?

This is part of the media's infatuation with itself as the story. Usually harmless -- until Dan Rather becomes the story instead of W's draft-dodgin' ways. Instead of focusing on the real news (W's actual failure to fuflill his Nat'l Guard duties) we get the media news (did Dan authenticate his sources well enough).

Katie's waistline isn't that important.

[Aaron]

Well, I'd say shaving 20 pounds off Katie's hips is high enough to cross the admittedly low, low threshold for what constitutes news these days, so there I'd have to disagree. Also, Cronkite is not the best example to cite since he was never much of a looker.

And sorry, but Dan Rather screwed the pooch. I won't belabor it since you've probably heard me rehearse the facts before. But that story should never have run. Now nobody's going to attempt a National Guard story until long after it will have no impact. Nice going, Dan.

[Susan]

Excuse me, but Dan Rather believed he had good information. (We're not talking about a rank novice...we're talking about a man who has had how long a career in broadcast journalism?) Never mind the opposition planted somebody who gave his people information and then reniged on it. It's hard for me to imagine what kind of research you would have to do to determine that a person who seems legitimate is going to give you a bum steer.

In fact, it happens all the time. The difference is that it is not always so politically charged. And I must agree wholeheartedly with the first commentator that it's...at best...astonishing that the story would focus on Dan Rather's erroneous information instead of the real story which was Bush's failure to fulfill his military obligations...and additionally, the skinny on the person who gave Rather's people bogus information.

Wake up and smell the coffee brewing, friend.

Oh, and about Katie...a new news anchor is always news. ;)

[SaveFarris]

And it was Rather's "belief" that he had good information that led him to drop his (and CBS's) journalistic integrity and not go through a rigourous authentication procedure that would have surely caught the obvious problems with those documents. Hmmm ... personal beliefs being put over professionalism. Hey, hasn't this been the conservative's complaint about the media all along?

As for the Katie touch-up, it's embarrassing but nowhere near as awful as the recent Reuter's photo controversies. I chalk it up to it being August and the MSM's boredom at large.