More on Katie Couric

Evidently her ratings have dropped by 1/2 since she debuted as the new anchor for CBS Evening News; on Monday CBS was in third place.

Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Katie Couric's reign as the top news anchor ended this week as CBS Corp.'s newscast dropped to third place.

Less than a week after Couric's debut as anchor produced the biggest audience for the network in eight years, ``The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric'' attracted 7.49 million viewers on Sept. 11. That trailed NBC's 8.27 million and ABC's 7.87 million, New York-based CBS Corp. said today in a statement, citing figures from Nielsen Media Research.

Couric's ratings have declined since the first broadcast on Sept. 5 attracted 13.5 million viewers, the most for the network since February 1998. Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said he knew there would be a dropoff after the initial broadcasts from Couric, the former ``Today'' show co-host.

Meanwhile, CBS Corp. President and CEO Les Moonves proclaims his confidence in Couric.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Katie Couric got a vote of confidence from a very important viewer Tuesday — her boss, CBS Corp. President and CEO Leslie Moonves.

"I am very pleased with what's happened with Katie," Moonves said of her performance so far as anchor of the "CBS Evening News."

"I think what Katie brings is accessibility," he said. But he stopped short of calling the newscast user-friendly, he said, because he didn't want to be accused of turning it into "Entertainment Tonight."

Of course he does. What else would he say? One of the obvious "he could be lying but he can't tell the truth" occasions that afflict people in prominent positions in our culture.

Now there have been some "studies" in which it is shown men pay more attention when men are speaking than when women speak; other studies record that men use only half their brain when listening (although the implications for their ability to listen are unknown). [It is also observed that men have difficulty picking up non-vocal cues.] Now, is this a behavior that is innate to the male brain? Or is is due to the acquisition of a habit? The "conclusions" may be more a correlation, rather than a causal analysis, and I am always suspicious of the use of statistics to generalize the results of a survey or experiment.

If in this contemporary economy of ours the senses are overstimulated, it seems inevitable that something or someone will lose out when they trying to hold our attention through our senses.
Or, maybe men have a (bad) habit of tuning out women's voices. Or, it could be innate, but can one do a comparison with the voices of children and men with rather high-pitched voices? If it's not solely the pitch of voice, but the visual cue as well, then I would suspect that something more is at work.

Nonetheless, regardless of what the cause is, it should be asked: Who comprises most of the news watching audience? Men or women? Besides those who tune out because it is a female voice not a male voice delivering the news, how many are irked by Couric's personality? CBS News may be trying to be PC or cutting-edge, but in choosing Katie Couric to be the main anchor, are the execs failling to understand their audience?

[It seems to me Asian news broadcasts will have a balanced newscast, one male, one female anchor. If there is a problem with men tuning out, the switch between the male and female anchors could possibly mitigate this. I don't know if in Asia women anchors and reporters are assigned to certain types of programs and stories (e.g. personal stories) that are plainly aimed at a female audience.]

If men have problems listening to women, it is ironic that during early development they depend much on their mother's talking to them. It seems to me that the mental development of children (with its dependence on language development) would be hindered if the typical male were to be put in the nuturing role for most of the time. As the typical male does not talk that much to begin with, one would speculate that babies and children would be starved for human speech (and all that comes with it and happens as a result of hearing it) if a father were to become the mother. Another indication that women are better equipped to nuture children during their early years, and that the roles of father and mother are not identical? I would think so, but radical egalitarianism (and gender deconstructionism) will not admit any of this.

Lastly, do differences between male and female brains have an impact on true "spirituality"?
Since the activity is supernatural one suspects that differences in matter are insignificant in comparison to the supernatural origin of the activity. Nonetheless, one can admit that someone with ADHD will have a more difficult time sustaining prayer or initiating prayer in the first place--while prayer is a supernatural activity, the dispositions of the body can have an influence on the dispositions of the soul. If we are in an agitated or excited mood, or if our brains have difficulties tuning out "noise" or "calming" itself, then there will be difficulties with prayer. Still, one should not despair that these sort of handicaps and defects will prevent one from being close with God. God knows what He is working with, and if we cooperate with Him, growth in charity can remedy any defect in prayer for which we are not responsible, and one can still attain a high level of sanctity despite such physical obstacles.