Dan Rather Blasts Katie Couric / Evening News

It seems that Dan Rather attacked Katie Couric / the “Evening News.” After saying that he ‘likes’ Couric, Rather went on to say:

You know, she tried to change networks, which is always difficult and change the programs at the same time. They’ve done all of the usual things. They changed the set. They changed the executive producers. They changed the graphics person, lately, forced out a guy who had been there, Ned Steinberg, for many, many years. They make all those kind of the superficial changes. I do want to say that, I think, under Rick Kaplan, that they have tried to harden up the broadcast in recent days, but that is a relative phrase, harden it up. That , you know, the trend line continues, as I say, dumbing it down, tarting it up, going to celebrity coverage rather than war coverage.

You can watch the video here.

As far as I can tell, Rather is completely right. America’s news has become entertainment. I mean – they even interrupted the news that Pace would be replaced because Paris Hilton had to go to jail.

I really need to get myself Al Gore’s The Assault on Reason. As someone who does not live in America, I cannot truly see what’s going on. I get an overall impression, but I do not see what you see (except for some videoclips on the Internet). Therefore, it is important for me to read up on it (also so I can recognize the dumbing down of the news here in the Netherlands and perhaps do something about it).