I’m gonna take a big swig from my cup of Schadenfreude.
COURIC FACES PAY CUT; DEEP LAYOFFS HIT CBSNEWS
Wed Feb 03 2010 09:11:21 ETCBSNEWS anchorwoman and 60 MINUTES contributor Katie Couric faces a dramatic pay cut at the network, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT.
CBS boss Les Moonves is determined to save money and trim expenses — from top to bottom — at the former crown jewel of broadcasting.
Couric, the highest paid TV news personality in history, commands over $14 million a year, plus bumps for non-EVENING NEWS appearances.
But her salary is now in the direct line of fire, network insiders explain, and a populist backlash against Couric’s cash is said to be forming inside the newsroom.
“She makes enough to pay 200 news reporters $75,000 a year!” demands a veteran producer. “It’s complete insanity.”
The angry source continues: “We report with great enthusiasm how much bankers are making, how it is out of step with reality during a recession. Well, look at Katie!”
http://www.drudgereport.com/flashkcc.htm
More:
……It had been a rough day at CBS News. Four and a half years earlier, CBS chief Les Moonves had joked in The New York Times Magazine about bombing the news division. And now, among the seasoned veterans of the newsroom, there was a sense that the detonation had finally gone off. Earlier that morning, CBS News executives and bureau chiefs, led by senior vice president Linda Mason, told their employees that 2009 had been a disastrous year in the ad market. They had no cable operation to buoy the sinking revenues. It’s not you, was the message, it’s us. Dozens of employees—including staff members in D.C., San Francisco, Miami, London, Los Angeles and Moscow—were being let go. The changes were effective immediately. There would be no buyouts. According to one longtime staff member, the network had long ago negotiated away most of the severance clauses in staff members’ contracts.
http://www.observer.com/2010/media/
What these articles fail to mention is the Fourth Estate has morphed into the Fifth Column, and people are sick of it. Fox News outshines the other networks, MSM and cable combined. That’s because Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Neal Cavuto, Britt Hume, and the morning crew of Brian Kilmeade, Steve Doocy, and Gretchen Carlson, don’t denigrate America or the military. They focus their criticism on corrupt, mealy-mouthed politicians and entertainers who can’t seem to get it through their thick skulls that America and capitalism aren’t the boogymen they portray.
Fox News is a counter point to the MSM’s leftwingnut propaganda, Obama love fest, and incessant anti-American fault-finding.
That’s why CBS, along with other MSM networks, are occupying the ratings sub-basement.