What is Katie Couric thinking?
Katie Couric announced that she is taking a job as an internet anchor of a news show at Yahoo. Couric is still hosting her ABC daytime talk show “Katie” — for now anyway. ABC hasn’t decided if it will renew the show. That may have been a factor in her decision, but what else did Couric, a television network anchor, consider when deciding to take a job hosting an internet show?
Susan Wise Miller, a career counselor in Los Angeles, says that if Katie Couric had asked for advice on whether to take the job at Yahoo, one of the first things she would have done is, “ask her what all the pluses of the new job are.”
One of the pluses, says DePauw media studies professor Mark Tatge, “Yahoo is writing some big checks.”
Another plus of going to Yahoo is the excitement of shaping the future of new media. “Yahoo is going to make some really bold changes or it’s not going to be around,” says Tatge.
Of course. that’s where the other part of the decision-making process, the minuses, or the down side of not taking the new job, come in. “I think Ms. Couric has to also be thinking what the future of broadcast news is and where broadcasting is going,” Tatge says.
Couric clearly believes it’s going in the direction of digital but it was not exactly an all or nothing decision for her. Yahoo and ABC have a content-sharing agreement so at least for now, she will be both the host of an internet news show and appear on network television.
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