Katie Couric has had a huge amount of criticism as a lightweight since becoming anchor. Well, she’s the only anchor who demonstrated any journalistic integrity this morning, in a discussion with Charlie Gibson and Brian Williams of whether (!) TV news did its job properly in the run-up to the Iraq war:
While Katie Couric impressively argued that the media did fail to do its job — pointing out that the White House threatened networks which were perceived to be too critical with cutting off access to the war and that anyone who questioned the war was deemed unpatriotic and all of that “affected the level of aggressiveness that was exercised by the media”
And how did Gibson respond?
I think the questions were asked. I respectfully disagree with the gentle lady from the Columbia Broadcasting System [group giggles]. I think the questions were asked. . . .
I genuinely don’t know where to begin with that response to Couric’s excellent points.
Perhaps this is all a nice demonstration of standpoint theorists’ claims that outsiders are more likely to facilitate knowledge-seeking, since they have less of a stake in the status quo. (And yes, I’d say Couric’s treatment has demonstrated that she is in an important sense an outsider.)
Feminist Philosophers 