Katie Couric Loses 20 Digital Pounds

Chronically perky Katie Couric has as much gravitas as a reporter from Entertainment Tonight. Whenever I see her smiling face on TV, I feel like joining Up With People or buying a National Enquirer magazine.

If CBS wanted to bolster the credentials of its new Evening News anchor, they would have scheduled her to do a round of interviews with a Lou Dobbs or a Tim Russert.

But evidently it's not the producers of Evening News, but the marketing guys who wield the real power. A photograph of Couric appearing in the latest issue of CBS' Watch! magazine was photoshopped to considerably slim down her face and body. While they were at it why didn't they digitally wipe out that silly grin?

I don't care if it's Oprah Winfrey or Calista Flockhart who reads the news, as long as she can read a TelePrompTer without flubbing her lines.

Once again, it was a blogger who discovered this bit of duplicity from the mainstream media. The Web site TVNewser posted the magazine's manipulated photo of Couric alongside the original.

If CBS lives by the motto "style over substance", then why not just hire Paris Hilton to read the evening news? It will be a long time before CBS will have to digitally remove pounds from the emaciated celebrity.

They say that TV adds ten pounds to your appearance, those who have seen Kouric only on the cover of CB' Watch! magazine are in for a shock when they see the full-size Couric make her CBS Evening News debut next Tuesday.