The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric

Did you watch?

I never watch the news, but I watched this.

It was interesting. Yesterday's premiere felt a little awkward, like the show was still finding itself, and I sensed that Couric was a little nervous. But today's was as smooth as butter.

I really enjoy the format of the show. The set is beautiful, and I love all the different camera angles. It's really interesting how Couric will be standing for some parts of the show and sitting for others. She ended tonight's show sitting on the edge of the anchor desk.

I mean, that's awesome.

The graphics are very pretty (I notice news graphics more now that I work with someone who creates them for a living), and the monitors on the set are huge.

As far as the content of the show goes, I'm not really sure. Yesterday's news seemed too superficial. One of Couric's goals was to give more time to analysis of the lead story, but somehow I didn't feel the analysis added enough to be worth sacrificing other stories.

Today's newscast was different, as the main feature was Couric's exclusive interview with President Bush. I did enjoy that, as I felt it was pretty balanced and thorough.

I also like the Free Speech segment, in which people sound off for a couple minutes about a topic near and dear to their hearts. Yesterday's, from the Super Size Me guy, was quite good; I really liked it. I was kind of busy working during today's, so I didn't really hear too much of it, unfortunately.

Rush Limbaugh is going to be on tomorrow. I can't wait.

I'm not sure how the new Snapshots segment is going to be used. For the premiere, they ran...pictures of Suri Cruise.

-_-

As I said to Amanda, "What is this, Inside Edition?"

There are plenty of things that are more newsworthy than the first-ever pictures of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' baby OMG. Here's hoping that segment won't just be a gossip column.

But in all, I am optimistic about Couric's term as anchor. The big question in all this was whether a morning show personality could make the transition to serious evening journalism. It seems to me that in this case, the answer is yes.

(Also exciting are the myriad web features Couric has developed. A simulcast of the newscast, web-exclusive videos and analysis, photo galleries...she's really taking advantage of the medium. I'm impressed.)