Did I mention that I'm meeting with Katie Couric on Thursday morning? Well me and 99 or so other Coloradans.
Per Denver Post columnist, Bill Husted:
Katie Couric is due in Denver on Thursday to meet and greet the brass at KCNC-Channel 4, where her CBS Evening News will place its bets in September. She'll hold a kind of Town Meeting for 100 that morning at one of the DCPA's venues. No press allowed, and none of the staffers from KCNC either. Just plain folks telling Katie what they want to see on the news. More than 1,000 people applied to be part of the party. Many are called, few are chosen.
How did I get picked? Well when I signed up online, I wrote that I was a professional blogger, the president of a public charter school, a freelance writer, and a work-at-home mom. I think it was the charter school bit that intrigued them (it's good to be the president) but you never know.
So what the hell am I going to tell Katie?
That I'd like the nightly news to stop scaring us to death or treating us like idiots? That we want people we can trust again, like a young Tom Brokaw, who was virtual member of my family?
After Boo Girl's birth - just a couple of weeks before the Iraq War - I stopped watching the nightly national news and reading Salon.com's political commentary. I just couldn't take news of war, death, and destruction - and how President Bush and the White House was handling it - any more. The local news was no better, just stories of who got shot, what building burnt down, kids who were ill, or inane stories of which panty hose was better.
Is it a matter of "what have you done for me lately"? What purpose does the national nightly news serve, to inform or to entertain us?
UPDATE
Here are some blog posts on what happened at Wednesday's Town Hall meeting in Minnesota:
Hanging with Ms. Couric from Ironic Teachings (excellent, detailed post -seems that the audience was hand picked by the local press, which smacks of some sort of Bushy-like gathering)
Bloggers not welcome at Couric event from Peninsula Press Club
