Saturday, August 11, 2007
Curry, Williams, Moran
With Brian Williams off taking an anchor's fun vacation — soon to be a news magazine story because they will film a segment about anything (and people will watch?) — Ann Curry has been filling in. With all the to-do about Couric you wonder how people missed that Curry has clearly been superior in a role in which Couric, with all the network support, still struggles with mightily, her ratings dismal. Great speaking voice, a quiet serious demeanor, an attractive woman who does the job without making it a spectacle — here's a vote for Ann Curry, when she decides to run for something, like NBC anchor.
Williams and Terry Moran are the new type news-types. More in your face, quicker on the draw, seemingly less constrained by their living-corporate-logo status, they try to be relevant and net current, and they succeed to an extent. The networks are desperate to feed off the web. Moran in particular is often, for a network talking head, remarkably direct in his blog. Williams was part of an online forum at Slate after The Sopranos closed up shop. Williams, judging by his posts at the Slate forum, is something of an odd duck, heaping allusions and pop references, reflexively piling onto his own references with more references, but never snuggling up to insight, or sometimes, even coherence. Curry, Williams, Moran all seem brighter than their predecessors, give them that.