Couric’s slip in ratings was just matter of time

KATIE COURIC’s lagging ratings on prime-time news shouldn’t surprise [“Couric in an Unfamiliar Place -- 3rd,” by Matea Gold, Oct. 11].

She has no pedigree of in-the-trenches reporting. Couric honed her skills with bouncy light banter and human interest stories on morning TV. A sudden makeover into the gravitas of evening news doesn’t fool anyone. Add to this off-putting commentaries like her chiding President Clinton for defending himself against a revisionist right-wing blame game on terrorism, and the doubts grow. Add further CBS’ lame-brained “man-on-the-street” commentaries like that of Brian Rohrbough against the teaching of evolution, and CBS emerges as desperately plowing for the populist underbelly of America.

This is not “CBS Evening News” in the legacy of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather, or even the yeoman work of her immediate predecessor, Bob Schieffer. Time to retool.

RODNEY PUNT

Santa Monica

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SADLY, Katie Couric finds herself in a job for which she does not have the aura of authority, experience and gravitas and in which she is not able to take advantage of her pluses (perkiness and a girl-next-door wholesomeness). Her rise (or fall, depending on how you look at it) to anchor is an example of the Peter Principle, in which employees in an organization will advance to their highest level of competence and then be promoted to and remain at a level at which they’re incompetent.

RICHARD SHOWSTACK

Newport Beach