You've probably heard the uproar over a re-touched photograph of Katie Couric that appeared in the CBS in-house magazine Watch!.The story was broken via blogger TVNewser. (I have posted the before and after photographs. )
CBS officials have dismissed it as an overzealous employee acting without permission or consent of management.
Okay, firstly, I don't care one way or another about Ms. Couric. Network news and its denizens long ago sold out and lost all credibility with me. Secondly, I don't particularly care about in-house publications or any pretensions they have of journalistic ethics or ability.
All that said, I don't know what annoys me more about this entire affair: that a network built on ethics in journalism would stoop to something so obvious and unethical, or that someone thought that Ms. Couric looked FAT.
I mean, come on: The woman is 49-years-old -- not 17. She is hardly what anyone would call fat, and I am amazed anyone would think that she needed to have some pounds removed.
Add to that the unethical doctoring of a photograph and you have a snapshot of what has gone terribly, horribly wrong with ethics in journalism specifically, and ethics in this country, generally.
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