It’s fair to say, I think, that a national news anchor is a person who gets paid an enormous amount of money to read words for a living. All kinds of words. But there’s one word Katie Couric will not abide:
During the tuberculosis story in June, Couric got angry with news editor Jerry Cipriano for using a word she detested—“sputum”—and the staff grew tense when she began slapping him “over and over and over again” on the arm, according to a source familiar with the scene. It had seemed like a joke at first, but it quickly became clear that she wasn’t kidding. “I sort of slapped him around,” Couric admits. “I got mad at him and said, ‘You can’t do this to me. You have to tell me when you’re going to use a word like that.’ I was aggravated, there’s no question about that.” But she says she has a good relationship with Cipriano. “We did ban the word sputum from all future broadcasts. It became kind of a joke.”
Good relationship? I’d call that a great relationship!
Maybe it’s not the word, so much, as the stress of her plunging ratings. Nah –
“I think that bugs people even more,” she says, “that I’m not a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It’s probably disappointing to some people. Because in the arc of the story, that’s what they want to see.”
Believe me, Katie, nobody wants to see that. Maybe a big raise would help you feel better? Or a punching bag?
(HT: Lori)
