Katie Couric's Sarah Palin Interview Wins Cronkite Award...

[cynatnite]

Katie Couric has won a Cronkite Award for her revealing, multi-part interview of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

The Cronkite Awards have been presented biannually by the USC Annenberg School for Communication, in honor of CBS News legend Walter Cronkite, since 2000.

Couric won her award in the category "Special Achievement for National Impact on the 2008 Campaign." In the awards announcement, judges called Couric's interview with Palin a "defining moment in the 2008 presidential campaign," and described it as "extraordinary, persistent and detailed."

The interview — in which Palin spoke about Alaska's proximity to Russia and was unable to name a single national publication that she read — was an instant classic, and would be parodied on "Saturday Night Live," with Tina Fey playing Palin against Amy Poehler's Couric.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/10/katie-courics-sarah-palin_n_173661.html

[Skittles]

1. ridiculous

that interview was more about Palin's utter stupidity and vapidity than Katie Couric's interviewing skills

[cynatnite]

3. There is no denying the impact that interview had on the election, though...

I think that's a lot of the reason why she won that award.

[Skittles]

4. the impact would have been the same regardless of the interviewer

Palin was a disaster waiting to happen from day one

[cynatnite]

9. I'm not sure I agree with that...

When Gibson interviewed Palin, he was fairly thorough. The interview was a beginning, but it didn't have the impact that Couric's did, IMO. Katie's hit and miss. Sometimes she can nail it and other times not by a long shot.

Just seems to me that this was a matter of the right time and the right place. It all came together. Also, SNL lifted entire passages of that interview word-for-word and used it. I'm not convinced the effect would have been the same had it been Brian Williams doing the interviewing.

[MadMaddie]

10. SNL was the beginning of the end of SP

Tina Fey had a once in a lifetime role and she made the best of it.

[cynatnite]

11. Totally agree!

Tina Fey should win an award for it.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

14. Maybe, maybe not

We'll never know, but it's good that Couric did the interview the way she did, and that's what the Cronkite Award is for. The interview gave the public information about Palin that they did not get from any other source.

I say Good For Katie, and Congratulations! It was a serious turning point for America when Palin was shown to be the ignoramus that she is.

[shellgame26]

18. I don't think so

Palin flopped because Couric was a woman. She couldn't put on her flirty act because Couric wouldn't let her get away with it.

[Canuckistanian]

12. She made the effort. That's what counts.

Whether Couric was a good interviewer or not is not the issue.

She was the only one who posed the minimum amount of questioning to make a difference.

It's a pitiful statement on the status of American journalism in general, but there you have it.

[BlooInBloo]

2. And the bar gets set lower and lower...

An idiot interviews someone even stupider than she is, and they call her a genius.

We're a stupid, stupid country.

[gordianot]

7. Add to that after the interview many in the GOP see Palin as a viable Presidential candidate.

How stupid can you get? Talk to a Republican or turn on your television and find out.

[Canuckistanian]

15. Exactly. it's not like she had any competition.

The campaign in '08 will go down in history as a festival of RW media bias.

Couric was an accidental hero.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

16. No one's calling Couric a genius -

she got lucky with her questions, which were very routine.

She never expected the answers she got, and to Couric's credit - and this is why she got the award, I suspect - she followed up and followed up and pinned Palin to the wall.

That's the kind of journalism that's been sorely missing in this country since Watergate.

I don't think we're a stupid country, not at all. But we need a much more thorough and responsible and professional media.

[Sancho]

5. wtf?

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :wtf:

[Stevenmarc]

6. She should have won the catagory

Special Achievement for a Lightweight Pretending to be a Journalist Award.

[BlooInBloo]

8. or Most Lucky Enough To Interview Someone Stupider Than She Is.

[Ian David]

13. No. The person who PRODUCED and EDITED the interview deserves an award for their integrity...

... NOT KKKatie Couric who futilely kept trying to pitch softballs to someone who can only hit a T-Ball.

How fucking batshit-crazy do you have to be to turn "What do you read?" into a question designed to ridicule your community as a backwater wasteland of ignorance?

[cynatnite]

17. There was a lot more to the interview than that...

Katie gave Palin an opportunity to clarify her remark about having foreign policy experience because of her proximity to Russia. Also, the interview as a whole was painfully bad on Palin's end which had a huge impact on the election...plus Tina Fey and the SNL writers drew from it which continued to negatively impact the election for McCain/Palin.