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The Drudge Report claims that CBS News is going to invoke deep cuts on its news division….including cutting the salary of star Katie Couric.  Couric is the

Lonely But Wealthy At The Top

highest paid anchor in news history, at a reported $14 million a year.  That’s $300,000 a week.  Drudge reports that CBS news staffers have been grumbling over layoffs when Katie’s salary could easily keep many $75,000 reporters employed.   It is interesting to note that Anchormen in even smaller news markets, top 50 cities in the country, 30 years ago, were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a piece.  Today, there isn’t an on-air talent in the country who feels secure day-to-day on-air.  Everyone is vulnerable.  Drudge just makes it public.

As Jay Leno put it, “You either get the ratings, or you don’t.”   Right now no one in television is pulling in the five, ten, fifteen or twenty million viewers a night that network news anchors and managing editors used to draw.  CNN’s Anderson Cooper is fortunate if one million people are watching him.  This is true about all the networks, except FOX News which draws more like 3-6 million.

drudgereport.com/flashkcc.htm

"CBSNEWS anchorwoman and 60 MINUTES contributor Katie Couric faces a dramatic pay cut at the network, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

CBS boss Les Moonves is determined to save money and trim expenses -- from top to bottom -- at the former crown jewel of broadcasting.

Couric, the highest paid TV news personality in history, commands over $14 million a year, plus bumps for non-EVENING NEWS appearances.

But her salary is now in the direct line of fire, network insiders explain, and a populist backlash against Couric's cash is said to be forming inside the newsroom.

"She makes enough to pay 200 news reporters $75,000 a year!" demands a veteran producer. "It's complete insanity."

The angry source continues: "We report with great enthusiasm how much bankers are making, how it is out of step with reality during a recession. Well, look at Katie!"

Couric's current CBS contract expires next year.

Developing...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press. Tears welled in the lifelong reporter�s eyes as he discussed the dwindling number of war correspondents.

If it isn’t a complete blow-out, with voters flocking away from Martha Coakley as her gaffes mount hour by hour, the “experts” are calling it this way:

Brown Could Trounce Martha Coakley Today

/themoderatevoice.com/59806/massachusetts-poll-review-brown-leads-but-still-too-close-to-call/

The world’s number one golfer has enjoyed almost unlimited access to GM’s Buick automobiles as a perk in his multi-million dollar endorsement contract with the company.  GM, stepping away from the embarrassed golfer,  has announced that Tiger is now going to have to buy his own new cars.

No one really cares what kind of personal life Tiger Woods wants to have.  The advertising world certainly doesn’t demand exceptionally high standards of celebrities today.  The problem with Tiger is that he pretended.  The oldest trick in the book:  joint rooms with his manager who then disappeared, making room for rotating companions.  His wife deserves to be swinging a club at him, considering that his flings were probably putting her personal health in jeopardy when he came home.

A High Price

The golf world has its own rules.  Tiger succeeded in breaking down barriers with grace in the upper-crust, convertible and country club world of Golf.  However, the concept of marriage and family life is apparently still “expected” in that circle of professional golf shirts.  Especially among professional golf sponsors.  Tiger Woods took that image to the max while living a double life.  America had developed a romance with the “idea” of Tiger Woods, almost the same way we hoped for the “idea” of Barack Obama.  Tiger really betrayed that dream and he’s paying dearly for it.

Some years ago a retired White House Secret Service agent shared with me that the White House residence staff was relieved when, in 2001, the well-mannered Bush family returned to the presidency, and the Clintons were seen to the door.  Apparently the

Run and Hide

Clintons were not the easiest company, and Hilary in particular, was not customarily gracious to paid staff. Many post-Clinton era books have substantiated this view.  This week, “Game Change” by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin has arrived at the bookstores sharing one rich insider story after another about famous figures in the 2008 presidential race.  Some of the best ones star Hilary Clinton who apparently spoke profanity as a second language and used it especially often when referring to “Bill.”

It is imaginable that Hilary might have raw feelings toward her husband, not the least of which, by marrying the philanderer she was forced to move to Arkansas.

As anecdote after anecdote leaks out the Clintons find the ugly side of their partnership exposed once again.

Politico.com has it all here.  After all these years, the Clintons find themselves standing alone.

No defenders in sight.

There aren’t many writers at the L.A. Times I have respect for.  Columnist Sandy Banks is one  who often sheds interesting light on

A Closed Chapter?

issues of the day.  She does so with the Harry Reid misstep.

It’s worth your time to read to the end of her column on Monday morning,  reacting as a black woman, to Harry Reid’s published gaffe.  She shares some background on the history of racial tension within the African American community, and shares some wisdom that is beneficial to all.  Read Sandy here.

Showing an abundance of caution, the United States Supreme Court has ruled to protect the proceedings of the Proposition 8 discrimination trial in San Francisco, blocking efforts by the trial judge, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn to allow cameras into a

Federal Judge Vaughn Walker

California federal courtroom for the first time.

Less than four weeks ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that it was time to begin a pilot project exploring the benefits of broadcasting federal civil trials.   It is somewhat remarkable that the long-protected privacy of California federal courtrooms would become negotiable just weeks before the start of the Proposition 8 discrimination trial.   The Ninth Circuit’s “pilot project” immediately opened the door for Federal Judge Vaughn Walker to take extraordinary legal steps, on New Year’s Eve no less,  to extend the project to include the discrimination suit against Protect Marriage.  With every day, the prosecution of Protect Marriage seems to be led, not just by formidable constitutional attorneys David Boies and Ted Olson, but by Judge Walker as well.  An outraged National Review Online columnist, Ed Whelan, notes that by waiting until New Year’s Eve to make procedural moves to broadcast the Proposition 8 discrimination trial, Judge Walker essentially precluded the public from having any opportunity to oppose it.  In a letter written directly to the Judge, Whelan publicly challenges the motives behind the move: