You would be hard pressed to find anyone in the media business more mainstream that news anchor/personality Katie Couric. She represents everything that characterizes legacy media. She’s had interviews with all the big stars from Hollywood to D.C. She’s a perky and likable guest we’re happy to bring into our house on a daily basis through the morning or evening television news.
If you talk about the mainstream media, you’re talking about folks like Ms. Couric.
And yet… earlier this week she announced that she was leaving ABC television to become the “global news anchor” for Yahoo! News. And so the big news is that Katie is leaving the Mainstream Media for the brave new world of online media!
Except….
As commentary and news site The Daily Beast points out:
- Yahoo and ABC are partners in a news site.
- Yahoo/ABC reaches 800 million people per month.
- Yahoo News was seen by 10 million people on election night 2012.
- Couric is joining other big name journalists at Yahoo News, including Matt Bai, New York Times Magazine political correspondent; David Pogue, legendary NY Times technology columnist; and Megan Liberman, deputy editor of the NY Times.
Of course, exactly what Katie Couric is going to be doing for Yahoo isn’t completely clear yet. But according to an interview with Ad Age magazine, she will be doing video interviews and… “things that might be more appropriate for mobile devices…” In other words, she’s bringing her star power to Yahoo to help it be recognized as the mainstream power that it is.
This is a great example of Truth #2 – There are no Mainstream Media.
We have legacy media.
We have big media.
We have independent media.
We have liberal media.
We have conservative media.
We have corporate media.
But I don’t know what would constitute mainstream media. Anything that can draw 10 million pairs of eyeballs on one night seems no less mainstream than something that’s been around for 70 or 80 years.