You probably know Harry Shearer from This Is Spinal Tap, and a
host of other Christopher Guest movies, as well as being a voice actor
on The Simpsons.
He isn’t just a comedic actor, but
also a blogger
at The Huffington Post,
as well as a number of other sites as well.
One of the places he posts things
is on My Damn Channel, a video site similar in many ways to Will
Farrell’s FunnyorDie.com,
and one of his recent “found items” was a video
clip of ABC News anchor Katie Couric during her off-air
moments at the primaries in New Hampshire.
Katie Couric Making A Fool Of Herself
There’s not much in the clip really, apart from
Couric fiddling with
her mike, making fun of herself for getting nervous —
“I say oh shit,
oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” she laughs — and
talking about how bad she
looks on one of the monitors.
She talks about how John
McCain’s wife
has eyes that are a piercing light blue colour, and jokes that she
probably thought
Couric was weird.
She makes fun of her husky voice, and complains about
the quality of the mikes, and some other miscellaneous banter.
How Many Comments?
The thing I find really interesting is the comments that the
video clip has gotten, not just on My Damn Channel’s site,
but on other
sites
as well.
There have to be close to 300 comments on the My Damn Channel
site alone, and they are a fascinating mix.
On one end of the spectrum,
there are lots of “Boy, is she dumb for not knowing more
about the
candidates — look what idiots the media are”
remarks.
But at the other
end there are lots of comments about how the out-takes actually make her
seem a lot more warm and human than many people seemed to think she was.
Conclusions
Plenty of people seem to feel that the
video clip
could hurt Couric, who is fighting low ratings for her news show,
because it makes her look ditzy or uninformed.
But just as many or more
say they may actually watch her now because she seems a lot more human.
Fascinating.
Written by Mathew Ingram, a technology journalist. Catch his views on the intersection between media and the web at MathewIngram.com. This post is licensed under the Creative Commons.
