According to TMZ, Couric has “not officially quit, but nonetheless networks sources” say “it’s a virtual certainty that she will be levaing”. Reports have indicated that Couric’s contract expires on June 4 – exactly two months from now.

TMZ says its sources, who are “connected with Couric,” suggested that she wants to do some kind of syndicated show with news elements, and has been in talks with networks like CBS, NBC, CNN, and ABC, aiming for a September launch.

Couric has been active on Twitter, but has made no mention of leaving (or staying with) CBS, or plans for any other new show. Lately, she’s mostly been talking about vacation and colonoscopies.

A CBS spokesperson has said, “We’re having ongoing discussions with Katie Couric. We have no announcements to make at this time. Until we do, we will continue to decline comment on rumor or speculation.”

Couric has been in the CBS Evening News anchor role since 2006, when she left the Today Show.

The ad titled "Lipstick" says that Barack Obama implied McCain running mate Sarah Palin of being a lipstick-wearing pig. At the end of the ad it features a quote from Couric that laments the "continued and accepted role of sexism in American life." Couric at the time was referring to Democratic Primary coverage of Senator Hillary Clinton.

The ad closes with a picture of Obama and a caption reading, "Ready to lead? No. Ready to smear? Yes."

The link on the ad on YouTube now gives this message," This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by CBS Interactive Inc."

CBS expressed its disapproval of the ad. "CBS News does not endorse any candidate in the presidential race," CBS spokeswoman Leigh Farris said in a statement. "Any use of CBS personnel in political advertising that suggests the contrary is misleading."

Copycat ads have been uploaded to YouTube minus the unauthorized footage of Katie Couric.

The "Lipstick" ad appears to have been taken down from the John McCain campaign Web site as well. WebProNews contacted the campaign to get confirmation the ad had been pulled from the site but did not receive a response.
 

"The Big Tent will be a place for bloggers, new media journalists and the public to record their experiences from the convention and to hear from top newsmakers on the Digg Stage," says Adelson.

Don’t take this as a one-sided agenda from Digg. They will also have a presence at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, alongside MySpace and Rock the Vote, sponsoring an event with the Impact Film Festival.

Digg has gotten into more of a political groove since launching the "Digg the Candidates" part of their site last year. This week, Katie Couric herself called on Digg and YouTube users to submit questions for her to ask at the Democratic National Convention. I suggest reading Jason Miller’s history lesson for more on that.

It really is interesting to see how social media is bringing people closer to the government. Adelson promises that Digg will be taking plenty of videos and photos from both conventions and posting them on the site.

Take a moment. Let that set in.

Now, think back 20 years (that’s 1988!), crawl into your own head, turn off the White Snake and look around at the world you knew then. On the TV, on CBS, is Dan Rather, likely talking about the Vice President’s run against a diminutive and generally unexciting Michael Dukakis. The Summer Olympics are on, there are tensions with Russia, especially regarding a small Soviet state asserting its independence, and in the midst of a major banking crisis Dan Quayle is comparing himself to John F. Kennedy.

A lot has changed in 20 years, huh? Well, if you can’t pinpoint exactly how it’s changed, refer to the introduction to this article. In that 1988 world (hey, nice boom box—is that a mix tape?), could it ever include you in your Thundercats boxers positing a question to Vice President of the United States of America George H.W. Bush, care of Dan Rather?

Um, yeah, so Dan (nom, nom, nom on a Fruit Rollup), ask Bush if he’s buying this whole Perestroika thing Gorbachev is selling—And what’s with that birthmark anyway? Oh, and tell him I bet Quayle can’t even spell Kennedy.

No. No way that could have happened in my 1988. In 2008, we have YouTube and we have Digg, and this time—so long as Couric doesn’t pull a CNN move and yank the tough questions ahead of time—we, the people, have more direct access to a government that has far outgrown us. It’s kind of beautiful, don’t you think?

Digg seems to be taking the invitation seriously, unlike the commentators at YouTube, who, in this instance, represent the dark side of Web 2.0—nothing like a little misogyny flavored with masturbatory anchorwoman-in-a-Digg-shirt fantasies.

Ahem, back to Digg, where things are uncharacteristically mature: Ask McCain why he feels the Iraq war is still justified. Ask Obama why he’s not a fan of global free trade. Ask Katie if she’d like to have dinner.

Well, you didn’t expect the brow to remain quite so high, did you? They also want to know how the candidates feel about Net Neutrality, about whether the Republican Party has been hijacked by big government, corporation-loving neocons, about the abandonment of the No Child Left Behind Act, about healthcare, marriage, taxes, torture and spying, and about exactly when the candidates feel it is justified to lie to the American public.

And yes, where, Katie, did you get that awesome t-shirt?

You gotta admit those are decent questions pumping out of the oft-maligned "wisdom of the crowds." Perhaps even better than "Where’s your flag pin?" or "Are you sure you’re not a radical Muslim bent on destroying America?"

How CBS Blew Up My Puff Piece

This story began in pursuit of an ironic 300-word puff piece about somewhat of a catfight between MoveOn.org and CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric. WebProNews is not in the habit of dabbling in political squabbles, lest they directly involve Internet and Web issues that affect online business. We also cover Web 2.0 and blogs – the new citizen media.

In short, we didn’t have a dog in this fight, and your humble author who, just like Ferris Bueller doesn’t believe in isms, would tell you he is neither Right nor Left, but maybe, if he had to label himself, is a John Stuart Mill Utilitarianist with Thomas Paine Libertarian tendencies and a slightly Aristotelian disdain for the unwashed masses* (so maybe you shouldn’t ask).

Regardless, WebProNews becomes involved because someone at CBS allegedly (a CBS spokeswoman was quite adamant about the "allegedly" part) insulted viewers who complained about Couric’s "softball" reporting from Iraq and mocked them for getting their information from blogs.

Oh, and Katie Couric’s publicist threatened to sue us, which also gets us involved in a much bigger way, and makes this story, much, much more newsworthy, but we’ll get to that later.  

The story begins this way:

MoveOn.org posted a scathing video on YouTube accusing Couric of not doing her job as a journalist and just parroting government talking points, and encouraged MoveOn members to email CBS to complain.

One such member, Errol Siegel of Austin Texas, heeded the call and emailed CBS Evening News on Monday, September 10, at 11:42 a.m, CST. He wrote:

I started watching Couric’s series of reports hoping to learn something valuable..  All I learned was that CBS is content to produce puff pieces scripted by the institutions it purports to be investigating.

I did not hear Couric push for real answers on one single issue!  She simply took everything she was told and parrotted it back to the masses.

I’m embarassed and saddened.  You should be too.

A reply to the email appearing to be from CBS Evening News, with the address Evening@cbsnews.com, arrived just 23 minutes later reading:

Actually most intelligent people were very impressed by the quality of our reports from Iraq and Syria …Apparently you missed most of the interviews that were done over there…imagine you got your information from a blog somewhere…

Siegel tells WebProNews, "I have spent years writing letters, sending e-mails, and making phone calls. This is the first time I have been personally insulted by a major news organization."

At CrooksAndLiars.com, a commentator named Dominic Lucarelli recounts a similar response to his complaint:

Sorry you didn’t get a chance to see much of the reporting from Iraq….if you had, you wouldn’t have written such a note…imagine all your info came from a blog…too bad.

"Not TOO condescending, eh?" remarks Lucarelli.

This is all very interesting to me, only because of the irony. It wasn’t too long ago that Dan Rather was shamed off the airwaves by the very medium CBS News is allegedly disparaging. This is the same medium that even the New York Times has credited as a viable news source, as bloggers are often first on the scene at major news events; Hurricane Katrina comes to mind.

It was also interesting to me that the once "liberal media" was now being accused of being a government mouthpiece, but I was more interested in confirming whether or not a representative of CBS made those remarks, and if I could talk to Katie to get her reaction to the accusations, to talk about the new media and how the established media is handling it.

When asked about the comments in the email, CBS Evening News Communications Manager Jennifer Farley (Couric’s publicist) said, "It’s very easy to make it look like it came from us," and would not confirm that the email came from CBS News, despite the email address. 

I understood the comment, "It’s very easy to make it look like it came from us," as well as other comments she made as a denial that CBS sent the email, and so, out of professional courtesy, not out of any type of journalistic requirement, I contacted Ms. Farley the next day (before I wrote the 300-word ironic puff-piece) to confirm CBS’s position.

I did it politely, because I’m from the South, thanked her for her time and wished her a nice day. My understanding: CBS denies sending the email, cannot confirm that it came from there.

A few minutes later, Ms. Farley, by telephone, insists that everything that was said yesterday was off the record, that CBS didn’t even have a "no comment" because there was nothing to comment on, and if I printed that I could expect to hear from CBS’s legal department. Very suddenly, then, she has turned my puff piece into a major story about a major network trying to bully a Web-publication with the threat of a SLAPP suit. And I am stunned by how she has transformed something routine into something newsworthy. 

I’m also aware (because she told me) that Ms. Farley graduated top of her class from Columbia Journalism School, and was quite willing to let me know how much I had to learn about journalism, but she should be at least vaguely familiar with the First Amendment, and that a source can’t just give information and say it’s "off the record" with any type of viable legal grounds. It’s a professional courtesy, not a legal mandate, and that courtesy sort of flies out the window when lawsuits are threatened.

But enough about me and Ms. Farley. Let’s get back to the email.

MoveOn traced the IP address of the email addressed from Evening@cbsnews.com, the one that would be very easy to make look like came from CBS to 170.20.0.80, which resolves to a mail server at CBS Inc., 524 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019.

Adam Green, Civics Communications Director for MoveOn.org, says, "It’s a real problem when big media corporations like CBS refuse to ask tough questions challenging President Bush’s lies about Iraq, yet feel fine threatening little-guy online news sites for daring to hold CBS accountable."

Yeah, well, we’re not that little. We can hold our own. And though the New York Times mistakenly called me a blogger, I didn’t take any offense, just appreciated the name drop, and that at least some part of the established media recognizes the power of citizen journalism, and that the new media has the right – and ability – to stand up to the old media.

_{*Warning: Philosophical joke. It’s hard to be at once humble and Aristotelian; this is in no way a swipe at the poor or the homeless, but meant only as a way of expressing a distrust of mob rule, and therefore a preference for representative democracy rather than direct democracy.}

In case you missed one of the seven million or so stories about Katie Couric moving from her morning gig to the evening news anchor desk, that momentous move has taken place. She also holds the title of “managing editor,” which usually is a position occupied by someone who tells the anchor what to do.

At CBS, Katie Couric tells Katie Couric what to do. While we would be delighted beyond belief to see footage of someone trying to tell the new anchor how to do her job on the CBS set, we will have to settle for the glimpse of life at the news desk provided by CBS and Google.

The Google Personalized Homepage supports add-in content modules, called Gadgets. For CBS, this will be a buzz-builder for Couric, which makes us wonder what the other numerous news stories, blog posts, and TV commentary represented in terms of buzz-building.

“Developing this gadget with Google allows us to build online buzz and exposure for the CBS Evening News With Katie Couric among Google’s community of users as well as grow user traffic for CBSNews.com,” Betsy Morgan, Senior Vice President, CBS Digital Media, said in a statement about the Google gadget.

It was supposed to be available online last night, but for all the buzz they want to generate, CBS didn’t make it easy to find on their homepage; it’s way, way down on the right side of the page. On Google, one has to have the New Stuff module open on the Personalized Homepage to find it.

Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products and user experience, also weighed in on the new gadget. “We’re eager to work with CBS News on new ways to distribute their content online,” she said.

Once in place, the gadget displays three tabs, for Videos, Headlines, and Katie Couric. Under the Katie tab is an introduction to the gadget, and options to see the blog, calendar, photos, and links from the news anchor.

Humorously enough, clicking a link in the blog section crashed IE6. Ah, technology.

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In 1982, William Gibson’s short story Burning Chrome first mentioned Tally Isham, the celebrity with the Zeiss Ikon eyes who could be found in the world of cyberspace. In 2006, Katie Couric may be the first widely-known celebrity to exist on the Internet.

When Couric takes over the CBS Evening News desk, her visage will not be limited to the cold fire of the television screen. Instead, CBS executives Sean McManus and Larry Kramer will propel Couric into the Matrix, as they continue their proactive course to be the news brand on broadband.

CBS disclosed in a statement that when Couric takes her place at the anchor desk on September 5th at 6:30 pm ET, the network will simulcast her TV broadcast online. They also have other plans for the Evening News online:

With apologies to the fine video podcasters at places like Diggnation and Rocket Boom, Couric is on an entirely different level when it comes to celebrity and recognition. Couple that with the broad reach envisioned by CBS for their star anchor:

In realizing McManus’s vision, it may someday be easier to count the places where one cannot find Couric and CBS, instead of where one can.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.