Katie has left the building. After a five-year run as anchor of the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric signed off for the last time this evening.

Now that we know who the 2011 NCAA champions are, we can really start to focus on the brackets for Katie Couric's CBS Evening News replacement. And if any of you had 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley as your top pick, TMZ says you're right! Possibly.

God—no, sorry, Morgan Freeman—will replace Walter Cronkite as the guy who introduces Katie Couric with his ghost voice on the CBS Evening News. Did you know...

When Katie Couric took over CBS Evening News, everyone thought she would fail. But she hasn't. In fact, she's being praised for her poise, grace and interview style. And now producers want to make her bigger, stronger and more popular.

Walter Cronkite, the longtime CBS News journalist and trusted anchorman, has passed away, his family said. He was 92.

"The CBS Evening News gained only about 10 percent in audience from the previous week — and it was actually down from the same week the year before." [Times]

Sarah Palin spent some more time with Katie Couric, her new undermining roommate, who seems to have accumulated like 20 months worth of interview material, all of it horrifically damaging to the Republican vice presidential nominee. This time around, Palin couldn't name any newspapers or magazines she regularly reads, except for "all of them," which she clarified to mean whatever four-year-old copy of U.S. News she finds in the waiting room at her dentist's office. Then she didn't know what the morning after pill was. Katie was like, "whatever, I'm so out of here." Then Palin said she "loved" her lesbian friend, and Katie got excited again, about seeing Palin naked and "unfiltered" at the big debate. When will Palin finally vote Couric out of her sorority house and end this embarrassment? Cringe for her in the attached clip (click the video icon to watch).

Sarah Palin just keeps going back for more car-wreck interviews with Katie Couric. After forecasting a possible Great Depression and saying something indecipherable about her state's relations with Russia, the Republican vice presidential nominee reportedly went silent when called on to name Supreme Court cases other than Roe V. Wade. Also, in the attached clip, Palin and John McCain both implausibly try to blame "gotcha journalism" for reporting on Palin's support for cross-border raids into Pakistan, a position shared by Barack Obama and attacked by McCain during the presidential debate. (Click the video icon to watch.) Now, Politico reports, the Republican ticket is pulling Palin back to the safer waters of right-wing talk radio. Putting McCain's popular-but-inexperienced running mate in front of more TV cameras was a calculated gamble by the campaign to broaden her appeal. It's now safe to say that it failed.

The first half of Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric aired tonight and it's already making the wrong sorts of headlines. This is looking a lot like Palin's train wreck sit-down with ABC News' Charlie Gibson. (Video of the most damaging moments — this time around — after the jump.)

"If [CBS head] Les Moonves wants to get rid of her, he's got to shell out around $40 million. He's tried to get her to move on, and she was like, 'Fine. I'll leave - where's my money?'" [Post]

So we were vaguely aware Katie Couric had a YouTube channel, but had no idea the CBS Evening News anchor put so much energy into it. It's almost as though she feels stifled at work! Can't imagine why that would be. Anyway, Los Angeles Times writer Matea Gold watched all the videos so you don't have to, and wrote up the highlights, which we've assembled into a quick montage after the jump. Couric snaps Larry King's suspenders, chats up the paparazzi, sings with Bette Midler, makes a Saturday Night Live joke and hangs out barefoot with a bunch of mom bloggers.

The sad state of bloggers and Long Island reporters is well-documented. But things are hard out there for TV reporters, too. Covering a flood for CBS News, Hari Sreenivasan nearly got hypothermia after his waders sprung a leak. But who wouldn't sacrifice a leg or two for that shot of a guy knee-deep in water? Fortunately, March Madness ramped up, America lost interest in natural disasters in the fly-by states, and Sreenivasan was mercifully allowed to return to dry land. [CBS News]

On Friday we asked if former Good Morning America producer Ben Sherwood was in talks about running CBS' Early Show following the departure of disastrous producer Shelley Ross. Since then, TVNewser spoke to "insiders" who said Sherwood talked to CBS executives about the job, and we got a tip that Sherwood was seen last week having drinks with CBS Evening News producer Rick Kaplan, who is running the Early Show on an interim basis. The tipster said the two were seen "far, far away from the office." (Photo via BenSherwood.com.)

Is there any truth to the rumor that former Good Morning America Executive Producer Ben Sherwood is the leading candidate to replace Shelley Ross, who was just fired from the top spot at CBS' "Early Show?" Sherwood, who is married to Imagine Films executive Karen Kehela, is said to be represented in the talks by Alan Berger. Email us: tips@gawker.com

Katie Couric's trip to Iraq resulted in a new record low in the ratings race for "CBS Evening News." Still, there's an upside: "If CBS' hiring of Katie Couric was all about damaging the NBC Today show (rather than boosting the CBS Evening News) it's working. Today 'has lost about 360,000 viewers' in the past year, including 12% of women aged 25-54." [Kausfiles]

• Harry McCracken, who resigned as EIC of PC World in a dispute with the mag's CEO, has been reinstated. The CEO has been reassigned. [Wired]
  

This morning's Philadelphia Inquirer ran a piece by Gail Shister positing that Katie Couric would leave the CBS Evening News anchor chair after the 2008 election. It's a story full of hedges (the first two paragraphs contain a "may," a "possibly," and a "there's a growing feeling") and CBS News was quick to refute it.

On Monday night the CBS Evening News experienced some technical difficulties, forcing Katie Couric to stretch her words out and eventually shut the show down early. But, pro that she is, Katie didn't pull a Dan Rather and storm of the set. No, she stood there, for eighty-seven agonizing seconds, interrupted by commercial break, as the credits rolled. You might think that spending a minute and a half watching a woman standing in front of her desk is a waste of time, but it's oddly transfixing. Hypnotic, even. Our Richard Blakeley has produced a clip with a bonus second counter so you can enjoy each moment. If this whole anchor thing doesn't work out (and, if recent ratings are any indication, it won't) Katie might want to consider running for lieutenant governor.

• If you watched Katie Couric on Monday night you're in a pretty exclusive club. [Drudge Report]
• The publisher and editor of the Toronto Star have resigned. [NYT]
• There's a new head at Metro. [FBNY]
• The F.C.C. makes Sumner Redstone crap his Depends. [B&C]
• Louise MacBain sounds like a real pleasure to work for. [WWD]

CBS Turns Over News Broadcast To Man Who Blames School Shootings on Teaching Evolution and Abortion [ThinkProgress]
Fifth child dies of wounds from shootings at Amish school [USA Today]