Even with crappy ratings, the advertisers for pharmaceutical products, packaged goods and high-end autos still believe in CBS News anchor Katie Couric. [Mediaweek]

What you need to know about that interminable Katie Couric profile in this week's New York: Katie has had some second thoughts about taking the job, Katie thinks people are resistant to change, Katie understand the schadenfreude that everyone feels about her poor ratings, Katie's upset about CBS News' parsimonious budget (while fellow newsers blame the paltry amount of funding on the fact that most of the money is going to Katie), the 2008 election will make or break Katie's anchor career. Also, she once beat a news editor to death with a tire iron because he put the word "sputum" in her broadcast? One more thing: New York magazine will let Joe Hagan write as many words as he wants. And that's the way it is.

Matthew Felling, who is Brian "Nonstopoli" Montopoli's new co-editor at CBS News' ombudsman blog Public Eye, has a bone to pick with the "Daily Show": It's not real news. While very important studies show that increasing numbers of 18-29 year olds are getting their information from the Comedy Central chat show, other equally important studies also show that those who do are less informed than their old-timey news-watching counterparts. "[T]he truth," says Felling, "is that the "Daily Show" is actually just a nice dessert or digestif, after a meal of Real News Roughage." He's probably right. If you want solid, hard-hitting journalism, it's best to stick with the pros. Really, shouldn't they be busy ghost-plagiarizing for Katie Couric's blog or something?

• CBS News hired Rick Kaplan without consulting Katie Couric. They probably just didn't want her to worry her pretty little head about it. [NYT]
  

• Rick Kaplan brought in to save ratings-challenged Katie Couric. [NYP]
  

Apart from e-mails asking for advice on offing yourself, we tend to get a variety of work-related anecdotage posted to the old inbox. Today we received one such story. It's a long, detailed account of an affront to the dignity of CBS News employees. It seems unbalanced at first, but as it wends toward its inevitable conclusion, it achieves a certain kind of poetry. Should you be wary of the length, or unable to click on the jump, we'll give you the quick summary: There's some doody on the wall in the men's room, and it's been there for a long, long time. Admit it, now you can't resist.

Last week, Katie Couric mentioned her love of Dunkin Donuts Munchkins, a pleased DD franchise sent over a few boxes of the donutty wads, plus coffee. And because this is the world we live in, the blog commenter outrage began:

• Federal judge orders the NYT to disclose its sources in the Hatfill defamation case. Times vows to appeal. [NYT]
• Katie Couric's taking all the good jobs away from the girls. [B&C]
• New Yorker Editor David Remnick attracts groupies. [FBNY]
• Tabloid Wars: News circulation up, ad revenue down; Post's circulation up, ad revenue up. Of course, the News is still ahead on that whole "not losing millions of dollars a year" thing. [Crain's]
• PBS brass doesn't give a shit who Charlie Rose honors. You can take your precious ethics and stuff 'em. [PBS]
• It's tough to be homeless in New York. [NYO]

CBS News has a new segment called "freeSpeech," proving that any bland phrase can be sexed up by running it together with some crazyCapitalization. Roughly the same format and tone as print op-eds or "My Take" segments on cable access, the first two freeSpeeches concerned secret CIA prisons and Darfur genocide. Continuing the weighty theme, the latest bit was all about cell phones in schools. Opera singer and alleged actress — and mom! — Joanne Lessner makes it clear her son will always have a cell phone for safety purposes, regardless of New York authorites' contention that student cell phones are used to "cheat on exams, sell drugs, and organize fights." We sure hated all those sloppy, unorganized fights back in junior high; we didn't have Dodgeball to point out whose nearby ass needed kicking. Regardless, CBS producer Marc Rosenwasser intones that the true scope of freeSpeechers chosen "will only reveal itself in its fullness over time." As to using a less pundit-fabulous subject like Lessner, Rosenwasser explains, "We're happy to get her on, because we'd like to sprinkle in as often as we can, for lack of a better word, regular citizens." Such a distasteful phrase, that "regular citizens." If only there was a better word.

So, last night marked a huge turning point in the struggle for American equality: Someone with ovaries read from a teleprompter all by herself. After the jump, a highly selective look at how our nation's critics responded.

• Katie Couric to narrate PBS docu on Walter Cronkite. No one ever said she's not clever. [B&C]
• Why does Bush likes to pick on the Times? Because of the Jews, of course. [SFChron]
• The New Yorker rock critic Sasha Frere-Jones wants to be a rocker, too. [LAWeekly]
• September VF will focus on fashion, be as fat as Vogue. [WWD]

• The GOP apologists at National Review want the White House to revoke the Times's press credentials. [NR]
• The White House, thankfully, doesn't think so highly of the idea. [E&P]
• Knight Ridder is officially no more. [SJMN]
• Dan Rather had to die so that CBS News could live. [NYSun]
• People style spinoff TK? Perhaps. [WWD]
• There are no mags for teenage boys, and, for some reason, the Eat the Pressers are upset about this. [HuffPost]

• Dan Rather says farewell and that he'll see us all soon. [Romenesko]
• Charlie Gibson doesn't care about ratings. Ya-huh. [WP]
• Michael Wolff doesn't like Slate because it's "by and for smart boys trying strenuously to be ever smarter than anyone they perceive as threatening their smartest status." Ironic, eh? [Slate]

OK, so our mole was almost right. This morning, both CBS and Dan Rather's agent issued statements that the wacky newsman, a CBS News vet for 44 years and anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, will be leaving the network. Because, hey, after you've given your entire career to one company, you'd expect them to throw you over when you screw up once and the wingnuts demand your scalp.

This just in:

• Charlie Rose — with a new pig-heart valve — returns to TV Monday. [NYDN]
• Congress boosts TV indecency fines, ensuring the Parents Television Council can continue its reign of puritanical terror over the nation's broadcasters. [WSJ]
• CBS's Kim Dozier returns to United States, still in critical condition but "in great spirits and was talking animatedly." [CBSNews.com]
• Fashion editor Angela Jones and reporter Kelly Will are among the five Star staffers we reported yesterday were being laid off. [NYP]

• Five news orgs — including NYT — pay Wen Ho Lee $750,000 to settle his case. Which seems not a not entirely unreasonable amount after mistakenly being labled a nuclear spy. [NYT]
• CBS News Iraq reporter Kim Dozier now off respirator, breathing on her own. [CBSNews.com]
• Charlie Gibson thinks New York's Joe Hagan "is something of a snake" and will never talk to him again. Mind you, this is over a fluffy Q&A. [Chicago Defender]
• Best attack on Judy Miller ever: She could have prevented 9/11. [TAP]
• Time loses Baghdad reporters; New York to lose dapper WSJer Matthew Rose. [NYP]
• Time's Jim Kelly to take sabbatical, visit Statue of Liberty before starting new corporate gig. [MW]
• GMA EP Ben Sherwood quits. Presumably he just couldn't bear not having Charlie Gibson's full attention. [Media Mob/NYO]

• Valerie Plame's $2.5M book deal with Crown falls through. Patrick Fitzgerald subpoenas Judy Miller and Matt Cooper in attempt to find out why. [NYT]
• CBS reporter injured in Iraq is in critical but stable condition, sedated and breathing with a ventilator, and able to recognize her boyfriend. [AP via NYSun]
• Seventy WPers take early retirement. It's almost like working at Time Inc.! [WP]
• The Atlantic is opposed to flip-flops, tank tops. [Media Mob/NYO]
• Court says fuckin' CBS shouldn't have fuckin' fired Arthur Chi'en from fuckin' Channel 2. Fuck. [NYDN]

• CBS cameraman and soundman killed in Iraq, reporter injured, making Iraq the deadliest modern war for journalists, worse the World War II. [NYT]
• Hearst is still tweaking Shop Etc. [Mediaweek]
• And could use to be tweaking Quick & Simple, which ain't selling well. [WWD]
• Charlie Rose is not dead. [NYM]
• The Times of London to introduce U.S. edition with a run of 10,000 printed on New York Post presses. Even more Murdoch news, yay! [NYT]

• Time Inc. budget cuts knock off two of the mag company's best reporters: Prize-winning investigative duo Barlett and Steele. [CJR Daily]
• Nerve for parents? Jeez, talk about grups. [WWD (second item)]
• Wired gives awards; big winners don't show up. [AP via Yahoo]
• Bob Schieffer thinks CBS foreign correspondent Lara Logan is the next Barbara Walters or Diane Sawyer. But not the next Katie Couric, Bob? [WP]