The fact of the matter is that Couric remains third in the network news race, and her producers are well aware of her ratings struggle. So now, though they insist she's safe, executives are encouraging Couric to evolve:

In a meeting last week, Ms. Couric and her producers made plans to nurture some existing franchises, including the financial investigation series "Follow the Money." Ms. Couric also wants to add more upbeat stories to the newscast, "since the news can be so depressing now."

More significantly, Ms. Couric continues to seek to diversify her role beyond the evening broadcast. "I've tried to utilize all the existing platforms at CBS, and when they don't exist, create them myself," she said.

Apart from CBS, she will conduct monthly interviews with notable women for Glamour magazine, beginning in the December issue.

Those interviews are no doubt influenced by the fact that another woman, Diane Sawyer, will soon venture into the nightly news arena, and provide hints of what could be a journalistic cat fight.

If Couric's Glamour scheme can get the women, Sawyer better start thinking of ways to get the gays, the only force that can counter the female force.

In addition to the above changes, Couric will start a new web-based interview series. Her first guest will be Glenn Beck. If that's not a gimmick, we don't know what is...

Cronkite was an icon of the self-consciously dignified style of journalism that dominated throughout his years in the anchor chair. It is, in a way, appropriate that his departure comes as the school of news delivery he represented — responsible, sonorous, self-important — is on its way out.

Cronkite has been rumored to be near death for a month now, after he fell "gravely ill." In late June, his family said he had cerebrovascular disease and was not expected to recover. CBS broke the news of Cronkite's death with a special report tonight.

Cronkite anchored the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981, ending each broadcast with his signature sign-off, "And that's the way it is." Following his consistently strong showing in viewer opinion polls, Cronkite became known as "the most trusted man in America."

Cronkite was perhaps best remembered for his reporting on the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy, which "helped pull together a nation stricken with grief and was a signal event in television's evolution into the national nervous system," in the words of Times columnist Tom Wicker.

Cronkite also helped turn the tide of public opinion against the Vietnam War when, at the close of a February 1968 broadcast focused on North Vietnam's Tet offensive, he concluded that America probably could not win the war:

It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate.

Cronkite was eventually pushed out of the anchor chair in 1981 by Dan Rather, leading to a long-simmering grudge; when Rather himself was pushed out as CBS Evening News anchor in 2005, Cronkite said he should have been replaced years earlier. Rather "was perennially in third place," Cronkite said at the time.

Cronkite grew up in Missouri and Texas. He dropped out of college to pursue a career in journalism; he was discovered by Edward R. Murrow while working in radio and brought by Murrow to CBS.

Cronkite leaves behind a journalism school in his name at Arizona State University, with which he became closely involved. He is survived by two daughters, a son and four grandsons.

We encourage you to post remembrances, video or otherwise, in the comments below.

Elsewhere:

• CBS News has a video obituary and several photo essays
• Full New York Times obituary
• TVNewser collected statements from CBS journalists about Cronkite's death

UPDATE: Cajun Boy points out Palin was a journalism major. HA.

The lefties at Huffington Post and Crooks and Liars have seized upon the part where the Republican vice presidential nominee can't give examples of John McCain supporting financial regulation. "I'll try to find some and bring them to you," she tells Couric. The neocon New York Sun (not yet dead!) notes the part where Palin said we might be headed for another Great Depression, hardly the most reassuring leadership from the ticket that was recently talking about how strong America's economic "fundamentals" are. And she was also clearly flummoxed by a question about ongoing ties between McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis and a group that advocated for housing agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Perhaps Palin should stick to interviews with Fox News shouting heads like Sean Hannity. It's not like she's ever needed the mainstream press for high approval ratings.

(video above)

[YouTube via Wonkette)

Ripped out of the context of the Evening News, Couric is charming and fresh, particularly when filmed next to stodgy Charles Gibson of ABC News. But it's not clear Americans want their TV news anchors charming and fresh, and that's probably why CBS producers have not promoted the YouTube channel, which has received just 19,000 views (some individual clips did better).

But the success of attractive, downright whimsical anchor Anderson Cooper at CNN should help producers make up their minds. For all his blushy, coquettish on-camera moments, there's little doubt Cooper would be taken seriously reprising the sort of coverage that raised his profile in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Nor does arguably hunky (*chokecough*) Keith Olbermann at MSNBC have trouble getting his "special comments" taken seriously, despite his repeated silly antics, like impersonating a pirate version of Rupert Murdoch.

Likewise, it's no sexist knock against Couric's potential as a newscaster to say she reveals attractive, inviting, authentic glimmers of herself on the YouTube channel, one that might serve the former Today host well in an environment more receptive to her talents than the Evening News has thus far been.

[LA Times]

• 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]
  
• The prosecution's key witness in Conrad Black fraud trial? Somewhat duplicitous. [NYP]
  
• CNN is giving Matt Drudge a run for his money in the area of obsessive weather coverage. [TVNewser]

• Rupert Murdoch - perhaps you've heard of him - is expanding his tabloid empire to India. [Guardian]
  
• Sam Zell joins the Tribune board; his "point man" believes that newspapers can remain profitable. [LAT]
  
• Katie Couric is trying to pretend that she knew her ratings at "CBS Evening News" would blow all along. [USA Today]
  

This piece is beyond ridiculous — unfounded, gratuitous, utterly malicious and, most importantly, untrue, as stated unequivocally by CBS News President Sean McManus. It is incomprehensible how a major daily newspaper can base an entire article on unsourced rumor — including from a direct competitor — about what CBS News management is thinking, when those rumors were directly knocked down on the record at the highest levels. Is this where journalism has gone at the Inquirer?

CBS evening blues [Philadelphia Inquirer]
CBS Criticizes Column: "Is This Where Journalism Has Gone At The Inquirer?" [TVNewser]
Philadelphia Journalism's New Order [NYT]

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.

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]

It was indeed a remarkably short time, because, with the exception of September 11, Couric has been pretty much winning her time slot in a remarkably close race.

CBS forced Marketwatch to correct Friedman's piece and include a letter the opened with the following:

While we wholeheartedly agree that everyone has the right to his or her opinion — including media columnists — we are so stunned by the irresponsibility and lack of accuracy on easily researched facts in Jon Friedman's column today ("Why Couric Already Has Slipped to Third Place") that we must set the record straight.

Clearly, CBS hasn't read Friedman before, and they're not happy about it. We, on the other hand, are surprisingly empathetic. We all make mistakes; we know that the temptation to twist the facts (or, as seems to be the case, not check the facts at all) to fit your own views is a difficult one to resist. Frankly, we feel sorry for the guy: He's roundly mocked by everyone in his industry for dispensing the most conventional of wisdoms. The constant refrain throughout the media world is, "How the fuck does this man keep his job?" The one time he goes out on a limb and tries to do something that no one else is doing, he gets smacked down in public. Just thinking about the humiliation he's feeling right now... it kind of makes us cringe.

Why Katie Couric is losing momentum [Marketwatch, correction appended]
Under Couric, Ratings Race Is Once Again, Well, a Race [NYT]
Schadenfreude [Wikipedia]

Earlier: Gawker's coverage of Jon Friedman