CBS, Couric Agree on Words She Won't Have to Say On-Air

NEW YORK.  Tensions between CBS Evening News staffers and Katie Couric cooled a bit yesterday after the network reached an agreement with the highly-paid anchorwoman on ten words she will not be required to say during live broadcasts of the slumping program.

"Good evening.  We're not going to talk about anything disgusting tonight, okay?"

Couric admitted in a recent New York Magazine profile that she had "sort of slapped around" news editor Jerry Cipriano for including the word "sputum" in the text that she was required to read from a TelePrompTer during a broadcast.  "I got mad at him and said 'You can't do this to me.  You have to tell me when you're going to use a yucky word like that.'"

TelePrompTer: "Bush was seen digging his finger into his ear . . ."

"Sputum" is an expectorated mixture of saliva and snot that is discharged from the respiratory passages of a child with a mouthful of milk who is told an juvenile joke, such as "How can you tell if there's been an elephant in your refrigerator?  Look for elephant footprints in the Jello."

"Why did the little moron throw the clock out the window?"

In addition to "sputum", the twelve-page agreement hammered out between CBS lawyers and Couric's agent proscribes the words "smegma", "goober", and "Putin", which Couric found to be objectionable on similar grounds.  "What's a 'Putin'?" asked Mela Murphy, Couric's hairdresser.  "It sounds disgusting."

Putin:  Will henceforth be referred to as "the Russian President guy".

Certain difficult words will be banned because of questions of pronunciation and emphasis.  "Hegemony", a word used frequently in discussions of foreign affairs, was dropped because no one could remember whether it is pronounced "HEDGE-a-mony" or "hedge-GEMINI".  "Narwhal" was discarded because Couric saw a picture of the arctic cetacean with a twisted ivory tusk in one of her daughters' books and found it to be "gross". 

Narwhal:  He doesn't take it personally.

The CBS Evening News is the third-ranked network news broadcast and its ratings have fallen since Couric took over from Dan Rather, who recently criticized the network for "tarting up" and "dumbing down" the show he hosted for twenty-four years.

Bush:  "I learned a lot in the Air National Guard.  Never--ever--try to draw to an inside straight."

Couric responded to those criticisms in a professional manner, saying "Dan was the sucker who fell for those bogus Air National Guard documents--you don't get much dumber than that."

Williams:  Incredibly lifelike.

In response to critics who say Couric lacks substance CBS has called in a team of hair and makeup specialists who have advocated heavier use of eyeliner and additional cream rinse to give her a more somber appearance and enable her to compete with Brian Williams, a department store mannequin who has been taught to read the news by NBC.

"I am really, really serious now--okay?"

When asked how these cosmetic changes would enhance Couric's on-air gravitas, CBS chief Leslie Moonves said "It's kind of a subtle thing.  We're trying to make her look like a raccoon who washed her hair under a low-flow shower head."

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman