If CBS really wants to bolster the gravitas of its new Evening News anchor Katie Couric, the network should stop taking their cues from Glamour magazine.
Eye suits have admitted that a photo of Couric appearing in the September issue of CBS' Watch! magazine was digitally altered to significantly slim down her face and body.
Not one day on the job and already she's been downsized.
The original photo was taken during the network's upfront presentation in May and distributed to the press as CBS' first official photo of its prized acquisition. The retouched version, airbrushed to shave several sizes off the 49-year-old's body, was circulated to more than 400,000 readers of the quarterly publiciation.
At least one other photo in the magazine spread appears to be altered, however CBS no longer has the original photos on its press site for comparison.
Speaking to the New York Daily News, Couric said she had no input in her digital nip/tuck, adding "I liked the first picture better because there's more of me to love."
CBS News President Sean McManus told the Associated Press he was "obviously surprised and disappointed" when he heard about the apparently renegade Photoshop handiwork.
The network's top spokesman Gil Schwartz--who's also listed on Watch!'s masthead as the magazine's editor-in-chief--disavowed knowledge of Couric's digital slim-down, but also played down its significance, claiming someone in the photo department simply "got a little zealous."
"I talked to my photo department, we had a discussion about it," Schwartz told AP. "I think photo understands this is not something we'd do in the future."
Thanks to a reader tip, the Website TVNewser was the first outlet to catch the doctoring. On Tuesday, the site posted the magazine's manipulated photo of Couric alongside the original.
In the Watch! interview accompanying the airbrushed picture, Couric pontificates on what viewers are looking for in a network anchor.
"I think they look for someone who is accessible, understandable, obviously someone who they can trust," she said.
In any case, the full-sized Couric makes her CBS Evening News debut next Tuesday.