Couric traveling to Iraq and Syria - The CBS news anchor, approaching one year in her job, will report extensively during a 10-day trip, her first visit to both countries.
NEW YORK--Katie Couric, who will mark her one-year anniversary as anchor of "CBS Evening News" next week, is embarking tonight on a 10-day trip to Iraq and Syria, the first network evening news anchor to visit the war zone in six months.
It will be Couric's first visit to both countries, and the network plans to devote substantial air time to her coverage, with 16 stories by the anchor and chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan slated to run over four days. Beginning Tuesday, Couric will anchor the broadcast live from Baghdad for two nights and from Damascus another two nights.
CBS executives declined to provide other details about her travels, citing the U.S. military's request that the network withhold specifics about her movements for security reasons.
Iraq has been an especially treacherous terrain for journalists, including some high-profile television correspondents. Last year, ABC anchor Bob Woodruff was nearly killed and his cameraman Doug Vogt was seriously injured as they traveled in an Iraqi personnel carrier north of Baghdad. Four months later, a car bomb in a Baghdad neighborhood killed a CBS crew and gravely wounded CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier. And last week, Anwar Abbas Lafta, a translator for CBS' Baghdad bureau who would have worked with Couric during her visit, was abducted from his home and murdered.
"Quite frankly, everything gives me pause about sending anybody to Iraq," said Sean McManus, president of CBS News. "It is a fact that is the most dangerous place on the face of the Earth, and every move we make over there is made with grave hesitation and trepidation. But Katie very much wanted to do this story. She feels it is the most important story that we're covering on a daily basis, and she wanted to cover it firsthand."
Couric will be the first network anchor to visit Iraq since March 2007, when NBC's Brian Williams made his third trip there since the start of the war. ABC's Charles Gibson has not traveled to the country during the current conflict.
The extensive nature of her travels and the amount of air time the network is giving the coverage will spotlight the third-place newscast as Couric observes her first anniversary behind the anchor desk.
But Rick Kaplan, executive producer of "CBS Evening News," said the trip was not planned to gin up attention for the broadcast, which has lost 8% of its viewers during the 2006-07 season.
"Only fools will perceive that," he said.
