I‘ve lavished praise on CBS News‘ Public Eye site before. A recent post raises the influence of demographics on the content of the Evening News, and the dilemmas that poses – always, but always, in second-guessing story selection.

My personal view is that it’s a mistake to break newscasts down story by story. You’re much better off delivering a coherent broadcast because, unlike news execs, viewers tend to not to judge programmes in isolated chunks. In other words, story selection should run strategically, not tactically.

Call to mind the oft-quoted Sun Tzu line: “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” Small tactical wins that don’t relate to a strategic – and shared – vision of where a broadcast is going won’t beat a well-articulated long-term strategy with correspondent and producer buy-in. Getting buy-in is tough. Just because people keep taking the network cheque do you think there’s buy-in to the new Evening News across CBS? Not enough. And without the buy-in the vision for the new Couric broadcast – however necessary – can only be imposed, and the sound you’re hearing is of teeth grinding away in the background.

Anyway, enough of my pitch for the apparently recently-vacated EP job at NBC News!