Another Job Opportunity

Sean McManus

President, CBS News

Sir,

I understand you have retroactively approved the photoshopping of a photo of Katie Couric to make her look slimmer. According to the Associated Press:

The touched-up photo of Couric dressed in a striped business suit appears on the inside of the September issue of Watch! which is distributed at CBS stations and on American Airlines flights.

CBS News President Sean McManus said he was "obviously surprised and disappointed when I heard about it."

The original picture was snapped in May and was widely circulated to the media as an official photo of Couric.

Couric, 49, said she hadn't known about the digitally reworked version until she saw the issue. The former NBC "Today" show host told the Daily News, "I liked the first picture better because there's more of me to love."

Gil Schwartz, executive vice president of communications for CBS Corp., said Wednesday in a phone interview the photo alteration was done by someone in the CBS photo department who "got a little zealous."

But he dismissed any notion of heads rolling over the matter.

"I talked to my photo department, we had a discussion about it," Schwartz said. "I think photo understands this is not something we'd do in the future."

Should you decide you do need some additional help, we'd be more than happy to help out. Attached please find an even more slimmed down Katie Couric. And thanks for all the laughs CBS News provides! That bit about integrity! Sheer genius!

UPDATE: No fair! Dan Riehl has exclusive photos of Big Dan Rather. Damn. There goes another job opportunity. I wonder if Reuters is hiring………