By Stone Martindale Jul 9, 2007, 14:16 GMT
The CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric is being accused of smacking an editor over his news script and a certain word inserted that she allegedly has no use for.
03/05/2007 - Katie Couric - © Wild1 / Photorazzi
"The stress has caused her to blow up at her staff for small infractions on the set," claims New York magazine reporter Joe Hagan to Matt Drudge of Drudge.com.
"During the tuberculosis story in June, Couric got angry with news editor Jerry Cipriano for using a word she detested— 'sputum' —and the staff grew tense when she began slapping him 'over and over and over again' on the arm, according to a source familiar with the scene. It had seemed like a joke at first, but it quickly became clear that she wasn’t kidding."
Matt Drudge reports that "no formal complaint has been filed against Couric over the incident."
"I sort of slapped him around,” Couric says to New York magazine. “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 word like that.' I was aggravated, there's no question about that.' But she says she has a good relationship with Cipriano. 'We did ban the word sputum from all future broadcasts. It became kind of a joke."
Drudge's CBS sources say the incident was a lighthearted moment only.
New York Magazine's 6,000-word article has the headline: Katie Couric's Impossible Year.
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