KATIE COURIC

Dear Katie,

Here's my advice about what you should do, first and foremost.

Since you won't be the CBS Evening News anchor in the fall, and you've written about and rehashed the ups and downs of your career in a book that's just been published. I can say what I want to say, uninhibitedly.

Katie, what is loud, loudest, in your mind? Pay attention to what's you are saying to YOU. You are at a perfect age, 54, to do whatever you need and want to do -- be it major, huge, or minor, small, or nothing -- you can just float along for awhile.

The people who give you advice may love and admire you, but no one knows more about what Katie Couric can do as well as you do.

Five years ago, when you took over CBS Evening News, I did not like the look, the sound, the feel of your news style. I missed Dan Rather's fatherly authoritative presence. You seemed to have a personal feeling about most subjects. I didn't know who you were, though I knew you had lost a husband to colon cancer, and you were promoting colonoscopies.

Now, after looking at CBS Evening News occasionally, and then more frequently watching your show, I see YOU. I see a real person, and there is weight, a feminine objectivity -- not sweetsy, not mother, aunty, or sister -- an authority that fits you. I am not distracted by your jewelry, hairdo, or anything that you wear.

I don't hear just Katie's point of view -- I hear the news -- what you're reporting, describing.

I think Katie Couric ought to stay on CBS a little longer.

If you are moving on because of negotiation factors -- money, artistic concept -- I understand. (If you were giving me advice and suggested I stick with cultural stuff and keep away from politics -- well, I'd listen, but I'd stick with what I know about myself -- I have to write about what's on my mind.)

Though I've said don't leave CBS -- advised you to stay -- you've become a very strong, convincing, powerful anchor in your own way. You know inside yourself what YOU want to do. Pay attention to your own voice.

Listen to YOU.