Jared Bridges has a perceptive piece today on morning show personality Katie Couric’s televised goodbye to her Today Show audience as she moves on to anchor the CBS Evening News. Bridges writes:
“Speaking into the camera, Couric said, ‘it may sound kind of corny, but I really feel as if we’ve become friends through the years.’ Kinda corny? Kinda.”
Bridges acknowledges that perky Couric is an easy target, but he notes this to ask a deeper question: what has happened when “friends” is such a trivial word that a news personality can speak of people she’s never seen, and never will, in this way? Bridges continues:
The proverb tells us, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” (Proverbs 17:17, ESV) The self-indulgence of celebrities like Couric allows them to see their mass–broadcasted selves as achieving a real sort of connectedness. Compared with the proverb, it makes one wonder just how connected we in the age of connectivity really are…
This is a good point to make in an era when so many consider “friendship” to be the exchanging of information on a computer screen, or the casual nod of a head when passing in the hall. When Jesus calls us “friends,” surely he means something more than what we often do.
It’s not as though Katie Couric doesn’t have warm feelings about her audience. I’m sure she does. And she’s simply using “friend” with the linguistic range it has come to have in America. But doesn’t this usage cheapen what real friendship is all about?
It makes me wonder if my neighbor, who used to tell me I am special..just the way I am..was really all that sincere after all.
