According to an item in today’s Page Six, Rick Kaplan, executive producer of CBS’ Evening News invited a squad of professional dancers to the office to teach News staffers how to “dance en masse” to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” The Post says that “a CBS insider claimed morale is so low over Katie Couric’s continued horrible ratings” that Kaplan thought that getting the staff to dance to the song might…uh, I’m not really sure what he was thinking. Kaplan’s brainstorm was apparently inspired by the YouTube video of Filipino prison inmates doing a spot-on rendition of the video.
I can’t imagine that the gambit won’t work–after all, what can wipe away the searing, existential pain of being mired in last place in the ratings more than a forced dance routine?
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.