Speak up, Couric will be listening

Call it the Katie Couric listening tour.

Next month, the incoming anchor of the “CBS Evening News” and Rome Hartman, the program’s executive producer, are planning to hold forums with a cross-section of residents in a half-dozen cities to help shape the broadcast for Couric’s debut in September.

Hartman said Thursday that Couric suggested the idea as a way to get a sense of the issues of most concern to Americans, as well as their take on media coverage.

“It’s just to have informal, off-the-record dialogues to hear what they’re thinking about issues, stories and journalism -- what they like in our broadcast, what they want more of,” Hartman said. “There are not going to be cameras, so people can speak freely and be honest.”

Hartman said he and the new anchor aimed to use the town hall meetings to inform their thinking as they seek to “put together the best, most in-depth, relevant broadcast.”

Details of the tour are being worked out, but so far stops have been scheduled in Denver on July 13 and San Diego on July 14. Interested participants must fill out a questionnaire on the websites of the local CBS affiliate detailing their television news viewing habits, among other information.