The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tennessee, on the state minimum wage:

Expect lobbyists to pump up the pressure against a proposed state minimum wage of $6.15 an hour in Tennessee following its approval by the Senate Commerce, Labour and Agriculture Committee.

If the arguments against the proposal sound familiar — higher prices, lost jobs, cutbacks in the number of hours workers are allowed to spend on the job, the list goes on — they were trotted out the last time the federal minimum wage was raised in 1997.

The arguments today are just as shopworn, and just as speculative, as they were then. Proponents of the raise can point to studies such as one released by the Fiscal Policy Institute. The Albany-based, non-partisan think tank has been tracking hikes in the New York minimum wage and found that they have not resulted in the loss of retail jobs — in fact, just the opposite.

As reported by Newsday, the organisation’s research showed that retail industry employment in the state rose 1.3 percent, compared with 0.8 percent for overall non-farm job growth, from 2004 to 2005, a year in which the first of the three minimum-wage hikes went into effect.

It is hard to support a permanent ceiling on the minimum wage, which Congress seems to be trying to establish. It widens the income gap between rich and poor Americans and discourages unskilled workers from looking for jobs.

Chicago Tribune, on Katie Couric<$>:

The hiring of Katie Couric to anchor the “CBS Evening News” deserves a hurrah and a count to ten.

It’s reassuring to see an obviously capable female take over what’s been by and large a male bastion. Since she’s already a household name and earning $16 million a year on NBC’s “Today”, it’s far from a rags-to-riches tale or a risk-filled selection of an unknown, if talented, personality.

As for intimations that maybe she, as a female, doesn’t have the gravitas for this high-profile platform, please, enough already. It’s not as though Anna Nicole Smith has been promoted to news anchor. Couric has bona fide credentials as a serious reporter of hard news.

The reasons to take a deep breath and realise what this doesn’t represent are many.

It’s not some Hail Mary pass to salvage a losing team. CBS, No. 3 in the evening news ratings war, draws an estimated 7.7 million viewers each evening, swamping the combined total of the ballyhooed cable networks, Fox, CNN and MSNBC.

But just because Couric is perky and leggy in the a.m. and can belt out a dreadful version of the “Love Boat” theme song doesn’t mean viewers should expect the same at night.

So Godspeed, Ms Couric. If you can find a way to lower the average age of network news viewers from the early ‘60s to ... well, to even the early ‘50s, that’s progress toward a more informed citizenry.