Reports are circulating that CBS is about to fire Rome Hartman, executive producer of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, and replace him with Rick Kaplan, who until last year was president of MSNBC.Hartman was named executive producer in November 2005, and helped reshape the broadcast after Couric took over the anchor slot in September. After the requisite curiosity period wore off, the ratings for the newscast deteriorated; it now pulls in lower ratings than it did at the same time last year, when Bob Schieffer was anchoring. The soft-news components of the broadcast were apparently what turned viewers off, and, even though those issues were already being addressed by Hartman, it apparently wasn't enough to save his job.











