The next round of cheerleading prose articles for CBS anchor Katie Couric (still gaining acceptance in third place) will coo that she has won a journalism award for “Special Achievement for National Impact on the 2008 Campaign.”

Katie Couric, the anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News, was honored for her extraordinary, persistent, and detailed multi-part interviews with Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, which judges called a “defining moment in the 2008 presidential campaign.”

The “special achievement” for creating a Palin feeding frenzy came from the judges of the Walter Cronkite Awards for Excellence in Television Political Journalism, put together by the Norman Lear Center at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication. Which part of that sounds more insular? That the award is named for the guy who introduces her every night? Or that it comes from Norman Lear?