It silenced her critics long enough for her to work through her contract at the network.ĭespite early reports, Couric doesn’t really go over the top in her critiques of former colleagues at NBC. Her attempt to reinvent the evening news didn’t click with audiences, but Couric’s 2008 interview with Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was one of the all-time game-changing moments in politics.

She admits her spiffed-up office in the dreary CBS Broadcast Center “stuck out like a Givenchy gown at a hoedown.” But she could not pass up the opportunity to make history.Ĭouric was not welcomed by the traditionalists at CBS News, especially as she was pulling in $15 million in a season of cost-cutting. She was warned not to do it Warren Beatty, of all people, said mornings were more important. But as a baby boomer raised on “The Huntley-Brinkley Report,” she couldn’t resist the chance to join CBS in 2006 as the first solo woman to serve as an evening news anchor. The coolheaded co-anchor survived a turbulent decade on NBC’s morning program, which is now adapting to the new TV landscape.Ĭouric’s starry run at “Today” elevated the stature of morning TV while the influence of the evening news was waning. (Of course, the three network news anchors of that era, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw, had no part in grooming their successors).Ĭompany Town After 10 years of early mornings, NBC’s Savannah Guthrie still lives for ‘Today’ This much hasn’t changed: Couric has been pilloried in the press over early leaks of “Going There,” in which she admits she was not the mentoring kind at “Today.” It’s understandable she would want to protect her turf every woman who made a strong impression at NBC News was touted by the press as a replacement. It also made her a favorite target for the tabloids and the long lenses of paparazzi.

But she was almost too good at the entertainment elements of morning TV - crooning along with pop stars, dressing up for Halloween and diving head-first into any ratings-driven stunt.īeing described as “perky” and “ America’s Sweetheart” overshadowed her real accomplishments as a journalist capable of hard-hitting interviews. Couric arrived at NBC News as a serious journalist, having quickly learned her craft in local TV and on CNN during its rollicking startup years.

Going There by Katie Couric