Katie Couric, Thinking About Tomorrow

After 15 Years at 'Today,' CBS-Bound Host Is Ready to Begin Her Next Chapter

Photos
Katie Couric
After 15 years on NBC's morning "Today" show, Katie Couric changes networks to anchor the "CBS Evening News."

For Katie Couric and "Today," this has been the long goodbye.

The images flicker across the screen: Katie with Nancy Reagan. Katie at Ground Zero. Katie singing with Tony Bennett. Katie meeting Elmo and hugging Mister Rogers. Katie flying through the air as Peter Pan. Farewell messages from Hillary Clinton, Karen Hughes, Bill Gates, Ben Affleck, Paula Abdul.

"Obviously, it's bittersweet for me," Couric says. "I also feel that 15 years is a long time. You don't want to be the guest who never leaves. It feels time for a new chapter for the show and for me."

As the entire civilized world knows, Couric's new chapter, after her final "Today" appearance tomorrow, will be as the anchor of the "CBS Evening News." And given the tidal wave of publicity surrounding her move -- far greater than last week's ripples over ABC naming Charlie Gibson to lead "World News Tonight" -- she is careful not to ratchet up expectations even higher.

"I'm going to give it my best shot," she says. "I'm not going in there saying I'm going to change the face of the evening news or I'm going to be a huge success. Right now it's a question mark. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to contribute something positive."

Asked about critics who don't like her style and foresee a rocky transition from freewheeling morning personality to sober evening journalist, Couric says: "I've grown a proverbial thick skin. I think it's just part of being in such a highly visible position. If everyone likes you and you're so white bread, you kind of stand for nothing." She has dismissed questions about whether she has the requisite experience to be a nightly anchor, noting the hundreds of interviews she has done with presidents, prime ministers and corporate leaders.

The seriousness of this issue, with which Couric will be grappling in her new job, was underscored yesterday when two members of a CBS News crew were killed in a car bombing in Iraq and correspondent Kim Dozier was seriously injured.

Couric's ascension to the chair once occupied by Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather has tended to overshadow what she and her co-host, Matt Lauer, accomplished at "Today": a decade-long reign as the top-rated morning show.

"She filled this role as well as anyone has ever filled this role," Lauer says. "This job requires a very versatile performer, a little bit like a variety show."

Lauer likens their long relationship to that of a married couple. "Nobody writes about the days you get along well," he says. "There are times in the past when we've gotten on each other's nerves a little bit, but they've been blown out of proportion."

Couric, 49, who grew up in Arlington and graduated from the University of Virginia, initially had a hard time getting an on-air job. She worked as a CNN producer and fill-in correspondent before becoming a local reporter in Miami and for Washington's WRC and then a Pentagon reporter for NBC. When she was introduced as "Katherine Couric" in her 1991 debut as the "Today" co-host, she had never anchored a program.

"She had such natural raw ability that she could do it, but clearly she had a lot to learn," says NBC chief executive Jeff Zucker, who was Couric's first producer at "Today." Over the years -- especially after the 1998 death of her husband, Jay Monahan, and her on-air colonoscopy to raise awareness about the colon cancer that killed him -- "she dealt with many high moments and many low moments, and had to deal with it in front of a national audience," Zucker says. "That made her a lot more vulnerable."