Katie Couric, Thinking About Tomorrow

Couric says she simply tried to be herself. "When I was a sports moron with Bryant Gumbel," her first co-host, "I would just be honest and say, 'I have no idea what you're talking about.' I made mistakes on the air and laughed about it, and that made viewers relax a little bit."

In her first years, Couric says, the program was "a little newsier" than it is now. "It was a little more serious in tone. It was a lot of pretty serious newsmakers, at least for the first hour, hour and a half, with less of a premium on lifestyle pieces." But television, and "Today," evolved in the direction of infotainment.

"At times I've wished we had done a little more harder news or serious issues," she says. "At certain times in my career, it's vacillated -- the balance has shifted somewhat -- but then came back to a really good mix."

Steve Friedman, a former "Today" executive producer who now works on CBS morning programming, describes Couric's role this way: "You have to be able to interview, you have to be able to read and you have to be able to ad lib -- and in doing so, let people inside your soul. She did all of that very well."

On Halloween and similar occasions, Couric, like her colleagues, dressed up in funny costumes. "It always felt a little cringe-worthy for me," she says. But whether it was dancing, cooking or just gallivanting about, "I've always tried to embrace what I've been asked to do and be a good sport. Nothing's worse than someone having a bad attitude on a segment."

When the program has hit rough spots -- especially last year, when ABC's "Good Morning America" came close to overtaking "Today" -- Couric drew flak for everything from her increasing blondness to her on-air high jinks to her relations with colleagues. Jim Bell, who was brought in as executive producer after a management shake-up last year, says Couric is always pushing for the right guests, latest information and strong graphics.

"She's pretty relentless about it," Bell says. "When some less than flattering articles were written about Katie, I questioned whether the same articles would have been written if she weren't a woman."

Among her favorite moments, Couric says, was the time Barbara Bush was giving her a White House tour, the first President Bush walked in and Couric turned the impromptu encounter into an extended live interview.

But morning television also features the usual parade of celebrities promoting their wares. "In an era of publicity-driven junkets," Couric says, she enjoyed chatting with certain stars who had something to say, such as Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman, rather than those who have moved on to their next movie and are not engaged in the interview. She says she also likes talking to authors, especially historians such as David McCullough and Doris Kearns Goodwin, because they are energized about their work.

Then there were the tragedies that unfolded on her watch, such as the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, when Couric interviewed the parents of some of the young victims.

"That had a big impact on me personally," she says. "To be there with people so emotionally raw and who have been through this life-shattering and earth-shattering event. A lot of those stories are just horrifying on the surface, but when the shock wears off, they're just fascinating to cover."

Says Friedman: "It's very difficult to get the person at the flood, the parent at Columbine, to talk to people on television in the middle of this crisis, and that's where she is at her strongest."