Katie Couric, Thinking About Tomorrow
After 15 Years at 'Today,' CBS-Bound Host Is Ready to Begin Her Next Chapter

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 30, 2006

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."

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."

Couric and Lauer were on the air on Sept. 11, 2001, and believed, with most of the country, that it was some kind of bizarre accident when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. When the second plane struck, Lauer says, "I remember vividly looking at Katie and Katie looking at me. It was a very emotional moment. The next couple of hours were very hard to get through. We were New Yorkers, Americans, our families were worried about us, and we worked in a landmark building. We went purely on instinct."

Bell recalls Couric calling in from vacation and volunteering to go to Louisiana and Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. In one case, she helped a father reunite with his family. "Big players play in big games," says Bell, a former sports producer. "She just has an insatiable curiosity about things."

Fifteen years in the limelight have made Couric a gossip-column fixture, her every date or charity outing photographed and chronicled. But for two months she has been in a strange limbo. As NBC has choreographed her big send-off, it is also publicizing the woman who is taking her star power, and $15-million-a-year contract, to CBS.

"Obviously it's a little awkward when someone is going to work for the competition," Zucker says. "But there's no acrimony here, and a great deal of fondness for Katie. The fact is, she's been an incredibly important part of 'Today' and NBC. . . . I think even she is sometimes embarrassed by the amount of attention that she and similar people get in these positions."

NBC executives say they are well positioned in the morning, having hired Meredith Vieira from "The View" the day after Couric confirmed the rumors that she would be Bob Schieffer's successor. "Good Morning America," meanwhile, will be grappling with its own transition. Gibson's move to evening duty dissolves his successful partnership with Diane Sawyer, who will be paired with co-host Robin Roberts.

"We've all lived with the knowledge that one day Katie would leave," says Lauer, who signed a five-year, $13-million-a-year contract with "Today" soon after Couric's announcement. "The show tends to be bigger than the sum of its parts."

Couric, who assumes the CBS anchor duties in September, also has her eye on another program, "60 Minutes," where she plans to contribute a half-dozen pieces a year. Television newsmagazines have not been faring well lately, she says, "and here I was given an opportunity to go to the best and longest-running and most respected newsmagazine. That was really appealing."

But as Couric well knows, her reputation will rise or fall on her evening showdown with Gibson and her longtime NBC colleague Brian Williams. "Just to be able to help shape an evening newscast is a great opportunity," she says. As an aging genre, says Couric, "I think they're probably ripe for a little retooling."

As a single mother of girls 14 and 10, stepping into an unaccustomed role -- the face of a news division -- Couric is periodically reminded that she is more than just a famous journalist switching jobs.

"I am surprised by the reaction from women -- total strangers -- who come up to me and say, 'We're so proud of you, congratulations, this is great for women.' You kind of forget that the evening news has been a bastion of maleness for as long as it has. It's been surprising and overwhelming."