Aas,Poor - Joe Hagan

,NrJory"
Aas,Poor
CoLric
But
pity her not.
ay lOE HICIN
CBS
Eaming Neux se! you can
see
her: alone in
a
RoM oursron the sleek glass chamber of the
prim black parrtsuit and pearls, shufling a stack
ofpapers at the wide, half-moon desk Sitting stiffand still, she looks dwarfed under the stage tight" *ra
high studio ceilings, the cameras barelyvisible in the shado'ws.
"Hellq everyonej'I(atieC-ouricsays intothe alrner4 mouthtumeddolvn, eyes narowedseriously.
She introduces the lead story of the day, and a news segment rolls while ihe sits and. wai* at ihe
desk. When it ends, the camera returns. She peers gravely into the lens and introduces another
story. It rolls, and Couric sits. She waits. The program fades to apharmaceutical commercial, and
18 NEw yonr | .rur,v 16, 2007
Photographby Platon
couric shuftles the papers and studiously examines her notes for
the camera.
Twenty minutes later, it's over.
And so it goes every night: same stoic gaze, same sober leadins from a TelePrompTer, the effervescent personality ofAmerica's Sweetheart nowhere to be seen. It's not exactly what Couric
signed on for last year, when, with extraordinary fanfare, she
became the first solo woman anchor on an evening newscast.
CBS chief Leslie Moonves had lured her with the promise of
"blowing up" the formulaic evening-news format, offering her a
show that would be an incubator for her own ideas.
In the earh heady days after her arrival, the news had a chatty,
friendlyvibe and a bright, casual atmosphere never seen befoie
at 6:3O p.rvr. There were fewer headlines, more news features,
and off-the-cuffreactions from Couric. On her first broadcast,
sit-down interview with New yorkTimes columnist Thomas Friedman about the state of the war on terror,
asking him, "rA.re we safer now?" She introduced a segment of
her own invention called "freeSpeech" that was supposed to foster public discourse by allowing celebrities and other guests to
sound offon a topic of their choosing. She showed baby pictures
of Suri Cruise ("Yessiree, she does exist!"). And at the end, as she
signed off, she casually leaned against the news desk-a pose
that, when the camera pulled back, revealed Couric's famous
legs. It might not have been revolutionarytelevision, but it was
a definite change from what Couric once derided as "newzak.',
More than that, it was unmistakably Katie. A slightly more serious, more polished version of her morning-show persona, but
Katie nonetheless.
Thirteen and a half million viewers tuned in to see her first
broadcast. But it was only a matter of weeks before the numbers
started dropping first to pre-Couric levels, then even lower. By
May, the ratings bottomed out at S.5 million a night, the lowest
in two decades. A distant third behind ABC'S Charles Gibson
and NBC's Brian Williams, Couric is, for the first time in her
storied career, losing.
She and CBS are now taking a long, hard look at what went
wrong. "I think the one thing that I realized, looking back at it
and analyzing it, is people are very unforgiving and very resistant to changei says Couric. "The biggest mistake we made is
she conducted a
we tried newthings."
Which is why she is now sitting somberly behind the desk
at CBS, shuffling papers and doing her best impersonation of
a
traditional news anchor. Her origi-
nal show has been scrapped. Even
her informal greeting, "Hi, everyone,"
was buttoned up to a more formal
"Hello."
Would she have taken the job if she
had known it would turn out this way?
Couric hesitates. If Moonves had offered her the job she's doing today, she
admits, she would have thought twice
about it. "It would have been less appealingto me," she says. "Itwould have
required alot more thought."
AT SARABETg's restaurant on Central
Park South one morning last month,
Couric glides through the crowd at the
door like shet working the rope line
at the Todag show. She amiably chats
up the family at a nearby table before
playrng a quick game of musical chairs
to findjustthe right seat (facing away
20
from the window) and ordering an omelette and coffee. Her face
is preternaturally youthful at 50, nose pink after a weekend in
the sun, lashy blue eyes dialing up the *i.rso-" smile by a few
thousand watts. She doesn t look iike a woman embattled.
"I think that bugs people even more," she says, ,.that I'm not
a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It's probably
disappointing to some people. Because in the arc of fhe story
that's what theywant to see."
But her usual cheerfulness is interrupted by flashes of anger,
disappointment, and even confusion about what is happening
to her career at CBS News. "I've gone
through a bit of a feeding frenzy and
there's blood in the water and I've got
"f'm not
awoman on
lhe verge
of a nervous
breakdo\ rn;'
says Couric."It's
probably disappointing
to some people."
some vulnerabilities," she says. "This
person who's been successful isn't so
great, and finally she's been put in her
place-that kind of mentality. I think
it's fairlyprimal."
Less than a year ago, Couric and
Moonves seemed like the answers to
each other's prayers: She wanted a
more serious news profile-just like
her arch-rival Diane Sawyer, who last
year was vylng for the evening-news
job at ABC (she lost out to Charlie
Gibson). Moonves wanted to attract
new audiences to the evening news
it more like entertainment, envisioning a broadcast that
by making
was somewhere in between The Na-
kedNeus, a British TVshowinwhich
beautiful women undress as they read
Fromlejt: Couric aryiaing at CBSfor her
first broadcast; her anchor debut; uith
the headlines, and "two boring people behind a desk."
Ultimately, the two agreed that the show should be "more
personable, more accessible, a little less formal, a little more
approachable," says Couric. "That certainly is one ofthe things
they found attractive in hiring me, otherwise they could have
had John Roberts do the Ersening Neros." (Roberts, a soapopera-handsome anchor who was once a candidate to replace
Dan Rather, left CBS for CNN in 2006.) During their many
private conversations at his Manhattan
apartment, Moonves told Couric that she
would be given wide latitude to build a new
program. He was willing to spend whatever
it took to make it successful, including $z.g
million for a shiny new set.
Couric says that they never deluded themoo
selves into thinking they had the "magic an=4. swer" to the problem ofthe nightly newscast.
ul
"We're in the midst of such a major shift in
'-u
U:
how we consume information that even a
oO
brilliant guylike Les Moonves doesn't necesdloy:
uU sarily have all the answers," she says. But his
Az
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enthusiasm for making changes convinced
oa
-^
her to take the job. "I remember talking to
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[Sony BMG chairman and former NBC News president] Andy
Lack, saytng, 'What I should do?' He said, You're going to have
to feel like, "I like this person, I can work with this person."' And
I clearly felt that way about Les."
Couric must have known she was walking into a difficult
situation. Moonves was never terribly popular with the news
division; he had long been considered a Hollywood guy, and
some people felt he unnecessarily burned former CBS News
anchor Dan Rather after the infamous fake-document scandal
CBS chief Leslie Moonaes.
involving George Bush's National Guard service. For good or
ill, Rather still represented the legacy of CBS News, the last
larger-than-life newsman who could summon the hallowed
ghost of Edward R. Murrow. He still had a number of loyalists
on the staff, and theywere deeply resentful of Moonves-and,
by extension, wary of Couric.
Still, after years in the ratings dumps, CBS News needed a
shot in the arm. Even if he didn't know the first thing about
news, Moonves did have a track record with
TV audiences, having taken CBS's prime-
time programming to No. I by introducing warm, optimistic fare llke Eaergbody
Loaes Raymond and cloneable franchises
like CS/. Perhaps he would be right about
Couric too.
HE BAR wes sethigh. Couricwas supposed
to launch CBS News to first place, or atleast
second-anything but third. As Moonves's bet
started to seem like it might not pay ofi ill will
began to percolate through the newsroom.
The earliest complaints were about Katie's entourage: a coterie of five staffers she
brought with her from NBC, including her personal interview
booker and producer of eleven years, Nicolla Hewitt, and a producer named Bob Peterson, whose job it was to ensure qualtty
control on everything from hair and makeup to news pieces. Some
CBS staffers bristled at the presumption of their new colleagues.
When Couric flew her crew to Amman, Jordan, in November, her
hairdresser, Mela Muryhy, incensed that she didn't get a firstclass plane ticket with Couric, declared to a deputy assignment
editor on the CBS News foreign desk that the producers were
JULY
16,2oo7 | wrw YoRK
21
"lucky to have their jobs." (Murphy was
dressed down by CBS News senior vicepresident Paul Friedman and eventually
leftthe network.)
Thentherewasthe case against Couric as ajournalist. The idea of a celebrity anchor was particularly grating for
some old-school newshounds on staff
the ones who thought an anchorshij
should be earned through a career of
field reporting,like Rather and Peter
Jennings did. Couric had once been an
ace Pentagon reporter for NBC Ne#s,
but that was in the late eighties; she
made her bones as a morning-show
host.
"I think I underestimated the
feeling that some might have that I was
a morning-show personality and not a
Couric is having
trouble figuring oufwho
her audience is
on the Eaening Itdeuts.
"Mv Darents "
rhd#ilt'iii.
"I knowthev're
watchin$:'
credible news person. Which I, quite
frankly, think is patently unfair."
She gave her detractors more ammunition in April with an embarrassing plagiarism scandal. An online producer copied aWaII
street Journnl editorial for an online video essay known as Katie
Couric's Noteboo\ which gives the impression of being written
by her. Couric correctly points out that Peggy Noonan used to
write Rather's commentary but the incident seemed to cement
the bias among the Ratherites that couric symbolized the decline
of news values.
Most critical to Couric's clash with her new colleagues was the
nearlyinsurmountable issue of money. The news division at CBS
had been whittled down financially over the years, something
Rather often complained about when he was the Eoening Neus
anchor. In 1991, the budget for the cBS Eaening Na oswas about
$65 million a year; by 2ooo, it was closer to $gS million. producers and correspondents had learned to cut corrrers and live on
the cheap, scrambling for such simple amenities as food at news
events like Columbine or Katrinawhile NBC showed up with its
own cateringtruck. NowCouric's widelreported grs million salary (some in the TV industry say it could be closer to gzz million,
though Couric and CBS refutethat)wastakingup asizable chunk
of the total news budget-plus her segments were expensive to
shoot. A regular news segment using a single carnera and a correspondent might cost about $B,0OO to shoot and cu! but sending
Couric to anchor from a remote location-requiring hair, makeup,
lighting, and three cameras-could cost as much as g4,O,OOO.
The move from the mostlucrative news program in the
historyof
television- Today makesabout g25O million a
year-to
the financially threadbare CBS News
was a culfure shockfor Couric. "Havingbeen
at NBC for seventeen yeirs, you do get very
comfortable with the way things are donej'
she sa1ru. 'And I think there was a definite undercument of concern about spending money.
Which surprised me. Often the first question
people would ask about a story is, 'How much
does it cost?'And I didn t really experience that
a lot at NBC, quite franHyi' (She was also taken aback by CBS's ragged infrastructure: The
women's bathroom was so filthy and run-down
she demanded itbe renovated.)
Early on, Couric admits she spent more
money than usual chasing exclusive interviews, some of which,
like an interviewwith Jordan's KingAbdullah in September, were
eclipsed by breaking news and didnt even air. "We were probably a little overzealous in wanting to use my experience and my
contacts and my abilities to ostensibly
make the program betteri she says.
But Couric also says that one of her
requirements for taking the job was
that Moonves agree to invest more
money in the news division, ensuring
that her a:rival would be a tacit promise of a renaissance. "I would hope that
people saw me as a signal that the news
division was going to be put back on
the front burrer and built upj' she says.
'And of course, anyone would be enthusiastic about that. Except those who
like
being miserable."
According to CBS News president
Sean McManus, the company has invested millions in building a new set
and an HDTV control room and hired
nine new correspondents in the last two
;j?J#'iti,!j'}f,$:::,""7
infr astructure.But*r,r"{ill?$f
there were cutbacks as well. And according to some staffers, ttre
cuts seemed to fall mostly on the Ratherites. They believe that
Moonves initiated a housecleaning effort to eliminate veteran
producers from Rather's era so cBS News could hire new ones
at lower salaries. At least ten Eoening Neus correspondents and
producers have been dismissed in the last year.
The money issue even followed couri cta 6o Minufes, where she
did five segments last season, gaxnering mixed reviews (too soft on
condoleezza Rice, too hard on John and Elizabeth Edwards). several veteran correspondents were asked to take considerable pay
cuts before and after couric's arrival, including before he died in
November 2006, Ed Bradley. Seventy-five-year-old Morley Safer
t99k a 3O percent pay cut (for a reduced workload), and 65-yearold Lesley stahl was asked to accept a half-a-million-dollar salary
decrease during her recent contract negotiations.
McManus says Couric's salaryhas nothing to do with the network's overall news spending including the salaries of other TV
personalities, though he declined to explain precisely how the
budgets break down. Asked about the unhappiness of some ofher
colleagues regarding her pay, couric says, "I can understand that.
obviously I dont want to rob Peter to feed paul. I need strength
and intelligence and great people around me, and we have to invest in them. So I m sorrythat perception is there, because its not
something I came in wanting or believing would happeni'
Butthatdoesnt goveryfarin soothingthe tensions. As one angry CBS News producer put it, "There's not a
lot of money there because we're paying for Katie! Let's not bullshit. People are pissed about
Katie because she's soaking up the money and
she's not making any money. I cant get a raise
because Katie Couric is failing on the Ersening
Neus? That's huge."
y rHE FrRsr of the year, Couric's
seemed
ratings
to be in free fall. She was having
trouble figuring out exactlywho her audience
was. At Tbdny,she looked into the camera and
imagined her average viewer as a 32-year-old
lawyer with a toddler who was preparing to
prosecute a case that day, or a stay-at-home
mom who would'hopefully get some things about raising kids
or the environment." On the CBS EaeningNeus, she couldn't see
anyone in the camera lens. "I'm not sure," Couric says drily. 'My
parents. I know they're watching."
"People who are interested in the world and want to stay connected," Couric finally mzulages with a sigh. "But truth be told, I
dontknowifthose people are infront ofthe television at 6:3o at
night. I hope those that are will find our program compelling. But
I don t quite have them in my mind's eye."
CBS was spooked by the ratings decline. In an effort to lure new
audiences, it had alienated its core. It was time to backtrack. In
March, the network dismissed executive producer Rome Hartman, whom some criticized as having lost control of the show.
Rick Kaplan, former president ofMSNBC, was brought in to turn
the broadcast back into something viewers recognized as a traditional evening news progtun.
A hulking six feet six inches tall, Kaplan is an imposing force
inside the Eoening Neus show, slamming his fist on the table
when something goes right or wrong. Aveteran producer who
started in the seventies on Walter Cronkite's
CBS EaeningNeus,he's known forhis heatthy
ego Qre wears a grant gold ring featuring the
initials R.K.) and a fear-inducing temper
that's blown up on a few sets over the years
Qre's got a'baggage train as long as a Kenyan
wrong. It's time for ayounger person there."
When Couric wanted to go on high-profile reporting trips to
Afghanistan and Iraq earlier this year, Hewitt says, the former
trip was axed because of money and the latter because "we find
out inadvertently that they're sending Harry Smith from The EarIy Shou." (McManus says the decisions had nothing to do with
money or turf: "We thought it was more important that Katie
concentrate on the job of anchorl')
And when John Edwards and his wife personally requested
Couric to interview them after Elizabeth Edwards discovered her
cancer had returned, 60 Minutesexecutive producer Jeftey Fager
resisted because he thought the news value had passed. Also, one
of his other correspondents, Scott Pelley, was already pursuing
an Edwards feature. The weekend of the broadcast, Couric complained to management and the show was quickly ripped up the
daybefore it aired to accommodate her exclusive. '\A/hy should we fight for an interviewee?"
says Hewitt, who left the network in March,
ostensibly because there were no more interviews left for her to book onthe Eaening Neus.
"The commitment should be to her."
Fager responds, "Eoerybodg has to fightfor
every storythat goes on the air. None of them
just walk on the air. That's why we maintain
the qualitywe doi'
safari," says one associate). Kaplan's presence
changed the atmosphere on the set, and Cou-
ric, under intense pressure to deliver ratings,
seemedto be thankful forthat.
Couric's sit-down interviews with newsmakers of the day-her forte as a broadcasterwere pinpointed as draggingthe show down.
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Not that they were bad-an interview with
Michael J. Fox about his political campaigninglastfall got alot of attention-but atthree
minutes or longer, they were deemed too long
for a 22-minute show. Evening news viewers,
it turned out, just want headlines, not personality. Even McManus admits that Couric's
morning-show skills simply didn't fit into the
evening news: 'Alot of things that made Katie successful in the morning probably dont
work in the evening news broadcast."
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Couric says she didn'ttakethe ratings dive,
or the radical makeover of the show, personally. "I think maybe a new anchor from an-
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wiggled out ofthat slowly."
But the shift to a more traditional format
clearly left Couric with some job dissatisfaction. Nowthat her interviews were being cut,
she found herselfhaving to fight for airtime in
a way she hadn't had to since her rookie days
inWashington. According to Nicolla Hewitt,
Couric's longtime producer and "really, really
close friend" (whom Couric personally authorized to speak for this story), the network
began to renege on its promises and stopped
Srving Couricthe support she neededto pursue news or command the news division.
Management "nickel and dimed" her on ambitious enterprise stories and deferred to what
Hewitt called the "old guard" al6o Minutes
on interviews that belonged to Couric.
"They do more to protect the old guard
than they do to promote the new face of the
network," says Hewitt. "And it's completely
It's not surprising that Couric is getbing
BtlB SCHIEFFER
The
interim anchor uhom Couric
replaced has been arctued
of driuing ne gatia e st ori e s ab out
her in the press.
some push-back from the entrenched talent.
The "old guard" has been besieged by younger
models of late: Anderson Cooper of CNN is a
recent addition to the 6o Minutes stable, as
is Lara Logan, the 36-year-old South African correspondent whom Dan Rather urged
CBS to hire. And CBS was in talks with ABC's
George Stephanopoulos to eventually replace
Bob Schieffer as host of Face the Nation, parl
of an effortto get ayoungerface inWashington to complement Couric's during the 2OO8
election cycle.
But Couric is the biggest fish, and the easitarget. In April, an infamous Philadelphia
Inquirer column by TV writer Gail Shister
quoted anonymous CBS staffers predicting
her imminent departure from the Euening
Neus because CBS News management had
deemed Couric an insurmountable failure.
"It's a disaster," said one person identified as
a veteran correspondent. "Everybody knows
it's not working. CBS may not cut her loose,
but I guarantee you, somebody's thinking
about it."
Subsequently, Face the Nation host Bob
est
tEStEYSTAHI
The 60 Minutes correspondent
uas a.skedto take a
half- a-million-dollar pag cut
afier Couric cameto CBS.
Schieffer and 6o Minutes correspondent
Lesley Stahl were fingered in the press as the
sources for the story. Although both publidy
denied talking to Shister, McManus privately
chided Schieffer aboutloyaltyto the network.
Couric says she was taken abackbythe lack
of "character" of those CBS News co-workers
who she believes have driven the negative
J(IHII ROBERIS
An earlg candtidate to replme Rather.
CBS dzcidzdto go
"alittlnlzss
a l:ittl,e more approa.chnblc,"
sag s Cuurir.' Othzruise
th,eg could hnae had, John Robsrts
formal,
d,otfuEventngNews."
stories about her. "It's damaging, and it's
really tacky," she says heatedly. "And I would
be so embarrassed to be one of these petty,
behind-the-scenes operators who get some
kind of charge out of trashing someone. I'm
not perfect; I'm sure (Continued onpage 8/)
C0URIC
(Continued from page 23 )
I ve saidunkindthings aboutpeople inmy
career and life, but people getting their
jollies from seeing it in print is so creepy
and weird to me. And ifyou're so unhappy,
get another job!"
After that outburst of anger, Couric
quickly composes herself. There's always
a bright side: The Shister story she says,
helped her win a few allies at CBS because
others thought itwas so unfair. "Itwas such
an aftont to all of us-a traitor-amongour-ranksfeeling," says Couric. "There axe
just certain things that colleagues are not
supposedto do."
When I bring up the narne Bob Schieffer, Couric first affects narvet6, then smiles
aknowing smile and says nothing.
AT A MAY BENEFTT for colon cancer at
the bowling lanes at Chelsea Piers, Couric
arrives right after delivering the evening
news, still in her dark pantsuit, but now
with a red T-shirt underneath that reads
srRrKE our coloN cANcER. Since her
husband, Jay Monahan, died of cancer in
199 8, Couric has made fund-raising for the
disease a major part of her public profile,
prompting her most famous TV moment,
the on-air colonoscopy in 2ooo. Standing
before a barrk of photographers on the red
carpet, she mugs with a bowling ball alongside a few B-list celebrities (Steve Schir:ripa
fromThe Sopranos and RuPaul), flashing
a smile that is amazing for how unforced it
seems. She bids farewell to Whoopi Goldberg who apparentlyhas lostweight since
Couriclast sawher. "Call me, woman!" says
Couric, making a phone gesture with her
thumb and pinkie. "Now that you're all
skinny and shit!"
It's the "girlfriend" Katie, the former TriDelt sorority sister at the University ofVirginia, the one whose cell-phone ring was
recently identified as the Pussycat Dolls'
"Don't Cha (Wish Your Girlfriend Was
Hot Like MeX'the one who bonded with
American women over cooking and fashion and parenting segments on Tbdng.The
one who doesrt'tfitthe mold of an evening
news anchor.
Before Couric went on the air at CBS,
there was much speculation about whether America was ready for a female anchor.
Would she be able to attract new audiences
to a dying medium? Or would she
turn offlongtime viewers of the Eaening
Neus who were used to something more
stolid and comfortable (and masculine)?
As it turns out, the answer to both questions is yes. Couric has attracted new audiences, specifically women; in the New
York City market, she doubled the number of female viewers between the ages of
18
and,t9 in June sweeps comparedwith
last year. The trouble is that the average
marriage to
evening news viewer is still a 6o-yearold holdover from a previous era. And he
seems to prefer Old Man Gibson with the
glasses on the end of his nose doing line
but when Couric started dating a preppy
readings ofthe day's headlines.
As one CBS News correspondent put it,
"Moonves said people don't want to listen
to the'voice of God'anymore. And it's ex-
actlywhat theywant."
Couric says that one of the reasons she
took the job was because she thought it
had value "in a larger societal way." And
it's hard not to notice that Couric's per-
sonal publicist, Matthew Hiltzik, once
handled Senator Hillary Clinton, another
polarizing female figure breaking into the
men's club. (Hiltzik orchestrated Couric's
much-touted'listening tour" to dramatize
the seriousness ofher new endeavor, modeled on the kind he arranged for Clinton
in 2ooo during her first Senate run.) But
Couric is circumspect about comparisons
to Clinton. "I mean obviously there are
some parallels, but I think discomfort or
comfort or perception-you could compare Mitt Romney and Charlie Gibsoni
she says, wrigglingfree ofthe question.
She's also wary of playing the gender
card now that things aren't working out
as planned. "I'm not narve. I'm sure there
is a percentage of the population that for
whatever rea.son may not feel completely
comfortable with a woman in a heretofore
male-dominated role," she says. "I think
there's a whole confluence of factors that
contribute to some people not gravitating
towardthe programJ'
But her closest friends-a group of
women from her IfVA and post-college
days that includes fund-raiser Kathleen
Lobb, Vanity Fuirpublicist Beth Kseniak,
and Larry King Liae executive producer
Wendy Walker-believe sexism is a big
pa.rt ofthe problem and a major source of
frustration for Couric. Media criticismhke Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley's
piece about Couric's coverage
oftheVirgin-
ia Tech shootings-never fails to describe
her clothes and appearance, while those
details are rarely observed about Gibson
or Williams. "Personally, that reallybothered me for heri' says Lobb of the Stanley
column. "Because it's not about evaluating
the quality of her worki'
Couric's response has been to tone down
her wardrobe. "I try to give them as little to
talk about as possible, without becoming
Paton Saturdny Night Liue," she says.
But even conservative pantsuits can't
quell the interest in Couric beyond her performance on the news. The tabloid press
has been particularly harsh in its analysis
ofher romantic relationships. Larry King's
a woman a quarter of a century his junior barely registers as surprising,
33-year-old entrepreneur and amateur
triathlete named Brooks Perlin, the Post
gleefully dubbed her a "cougar" for "devouring" ayounger man. "It's all so stupidi'
says Couric, agitated. "The people who
come up with this garbage and the people
who market in pettiness ... Do people enjoy
this? Is this how they get their kicls?"
Of course, it's not just the tabloid press
that's on the attack. Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather (with whom Couric says
she has always had a "perfectly pleasant,
nice relationship") recently told MSNBC
radio host Joe Scarborough that Moonves
was "dumbing down" and "tarting up"the
broadcast with Couric. Moonves retaliated by calling Rather's comment sexist:
"For certain people inAmeric4 they're not
used to getting their news from a womanj'
Moonves says. "It's going to take time for
people to adjust. There's an automatic assumption on the part of certain people that
theywould rather get news from aman."
Rather says his "tarting up" comment
was taken out of context. "There's a long list
of women whom the public accepts in all
kind of roles j' observes Rather, mentioning
Christiane Amanpour as one of the most
respected reporters on television. Moonves,
he says, "thinl<s the audience is redneck and
the press is abunch of assassins. I have so
much confidence in the audience. The audience is not going to buy that. They look
at what's on the air, and that's where they
make their decisionsi'
And that, perhaps, gets to the heart
of the matter. The reaction to Couric as
anchor has less to do with the fact that
she is a woman than it has to do with the
type ofwoman she is-or at least the type
she has played on TV. Despite a long list
of accomplished interviews with world
leaders and politicians, from Tony Blair
to President Bush to Kofi Annan, Couric
has a hard time shaking the perception
that she's light and girlish, as opposed to
serious and mature.
She blames it on the later incarnation
of the Today show. "I think the show got
increasingly soft during my tenure, during the end of it," she says, referring to
the version of the program run by former
executive producer Tom Touche, with
whom she often clashed. 'And that's one
of the reasons I wasrt't fulfilled journalistically in the job. Perhaps the most recent
memory of me in the eyes of some people
is of the softer, fun aspects of the Today
show, which I totally enjoyed and I think
I did well in, but it wasrt't the whole enchiladafor mei'
The algorithm for why a news personalJULY
16,2oo7 | wrw YoRK 87
ity appeals or doesn't turns out to be much
mere complicated than gender or reporting chops orwhether someone came from
morning television. After all, Charlie
Gibson-the leader in the ratings-came
om Goo d Morning America. Although,
as Couric points out, "he was more of
an avuncular figure on that show. I was
encouraged to show a fun, playful side
more." And Diane Sawyer, Couric's chief
competitor for the mantle of most powerful and respected woman in television
news, has done basically the same job
as Couric for the last decade, yet no one
questions Sawyer's seriousness and credibility when she bags exclusive interviews
or does hard news.
Couric suspects that if Sawyerwere doing an evening news broadcast, she might
have run into the same issues. "Perhaps."
But as it stands, Sawyer has exceptionally
high favorability ratings, topping a Gallup
poll last year measuring viewer opinion on
TVnews people. Mearrwhile, as Courichas
shifted away from her flirry', funny, lineflubbing relatable morning personality to
a harder, edgrer, and ultimately more hufr
morless evening persona, her Qscore-the
gold standard of favorability ratings-has
declined. (As of last year, she was on par
with Dan Rather.) Muybe it's just growing
pains as she moves from one phase of her
career to the next. But the worry is that her
transformation into Anchor Katie might
like
herto begin with.
As her friend Hewitt puts it, "I don't
think CBS was ready for the change they
be obscuring what made many people
said theywere. Theybought Diet Coke and
turned it into bottled milk. They totally
changed the brand."
BAcK AT SARABETH's restaurant, Couric
stillbelieve I didthe
right thing, in myheartj'she says. "I would
always regret not taking it. There are no
guarantees, I knew that going in. I didnt
think I was goingto take the evening news
world by storm, and if I gave anyone that
impression, I'm embarrassed. I thought I
had done somethingforawhile, this genre
could use a little shot in the arm, maybe
has grown reflective. "I
I could revitalize it somewhat. I had
no
delusions that this was a growing enterprise. I mean, I'm not an idiot ... I think
that's why some of this pettiness and sort
ofgleeful evisceration of me doesnt cut as
much as you might think or even I might
have thought. My expectations were never
so high that if I wasn't No. I it would be
devastatingto me."
Of course, that's not the message that
was conveyed by the massive hype that
surrounded her arrival at CBS. And there
is no shortage ofpeople (manyofthemin-
88 NEw yoRK | .rur.v 16, 2OO7
side CBS News) who believe that Moonves
unintentionally laid the groundwork for
her downfall with the excessive buildup.
On this question, Couric is careful but
clear. "IJm, I think he, you kro*, probably could have been told, 'Easy, Les,
don't overpromise,"' she says. "But he
was excited and enthusiastic and he saw
this as an opportunity to push the envelope." Couric says she was advised by at
least one friend to downplay her arrival.
"I remember Barry Diller
saying, 'Just
be verylow-key about it,"'she says. 'And
if I had my druthers, would I have not
been on every bus in New York? Especially the ones that almost ran me over,
which would be the ultimate modern-day
O. Henry story? Yeah."
Moonves, a TV executive with a barrelchested confidence in his gut for goodTV,
says he bears no responsibility for howthe
showhas failed: "Nope. I really don't."
But with ratings hovering between 6
andT million viewers a night, CBS News
has to figure out how to salvage the estimated $7s million it's payrng Couric
over five years. For now, the goal is simply to stanch the viewer bleed. Executive
producer Rick Kaplan's job is to bring
consistency to the program. He'll bring
new ideas to the show, he says, "but it's
not necessarily new fluky ideas. Or new
sketchy ideas. It's about maybe some new
but basic ideas."
Couric admits that her original version of the showhad problems. "Perhaps
some of the pieces were too long, they
weren't as compelling.'FreeSpeech'-
maybe every night it didn't hold up."
But she still believes in what they were
trying to achieve. "People can get the
news anywhere, they don't have to wait
for the television. Thke, say, up-armored
vehicles: one vehicle that wasn't up-armored, the ramifications of that on a
soldier from Dallas. That's a humanistic
illustration of a news-making story."
Couric seems determined notto let anyone see her suffer, but according to several
people familiar with the situation, she is
privately frustrated ("Going through hell,"
says one producer) and moody about the
ratings. The stress has caused her to blow
up ather stafffor small infractions on the
set. During the tuberculosis story in June,
Couric got angry with news editor Jerry
Cipriano for using a word she detested"sputum"-and the staffgrew tense when
she began slapping him "over and over
and over again" on the arm, according to
a source familiar with the scene. It had
seemed like a joke at first, but it quickly
became clearthat she wasn't kidding.
"I sort of slapped him around," Couric admits. "I got mad at him and said,
'You can't do this to me. You have to tell
me when you're going to use a word like
that.'I was aggravated, there's no question
about that." But she says she has a good relationship with Cipriano.'nW'e did ban the
word sputum from all future broadcasts.
Itbecame kind of ajoke."
Couric is looking to the 2OO8 election
cycle as an opportunityto build her reputation as the network's authoritativevoice.
She'll be moderating a presidential debate
in December in LosAngeles, and CBS has
hired Washington correspondent Jeff
Greenfield from CNN as a familiar face
who can serve in a veteran Tim Russerttype rolewhen she's analyzingthe race. (In
addition, shdll be broadcasting alongside
Schieffer, who will remain the host ofFace
the Nation through 2oo8, which should
make for interesting viewing.) "She'll get
to prove her mettlei says Kaplan. "That's
where she'll prove all the things she can
do, and, boy, do I like our chances."
But Couric is realistic enough to imagine that it might not work out in the end.
"If it turns out it wasn't a perfect fit," she
says, "then, you know, I'll do something
else that's really exciting and fulfilling
for me."
She brightens when discussing her
fu-
ture work for 60 Minutes. While she refutes widespread rumors that she's going
to jump to 6O Minutes, Couric does plan
to ramp up herproductionthere, with the
intention of doing eight-to-ten segments
in the coming season. This summer, for
instance, she's interviewing former CIA
operative Valerie Plame for an exclusive
in the fall, tied to Plame's tell-all published by Simon & Schuster. It's obvious
Ihat 6O Minutes best reflects what Couric would like to do-exclusive interviews
with newsmakers and celebrities-much
more so than does the current version of
theCBS EoeningNeus.
Jeff Faget the executive producer
of the show, says he can easily imagine Couric working at 6O Minutes full
time. "I could see that, yes," he says. "I'm
sure she'd probably like to do that some
nights." When I bring up Fager's comment to Couric, she agrees, "Yes, and
have a little more of a life."
It makes you wonder if she doesn't
have days when she wakes up and wishes
she hadn't jumped to CBS News. "I mean,
of course. I'm human. I'm not going
around,'Dee-da dee-da dee,"' she says.
days when I'm like, 'Oh my God,
what did I do?"'
"I have
She pauses.
"But for some weird reason, they dont
happen that often."
She summons a smile. Even now, her
optimism is irrepressible.
r