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| Birth Name(s) : Katherine Anne Couric |
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Full Katie Couric Biography
Katherine Anne "Katie" Couric (born January 7, 1957) is an American journalist who became well-known as co-host of NBC's Today. In 2006, she made a highly publicized move from NBC to CBS, and on September 5, 2006 she became the first woman to solo-anchor of the weekday evening news on one of the three traditional U.S. broadcast networks (ABC, CBS and NBC). She currently serves as the anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News, replacing Bob Schieffer on September 5, 2006. Schieffer served as the interim anchor following the departure of long time anchor and managing editor Dan Rather on March 9, 2005.
She enrolled in the University of Virginia in 1975, majored in English and History, and was a Delta Delta Delta sorority sister. Couric served in several positions at UVA's award-winning daily newspaper, The Cavalier Daily. During her third year at UVA, Couric was chosen to live as Head Resident of The Lawn, the heart of Thomas Jefferson's academic village. She graduated in 1979 with a degree in American Studies.
Couric hosted or worked on a number of news specials, like Everybody's Business: America's Children in 1995. Similar "specials" of a commercial nature were Legend to Legend Night: A Celebrity Cavalcade in 1993, and Harry Potter: Behind the Magic in 2001. Couric has also co-hosted the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games. She has broadcast with Bob Costas, beginning with the 2000 Summer Olympics. She did not co-host the 2006 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in Turin, Italy because of a scheduling conflict with a live taping of Today Show. Brian Williams co-hosted with Bob Costas instead.
Couric has been admired and criticized for blurring the lines between entertainment and reporting. Couric's choice of short skirts while hosting the Today Show has led to her legs' being one of the most widely identified aspects of her on-screen persona and the subject of many commentaries and Web sites. On May 12, 2003, Couric guest hosted the late night television show The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and gathered 45% more viewers than on normal nights. CNN and the New York Daily News noted that instead of using Leno's regular solid desk, "workers cut away the front of her desk to expose her legs while she interviewed American Idol judge Simon Cowell and Austin Powers star Mike Myers".
Katie Couric's televised colon cancer awareness campaign was temporarily associated with an increase in colonoscopy use in 2 different data sets. This illustrates the possibility that an individual can draw attention and support to worthwhile causes.
She also was very active in the National Hockey League's Hockey Fights Cancer campaign, appearing in some public service announcements and doing voice-overs for several others. Couric is currently a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for the United States.
In April 2007, one of "Katie Couric's Notebook" columns on the CBS News website, a piece about the declining use of libraries, was shown to bear striking resemblances to an article by Wall Street Journal author Jeffrey Zaslow, "Of the Places You'll Go, Is the Library Still One of Them?". In the ensuing controversy, it was revealed that Couric does not generally write these columns, although they often include first-person recounting of supposed events. On April 12, 2007, CBS admitted that her most recent column was indeed plagiarized from a Zaslow article without her knowledge, and that the unidentified producer who provided the material had been fired. The article has since been removed.
In July 2007 New York Magazine published a story by Joe Hagan on the first ten months of her tenure at CBS News. The story quotes Couric as having days when she wonders why she ever decided to take the job at CBS, and reports that she acknowledges having made some mistakes, such as making too many changes too fast. The story also emphasizes that overall Couric still believes that she made the correct decision, and that she still is committed to making the CBS Evening News a success. Couric is described as frustrated that some of her colleagues in the news division have been saying negative things about her to the press, and suggests that two of these have been former CBS News Anchor Bob Schieffer, and current 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl. Hagan also reported that in June of 2007 Couric slapped one of her editors repeatedly on the arm for inserting the word sputum in a report regarding tuberculosis. Couric had previously told editor Jerry Cipriano not to include the word in her script. "I sort of slapped him around. 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." Couric was also quoted as saying that, while aggravated, she has a good relationship with Cipriano. “We did ban the word sputum from all future broadcasts. It became kind of a joke.”CNN reporter Jeanne Moos reported on July 9, 2007 that the reason Couric was irritated was that "sputum" had been inserted into the script after she rehearsed it; reading it for the first time live on air she mispronounced the word. This is the context for her slapping Cipriano on the arm and instructing him to warn her before putting words "like that" (that might be mispronounced) into her script. Moos also demonstrates what the slapping incident looked like (see: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/offbeat/2007/07/09/moos.couric.slap.affl). |
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