Katie Couric biography

Synopsis

Aspiring Reporter

Television journalist. Born Katherine Anne Couric, on January 7, 1957, in Arlington, Virginia. The youngest of four children of John, now a retired journalist and public relations executive, and his wife Elinor, Couric graduated from the University of Virginia in 1979 with a degree in American Studies. Just after college, she moved to Washington, D.C., to begin a career in television news reporting.

Couric's first job was as a desk assistant at ABC, where she worked under anchorman Sam Donaldson, among others. Shortly thereafter, she began working at the Washington bureau of the fledgling Cable News Network (CNN). For the next seven years, Couric worked at CNN bureaus around the country as a producer and, when she could, as an on-air reporter. In 1987, she returned to Washington and took a job as a reporter at an NBC affiliate station there.

In 1988, shortly before her marriage to Jay Monahan, a lawyer based in Washington, Couric was hired as the number-two reporter at the Pentagon for the Washington bureau of NBC News. Over the next three years, she covered the U.S. invasion of Panama and the Persian Gulf War in her Pentagon position as well as a newly-created post at NBC's morning newsmagazine, Today. By early 1991, she had begun filling in as coanchor of Today (alongside Bryant Gumbel) when Deborah Norville went on maternity leave. In April, NBC executives hired Couric to replace Norville, who had been blamed by some for the show's falling ratings.

Today Show

Couric was an instant hit with viewers, who related well to her pleasant, charming demeanor and her surprisingly hard-hitting journalistic style. During her early years on Today, she conducted many sought-after interviews with individuals such as First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Anita Hill, George Bush, General Norman Schwarzkopf, Colin Powell, and Jerry Seinfeld. Her comfortable on-screen rapport with Gumbel (although the two were famously contentious off-camera) proved the key to the show's growing popularity, and in 1993 Today surpassed ABC's Good Morning America in the ratings to regain its position as the most-watched morning newsmagazine in the country.

Beginning in the summer of 1993, Couric also cohosted another prime-time newsmagazine, Now, with Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric. It was eventually absorbed into the more popular program Dateline, and Couric continued her duties on Today, which continued to solidify its hold on the top spot in the Nielsen ratings and expand the definition of a morning news program. For her part, Couric had become the undisputed star of morning television. In early 1997, Gumbel left Today after 15 years. (He now anchors the CBS morning newsmagazine The Early Show with Jane Clayson.) He was replaced with