December 19, 2023 • 33 mins
Legendary broadcast journalist Katie Couric joins our final episode to share lessons she's learned from her extraordinary career. Katie tells Brooke how she responded when CNN’s president questioned her talent, what she took from her history-making turn at CBS Evening News, and how she fought to shake the “morning news albatross.” Speaking candidly about the lingering pain from her husband and sister’s deaths, Katie also shares how standing up to cancer has become her life’s mission.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
What do you do when life doesn't go according to
plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
with a guest to talk about the times they were
knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
(00:27):
Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all
are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
answers one question, now what. I remember some of my
(00:50):
first interviews with you. We both had very different hair, Yeah, yeah,
and very different shoulder pads.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
That that's true. I remember when you did. I remember
when I started it ABC, and I think that fall
we all went and bought Calvin Klein jeans, because that
must have been the Yearbrook you did. Nothing comes between
me and my Calvins. Was that nineteen eighty It was eighty. Yeah.
(01:19):
My friend Eileen O'Connor, she ran the teleprompter, and I
think she was still a student at Georgetown. But Eileen
and I were obsessed with Calvin Klein Genes. I just
remember seeing that ad and we all went out and
got a pair, and I have to say, maybe Eileen did,
but I certainly didn't look like you did in alls Brook.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I don't know about that. That is weird. I just
found my actual calvins. I had three pairs that my
mother kept from the commercial, and one of them I
gave to the met as one does, yeah, clearly, and
the other two I'm going to frame in plexiglass.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I was going to say, you should give a pair
to each of your daughters.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Hello, my beautiful naw At family. Before we get started,
I wanted to let you know that this will be
the final episode of the show, which I have loved
sharing with you over the past year. It's been a
wonderful ride, and my team and I are retooling a
few things and saying goodbye for now. I'm so grateful
for all of you and for your listenership, and equally
(02:29):
grateful to my last guest for helping me go out
with a bang. Katie Couric is an award winning journalist,
a trailblazer, an entrepreneur, a prolific fundraiser for cancer research,
and she is so much more we connected professionally many
years ago, and I am so fortunate that our working
relationship has developed into a friendship. Katie's resume is extensive.
(02:53):
She spent more than a decade with The Today Show,
was the first woman to anchor CBS News, and more
recently founded her own company, Katie Kiric Media. I'm in
awe of her and so thrilled that she was able
to join the show. So, without further ado, here is
Katie Kiric. Well, thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Oh my god, of course, I'm thrilled to talk to you,
because you know, I'm such a big fan, and I
think I'm glad that people are kind of, you know,
getting to know you and your personality because you're so funny.
And I don't think people I think like when obviously
suddenly Susan and you've had other roles, but I don't
think everyone appreciates your sense of humor or the fact
(03:40):
that you have such a good sense of humor.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Well, thank you for that. I think, you know, I
think it's anyway, it's odd. I think it's because if
you've been sort of positioned a certain way for a
good portion of your life, that is just what people
imprint on and you know you can't I guess you
can't be labeled pretty and funny, although I mean luci
Oball was was like a beauty queen when she started.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I don't know why people have to put people in
boxes and don't appreciate that, as Walt Whitman said, we
contain multitudes, right, right.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I mean, I think it's easier for people because also
if you really, if you really take in all that
we're all capable of, it's a lot of pressure for people.
And yeah, I'm really kind of I have to say
I was a bit intimidating, not a bit, a lot
intimidated when I really heard, only because not as a friend,
(04:35):
because as a friend and like a girlfriend, I know
I can call you and we can be girls, and
we've talked about a multitude of private things together. But
it just, you know, you set the tone, and you're
the front runner for so many women, and the fact
that I got intimidated by the fact that I thought
you were going to be that I knew you were
(04:55):
going to be on the show, it struck me. I thought,
I wonder if she ever gets intimidated by interviews that
she has to give. Has there been anybody that's been
intimidating to you?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I think I think when I have to tackle topics
that I don't know a great deal about that I
feel like the learning curve is really steep. You know,
if it's somebody on a specific aspect of foreign policy
that I might not be uber knowledgeable about, or a
medical thing that I don't know a lot about. Sometimes
(05:29):
I do get intimidated, but I think at this point
you just let your natural curiosity take over. You have
a conversation, and I think the goal is to really
make things accessible and understandable to people. So I remember
Tom Friedman said to explain things simply, you have to
(05:49):
understand them deeply. So I try to strike that balance
of understanding something and then synthesizing it and distilling it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
That's a tall order, but the research involved, I think
is daunting, and I'm sure you know, to make it
accessible for other people is really is really the gift
of being a journalist. You wanted to be a journalist
from the time you were a little kid. I mean
(06:22):
you're you're the youngest of four, correct. You grew up
in Virginia, and you said you wanted to be a
journalist from a young age. What how did you know
that that's what you wanted. What was it about journalism
that intrigued you.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I think I wanted to do something that had to
do with language and writing, and I think it was
the process of elimination. Honestly, I wasn't very strong in
math and science. I hate to say that because that's
such a stereotypical thing, but I really gravitated towards words
and language and writing and more creative pursuits. So I
(06:59):
knew I wanted to do something that involved some form
of communication, whether it was writing or radio or talking.
And I think because my dad was a print journalist
early in his career, and he saw that I wrote
well and I wrote quickly because I was such a
procrastinator as a kid, I'd wait till the last minute
(07:21):
to do my homework, but I was able to write
things under pressure. And I think he thought, Wow, journalism
might be a really great career for you. I mean,
he didn't say that, but we sort of went in
that direction. And I got internships when I was in college,
and I worked at three different radio stations, and I
wrote for my school newspaper and at Uva. I wrote
(07:43):
for The Cavalier Daily, so I really enjoyed it. And
you know, I think when you are lucky enough to
find a job you love, that is such a gift.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Do you remember the first time that you fell in
love with the idea of news, like the news moment
that made you just fall in love with that medium.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I don't remember if there was one particular moment. I
just loved every aspect of jumping into a local news van,
not knowing what you were going to find when you
stopped to cover a story, having to jump out, get
your bearings, figure out what was going on, find people
(08:28):
to talk to, start painting a picture of the story
in your mind, listening to the sound bites on your
little mini tape recorder on the way home, writing the script,
figuring out what you're maybe if you're going live from
the location, what your you know your live intro is
going to be, what your outro is going to be,
(08:48):
and doing it than pressure. Oh yeah, it's so fun.
It's such an adrenaline rush and it's just exciting. And
then you've got this thing that you've produced and it's
done and it's over and you can go home and
(09:08):
leave it behind.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
It's awesome, it's amazing. And also just the thinking on
your feet and that being able to adapt. I mean,
it's our version as an actor of improv. You know,
you just it's yes, and you know, you never shut
anything down. It's always what's the next thing. But it's
interesting though I don't think you know, my daughter, I
(09:31):
always things happen and things don't happen for them, and
I try to tell them all the time that you know,
rejection is just part of growth, and especially in this medium,
what you're what you I mean, there must have been
so much rejection and part of what I wanted to
do with this show is to normalize rejection, you know,
(09:52):
to show people that you can recover from it, that
it happens to all of us, and it's how you
respond and how you can that really reveals who you are.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
That's so true. That's so true. And I mean from
the get go, I had people telling me, you know, oh,
you're never going to make it in the business. The
president of CNN when I did a really bad report,
like I was too young and really bad, and he
called the assignment desk at CNN in Washington, said he
(10:26):
never wanted to see me on the air again, talk
about like deflating. And you know, I had a really
challenging time when I went to CBS, both internally with
the politics there and externally with people I think wanting
to tear me down and not picking up what I
was putting down in terms of trying to retool an
(10:49):
evening news broadcast. And it's hard, and you're right, everybody
deals with rejection or disappointment or dashed hopes at some
point in their lives and it's no fun, but it's
just part of life.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
How did you move on from it? Though?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
What was I mean? I think I had different reactions
that differed, two different disappointments, Like when the president of
CNN said he never wanted to see me on the
air again, I was just like devastated. But I also thought,
maybe he's right, Maybe I need more experience, Maybe I'm
not ready and I just need to do it more.
(11:26):
And that's when I moved to Atlanta and became a
producer and started doing on air stuff little by little
and found a mentor. That's when I went to Miami
and became a local news and just churned out story
after story, and you know, I agree with Malcolm Gladwell,
it takes about ten thousand hours to get good at anything,
and I just thought, you know, I'm just I need
(11:47):
more practice, I need more experience. So I took it personally,
and yet I didn't take it personally, and I tried
to figure out, well, how could I change the circumstances
I found myself in.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
You were interviewed by people after you left CBS and
you said you didn't think that people really internally ever,
really accepted you. And you said I thought we were
much further along when it came to sexism. What prompted
that observation.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Well, I think if you had sort of been in
my shoes during those five years. And I think a
lot has changed. I think that sexism is still one
of the most acceptable isms, less so than it used
to be. But I think that I got criticized for
what I wore my first night on the evening news.
(12:47):
I got criticized for the way I held my hands,
these really dopey things that a mail anchor would just
never be subjected to. I mean, let's face it, it's
more interesting, I think, to look at women on television
because there's more variety, you know, men just look generally
a certain way, wear a certain suit and a tie,
(13:10):
and and I think that not everyone. And by the way,
I had a lot of friends within CBS, but a
lot of people I think sort of didn't like outsiders.
They are it's a pretty insular place. People go there
and they kind of spend their entire careers there. So
I had the outsider status, I had the first woman's status.
(13:32):
I had the morning show albatross around my neck that
somehow I lack ravitas, which I always say is Latin
for testicles, and you know, and that and that somehow
I wasn't enough of a you know, a serious journalist
to handle the CBS evening news, which was just honestly boloney.
(13:55):
So I think there were a lot of and not
just I think there were a lot of biases that
honestly infected or affected the way people saw me in
that role.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
It just explained to me what the morning show stigma.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Oh well, I think that people, you know, even though
Tom Brokaw did the Today Show, for example, and even
John Chancellor did the Today Show, I think there is
a feeling that the morning shows are very fluffy and
that they don't deal with serious news, and they're not
(14:35):
They're not done or anchored by serious people. I think
that's an unfair characterization because I did so many serious
interviews during my fifteen years at the Today Show, and
I did many dateline specials. I interviewed Supreme Court justices
and presidents and world leaders. But I think that it
(14:55):
just has this kind of unfair sort of promoter as
kind of a you know, a light, fluffy show.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
It's entertainment, not news.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah. Yeah, But I was really really proud of working
on The Today Show and really proud of a lot
of the work we did and the stories and the
serious stories I covered, from Oklahoma City bombing to nine
to eleven to presidential elections to all kinds of really
important stories.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I mean, you've covered so much, and I'm curious about
how you cover some of the more divisive issues without
inserting your personal opinion.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
I honestly try to understand what the person is saying,
and I try to learn from that and ask questions
that I think other people would ask. I do try to,
you know, have a vulcan mind meld with people who
might be watching, and I try to be objective, but
you know, I have at this point in my life.
(15:55):
I'm sixty six years old. There are certain things that
I really believe in it and it is hard to sometimes,
like interview somebody who is against abortion. You know, I'm
for reproductive rights. I am for stricter gun laws. I
have I think, at this point in my career, been
(16:16):
able to say there's some things that I really deeply
believe in, and so I think I do have biases
when it comes to those topics. But in other instances,
I just try to listen and challenge when necessary and
in a respectful way, you know, have a conversation with people.
(16:40):
But you know, as I think, there's no there's no
such thing as true objectivity, you know, unless you're doing
the very strict to what when we're why, if you're
trying to put any context or any kind of explanation
behind an event, it's inevitable that your perspective is going
(17:01):
to be influenced by your point of view in some way.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And do you feel like you are now there's areas
of your personality that you can more freely and unapologetically
share now that you might not have in your early days.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
And news yeah, they were like you know, there were
third rails like you couldn't talk about gun violence, and
I did a whole documentary about why gun violence was
out of control in this country. You know, I couldn't
have done that anchoring the Today Show. I could not
have had a strong opinion.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
With your media company. Now you can, yeah, put out
the messaging that you you believe in, and you know, well,
you know.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Brooke, I was able to shape the broadcast slightly differently
when I was at CBS. I could focus more on
women's stories. You know, we did something on dating violence,
we did something on you know, sexual assault in the military.
I did, you know, stories that I think a male
anger girl would not have necessarily thought about. And so
(18:04):
I was able to make my mark in some ways
when it came to story selection. So I feel like
I wasn't totally, you know, hamstrung by being in a
more traditional media environment.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Well, I'm relieved and glad to hear that. I think
you're a very strong business woman insofar as the way
you handled this fascination with your personal life in a
way that made it not get stolen from you. You know.
I mean I've felt that my whole life. But I'm
(18:43):
I'm not in New I'm not in news, you know,
but that that that piece is usually not something that
gets it's usually that that personality. And then the private
life is the private life. But you've done such a
sort of beautiful job of taking trials and tribulations, and
you've been open about so much that you went through
(19:05):
personally in your life, but also making them teaching moments
and sharing them for other people's benefit. And I'm curious
as to how you were able to reconcile that.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, Well, you know, I think that morning television is
such a different animal. You develop these parasocial relationships with
the anchors. You do get to know them. You know.
People would say to me, I feel like I know you,
and I said, I'd always say, in many ways, I
think you do. Because they'd see you in serious moments,
they'd see you having fun, they'd see you having casual
(19:44):
chit chat with your colleagues. And I think maybe there
was a lot of interest in my personal life because
I was very authentic to who I was on television
that who I was off camera was really there was
no difference really to how I mean. There were some
(20:05):
limitations of things I would do on television that I
wouldn't do off camera. But I was very much the
same person with the same persona. And I think when
people saw me pregnant, they were with me when I
had both of my girls. They were with me when
my husband Jay got sick.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
There I was a forty one year old widow with
two children, six and two, and I think people felt
terrible for me in the most loving way. I mean, obviously,
how can you say that about millions of people, But
I did feel this support coming to me from from
(20:48):
the Today Show viewers and the audience that you know
does welcome you and your home and their home like
your kind of family. And having seen that terrible thing
happened to Jay, and then to see me try to
be resilient and move forward, then I think people became
(21:12):
interested in my love life. Like you know, it made
for good tabloid fodder, and you know, it was just
part of being I think at the time where morning
shows had a real place in the culture, more so
than I think they do today because of the fragmentation
of media, and I think people just were interested in
(21:35):
that how I was going to move forward. I mean,
I mean sometimes it sometimes it felt invasive, but during
the trauma of losing Jay. It was so helpful, It
was so comforting. I felt so cared about by complete
strangers who sent me mass cards and sympathy notes and
(21:59):
store worries about loss that they had experienced. It was
actually really beautiful. And I still have many of those
letters in big tupperware bins in my basement. And you know,
I at Jay's funeral, I asked everyone who came to
write letters to ellieen Carey because I knew that they
(22:20):
were not going to have the privilege of really getting
to know their father, and so to be able to
have those that people wrote such beautiful, thoughtful notes and
letters and multi page letters to the girls. That is
(22:41):
really love. That's compassion, that's empathy. And I felt it
so strongly, and you know, a loss, it was a
terrible loss, but it did help and it was comforting
to know that people were out there holding me in
(23:02):
their hearts.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
You know, when I had very severe postpartum and wrote
and I wrote about it, I still right.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
You came on the Today Show.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
I did. But to this day, people come, women come
up to me and tears in their eyes and they
and they cry and they say thank you. And you know,
and it's that there's something to be said for shared
loss or shared experience, or that you know you're not alone,
and that you know to be willing to be open
(23:39):
to that I think is obviously a sign of who
you are as a person. Well.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I think especially you know, when it comes to taboo
topics like postpartum depression that people are so terrified of
and so frightened by, and to break the stigma and
to let people share and know it's okay and that
there's help. I mean, you did a tremendous public service
and I hope that I did the same with colon cancer.
(24:07):
You know, nobody talked about colon cancer when Jay got
sick and died, and nobody really talked about the fact
that it's highly preventable if you get screened. And you know,
I think when you're a public figure, you have a platform,
and with that platform comes to responsibility and if you
(24:27):
can educate people and arm them with information that will
help them, that could even save their lives. I hate
to say it, but I think it's really selfish to
not share, not to share your experience.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
And I you know, I call this show now What
because it's really about those pivotal times in our lives
when something very massive happens and we really are are
the rug is pulled out from underneath us, and we
are thinking, oh shit, what do I you know? Now?
What do I do? And I imagine you've had many
(25:04):
now what moments? Was that one of your biggest? Now
what moments? How did you move forward from that?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I think when you have children, you really have no
option but to put one foot ahead of the other.
You know, when something like that happens, you don't have
the luxury of staying in bed and pulling the covers
over your head. You have to be there for your kids.
You have a responsibility. You have to parent. And so
(25:33):
that's what I did. And I also, you know, I
was a single parent. I had to keep working. I
wanted to keep working. I loved my job. And I
think early on realize that we're all terminal and we
have a finite amount of time on this planet, and
that I don't think Jay would want to destroy two
(25:55):
lives because he got cancer. I think he would want
me to bring as much joy into our daughter's lives
as possible. Thomas Jefferson wrote that the earth belongs to
the living. And that sounds selfish and cold in a way,
I guess, but I think it means, you know, we're
(26:17):
here and we have to make the most of our
time while we have it, because you never know, and
life is fragile and you have to go on. And
I wanted to go on. I didn't want to or
four lives to be to be destroyed because Jay got cancer,
and god, it sucks. You know, it's so maddening when
(26:40):
someone young, especially gets cancer. They're so cheated out of
so much. And I'm still really angry about it, honestly,
it's just so unfair and infuriating.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
And you started a very important organization, Stand Up to Cancer. Yeah,
you co found it fifteen years ago, right.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Right, and you raised with a bunch of women who
were just really angry, like I was, about the pace
of cancer research. When Jacot diagnosed with colorectal cancer and
it was metastatic, it was all over his liver. The
first line chemotherapy was something that had been around since
the nineteen fifties and this was nineteen ninety seven, and
(27:24):
it just infuriated me that they didn't have more options.
And it was very motivating, not only for me to
get involved with callon Cancer Research, but I realized so
many cancers needed more, more support, more funding. You know,
one out of ten promising research proposals is approved or
funded by the NCI, and that means so many, so
(27:48):
many exciting possibilities are left on the cutting room floor.
And I just said, we have to support cancer research.
You know, it's still so much progress has been made,
but it's still a devastating disease. So many people die
of cancer still.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I mean that you lost your sister yes years.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Later, she was fifty four and running for lieutenant governor
of Virginia, and that infuriates me too. I mean, anyone
listening to this who knows somebody who was taken way
too soon from this disease. It's just it's awful, and
it's you know, one in one in two men and
one in three women will be diagnosed with this in
(28:30):
their lifetime. So that's why I'm so passionate about funding
research and science. You know, it's really become my life's work.
And I think when you're touched by something personally brooke
as you know, you become really invested in doing something
about it.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Well, it's it's You've made a huge amount of a difference,
and I have hundreds of millions of dollars to research
and cares happened because of stand up to cancer. I mean,
I think there's so much around it. My dad died
of prostay cancer, which you don't have to die from.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
So we have not mentioned your sweet husband, but you
have been with your husband John for You've been with
Mulner for a decade, right, more than a yeah, decade.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, we're having our ten year anniversary this June. And
he really likes your husband Chris too.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I'm lucky.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I think we have funny husbands, yes, and kind of
in that dry, sarcastic, funny way. And I have to
say Mulner, who I call by his last name, I
don't know how I started that.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I call Henchy henchy, so you do.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
He just is a very funny person, and he gets
frustrated with me because I'm a bit of a mess.
I'm kind of like pig pen. I leave a little
trail of junk wherever I go, and he is a
neat freak, so that sometimes creates problems for us. But
most of the time we get along really really well.
(30:05):
And he does make me laugh.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Is there something that you're I mean, I'm I just
love how you keep going forward and the energy you
have too. It's not even reinventing, it's just repurposing and
re exploring or I don't even know if re is
the right word. It's just you know you and you're
such an inspiration to I started a company for and
(30:28):
we've talked about it for women. Yeah, in this era
of our lives, you know, that is full of possibility
and there is so much more and we have so
much to offer, and we're so versatile and we're beautifully complex,
and we we've done so many things, and we've yes
wise and raised children. And is there something you're especially
(30:49):
excited about in this next chapter?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
I mean, I honestly, you know, I just enjoy trying
my hardest and some time succeeding in putting good things
out in the world. Good things don't have to be
happy things. They can be you know, conversations about important topics,
journalism or whatever it is I do. Storytelling is a
(31:15):
can be and often I hope is a public service.
You know that. It's even if I don't have a
huge audience or an interview, I do gets five thousand people,
you know, when I used to have five million people
watching the Today Show. I feel like if that's helped
somebody understand something, if it's helped them kind of take
(31:37):
care of their health, if it's made them aware of
something they didn't know, Like, I don't know, that's just
I guess my love language is telling stories and sharing information.
And I'm excited, you know. I'm excited that I'm starting
(31:58):
a production company and I'm going to get more involved
and scripted and nonscripted projects, which is great. You and
I should talk and maybe collaborate on something.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
I would love that there's I'm going starting to find
fine books and fine stories that I really do resonate
and that I want to see cinematically.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
And I feel like I think female voices are getting
out there in a way that they haven't before. I
think over the last several years, women and their stories
and their voices and the people behind the scenes are
really making their mark. And I'm excited to have that
(32:39):
kind of storytelling be part of my portfolio as well.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
That was Katie Kirk. Head over to katieciric dot com
to subscribe to her newsletter and listen to her podcast
Next question with Katie Kuric. As for me, that's it
for now on behalf of myself and the team at
iHeart Thank you your support has truly meant everything to us. Now.
(33:09):
What with Brookshields is a production of iHeartRadio. Our lead
producer is Julia Weaver. Additional production support from Caitlin Simpson,
Elizabeth Warner, Darby Masters, and Abu Zafar. Our executive producer
is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Bahed Fraser.
What do you do when life doesn't go according to
plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
by people who lived them. Each week, I sit down
with a guest to talk about the times they were
knocked off course and what they did to move forward.
(00:27):
Some stories are funny, others are gut wrenching, but all
are unapologetically human and remind us that every success and
every setback is accompanied by a choice, and that choice
answers one question, now what. I remember some of my
(00:50):
first interviews with you. We both had very different hair, Yeah, yeah,
and very different shoulder pads.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
That that's true. I remember when you did. I remember
when I started it ABC, and I think that fall
we all went and bought Calvin Klein jeans, because that
must have been the Yearbrook you did. Nothing comes between
me and my Calvins. Was that nineteen eighty It was eighty. Yeah.
(01:19):
My friend Eileen O'Connor, she ran the teleprompter, and I
think she was still a student at Georgetown. But Eileen
and I were obsessed with Calvin Klein Genes. I just
remember seeing that ad and we all went out and
got a pair, and I have to say, maybe Eileen did,
but I certainly didn't look like you did in alls Brook.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I don't know about that. That is weird. I just
found my actual calvins. I had three pairs that my
mother kept from the commercial, and one of them I
gave to the met as one does, yeah, clearly, and
the other two I'm going to frame in plexiglass.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I was going to say, you should give a pair
to each of your daughters.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Hello, my beautiful naw At family. Before we get started,
I wanted to let you know that this will be
the final episode of the show, which I have loved
sharing with you over the past year. It's been a
wonderful ride, and my team and I are retooling a
few things and saying goodbye for now. I'm so grateful
for all of you and for your listenership, and equally
(02:29):
grateful to my last guest for helping me go out
with a bang. Katie Couric is an award winning journalist,
a trailblazer, an entrepreneur, a prolific fundraiser for cancer research,
and she is so much more we connected professionally many
years ago, and I am so fortunate that our working
relationship has developed into a friendship. Katie's resume is extensive.
(02:53):
She spent more than a decade with The Today Show,
was the first woman to anchor CBS News, and more
recently founded her own company, Katie Kiric Media. I'm in
awe of her and so thrilled that she was able
to join the show. So, without further ado, here is
Katie Kiric. Well, thank you so much for doing this.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Oh my god, of course, I'm thrilled to talk to you,
because you know, I'm such a big fan, and I
think I'm glad that people are kind of, you know,
getting to know you and your personality because you're so funny.
And I don't think people I think like when obviously
suddenly Susan and you've had other roles, but I don't
think everyone appreciates your sense of humor or the fact
(03:40):
that you have such a good sense of humor.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Well, thank you for that. I think, you know, I
think it's anyway, it's odd. I think it's because if
you've been sort of positioned a certain way for a
good portion of your life, that is just what people
imprint on and you know you can't I guess you
can't be labeled pretty and funny, although I mean luci
Oball was was like a beauty queen when she started.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
I don't know why people have to put people in
boxes and don't appreciate that, as Walt Whitman said, we
contain multitudes, right, right.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I mean, I think it's easier for people because also
if you really, if you really take in all that
we're all capable of, it's a lot of pressure for people.
And yeah, I'm really kind of I have to say
I was a bit intimidating, not a bit, a lot
intimidated when I really heard, only because not as a friend,
(04:35):
because as a friend and like a girlfriend, I know
I can call you and we can be girls, and
we've talked about a multitude of private things together. But
it just, you know, you set the tone, and you're
the front runner for so many women, and the fact
that I got intimidated by the fact that I thought
you were going to be that I knew you were
(04:55):
going to be on the show, it struck me. I thought,
I wonder if she ever gets intimidated by interviews that
she has to give. Has there been anybody that's been
intimidating to you?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
I think I think when I have to tackle topics
that I don't know a great deal about that I
feel like the learning curve is really steep. You know,
if it's somebody on a specific aspect of foreign policy
that I might not be uber knowledgeable about, or a
medical thing that I don't know a lot about. Sometimes
(05:29):
I do get intimidated, but I think at this point
you just let your natural curiosity take over. You have
a conversation, and I think the goal is to really
make things accessible and understandable to people. So I remember
Tom Friedman said to explain things simply, you have to
(05:49):
understand them deeply. So I try to strike that balance
of understanding something and then synthesizing it and distilling it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
That's a tall order, but the research involved, I think
is daunting, and I'm sure you know, to make it
accessible for other people is really is really the gift
of being a journalist. You wanted to be a journalist
from the time you were a little kid. I mean
(06:22):
you're you're the youngest of four, correct. You grew up
in Virginia, and you said you wanted to be a
journalist from a young age. What how did you know
that that's what you wanted. What was it about journalism
that intrigued you.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I think I wanted to do something that had to
do with language and writing, and I think it was
the process of elimination. Honestly, I wasn't very strong in
math and science. I hate to say that because that's
such a stereotypical thing, but I really gravitated towards words
and language and writing and more creative pursuits. So I
(06:59):
knew I wanted to do something that involved some form
of communication, whether it was writing or radio or talking.
And I think because my dad was a print journalist
early in his career, and he saw that I wrote
well and I wrote quickly because I was such a
procrastinator as a kid, I'd wait till the last minute
(07:21):
to do my homework, but I was able to write
things under pressure. And I think he thought, Wow, journalism
might be a really great career for you. I mean,
he didn't say that, but we sort of went in
that direction. And I got internships when I was in college,
and I worked at three different radio stations, and I
wrote for my school newspaper and at Uva. I wrote
(07:43):
for The Cavalier Daily, so I really enjoyed it. And
you know, I think when you are lucky enough to
find a job you love, that is such a gift.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Do you remember the first time that you fell in
love with the idea of news, like the news moment
that made you just fall in love with that medium.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I don't remember if there was one particular moment. I
just loved every aspect of jumping into a local news van,
not knowing what you were going to find when you
stopped to cover a story, having to jump out, get
your bearings, figure out what was going on, find people
(08:28):
to talk to, start painting a picture of the story
in your mind, listening to the sound bites on your
little mini tape recorder on the way home, writing the script,
figuring out what you're maybe if you're going live from
the location, what your you know your live intro is
going to be, what your outro is going to be,
(08:48):
and doing it than pressure. Oh yeah, it's so fun.
It's such an adrenaline rush and it's just exciting. And
then you've got this thing that you've produced and it's
done and it's over and you can go home and
(09:08):
leave it behind.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
It's awesome, it's amazing. And also just the thinking on
your feet and that being able to adapt. I mean,
it's our version as an actor of improv. You know,
you just it's yes, and you know, you never shut
anything down. It's always what's the next thing. But it's
interesting though I don't think you know, my daughter, I
(09:31):
always things happen and things don't happen for them, and
I try to tell them all the time that you know,
rejection is just part of growth, and especially in this medium,
what you're what you I mean, there must have been
so much rejection and part of what I wanted to
do with this show is to normalize rejection, you know,
(09:52):
to show people that you can recover from it, that
it happens to all of us, and it's how you
respond and how you can that really reveals who you are.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
That's so true. That's so true. And I mean from
the get go, I had people telling me, you know, oh,
you're never going to make it in the business. The
president of CNN when I did a really bad report,
like I was too young and really bad, and he
called the assignment desk at CNN in Washington, said he
(10:26):
never wanted to see me on the air again, talk
about like deflating. And you know, I had a really
challenging time when I went to CBS, both internally with
the politics there and externally with people I think wanting
to tear me down and not picking up what I
was putting down in terms of trying to retool an
(10:49):
evening news broadcast. And it's hard, and you're right, everybody
deals with rejection or disappointment or dashed hopes at some
point in their lives and it's no fun, but it's
just part of life.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
How did you move on from it? Though?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
What was I mean? I think I had different reactions
that differed, two different disappointments, Like when the president of
CNN said he never wanted to see me on the
air again, I was just like devastated. But I also thought,
maybe he's right, Maybe I need more experience, Maybe I'm
not ready and I just need to do it more.
(11:26):
And that's when I moved to Atlanta and became a
producer and started doing on air stuff little by little
and found a mentor. That's when I went to Miami
and became a local news and just churned out story
after story, and you know, I agree with Malcolm Gladwell,
it takes about ten thousand hours to get good at anything,
and I just thought, you know, I'm just I need
(11:47):
more practice, I need more experience. So I took it personally,
and yet I didn't take it personally, and I tried
to figure out, well, how could I change the circumstances
I found myself in.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
You were interviewed by people after you left CBS and
you said you didn't think that people really internally ever,
really accepted you. And you said I thought we were
much further along when it came to sexism. What prompted
that observation.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Well, I think if you had sort of been in
my shoes during those five years. And I think a
lot has changed. I think that sexism is still one
of the most acceptable isms, less so than it used
to be. But I think that I got criticized for
what I wore my first night on the evening news.
(12:47):
I got criticized for the way I held my hands,
these really dopey things that a mail anchor would just
never be subjected to. I mean, let's face it, it's
more interesting, I think, to look at women on television
because there's more variety, you know, men just look generally
a certain way, wear a certain suit and a tie,
(13:10):
and and I think that not everyone. And by the way,
I had a lot of friends within CBS, but a
lot of people I think sort of didn't like outsiders.
They are it's a pretty insular place. People go there
and they kind of spend their entire careers there. So
I had the outsider status, I had the first woman's status.
(13:32):
I had the morning show albatross around my neck that
somehow I lack ravitas, which I always say is Latin
for testicles, and you know, and that and that somehow
I wasn't enough of a you know, a serious journalist
to handle the CBS evening news, which was just honestly boloney.
(13:55):
So I think there were a lot of and not
just I think there were a lot of biases that
honestly infected or affected the way people saw me in
that role.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
It just explained to me what the morning show stigma.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Oh well, I think that people, you know, even though
Tom Brokaw did the Today Show, for example, and even
John Chancellor did the Today Show, I think there is
a feeling that the morning shows are very fluffy and
that they don't deal with serious news, and they're not
(14:35):
They're not done or anchored by serious people. I think
that's an unfair characterization because I did so many serious
interviews during my fifteen years at the Today Show, and
I did many dateline specials. I interviewed Supreme Court justices
and presidents and world leaders. But I think that it
(14:55):
just has this kind of unfair sort of promoter as
kind of a you know, a light, fluffy show.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
It's entertainment, not news.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah. Yeah, But I was really really proud of working
on The Today Show and really proud of a lot
of the work we did and the stories and the
serious stories I covered, from Oklahoma City bombing to nine
to eleven to presidential elections to all kinds of really
important stories.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I mean, you've covered so much, and I'm curious about
how you cover some of the more divisive issues without
inserting your personal opinion.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
I honestly try to understand what the person is saying,
and I try to learn from that and ask questions
that I think other people would ask. I do try to,
you know, have a vulcan mind meld with people who
might be watching, and I try to be objective, but
you know, I have at this point in my life.
(15:55):
I'm sixty six years old. There are certain things that
I really believe in it and it is hard to sometimes,
like interview somebody who is against abortion. You know, I'm
for reproductive rights. I am for stricter gun laws. I
have I think, at this point in my career, been
(16:16):
able to say there's some things that I really deeply
believe in, and so I think I do have biases
when it comes to those topics. But in other instances,
I just try to listen and challenge when necessary and
in a respectful way, you know, have a conversation with people.
(16:40):
But you know, as I think, there's no there's no
such thing as true objectivity, you know, unless you're doing
the very strict to what when we're why, if you're
trying to put any context or any kind of explanation
behind an event, it's inevitable that your perspective is going
(17:01):
to be influenced by your point of view in some way.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
And do you feel like you are now there's areas
of your personality that you can more freely and unapologetically
share now that you might not have in your early days.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
And news yeah, they were like you know, there were
third rails like you couldn't talk about gun violence, and
I did a whole documentary about why gun violence was
out of control in this country. You know, I couldn't
have done that anchoring the Today Show. I could not
have had a strong opinion.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
With your media company. Now you can, yeah, put out
the messaging that you you believe in, and you know, well,
you know.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Brooke, I was able to shape the broadcast slightly differently
when I was at CBS. I could focus more on
women's stories. You know, we did something on dating violence,
we did something on you know, sexual assault in the military.
I did, you know, stories that I think a male
anger girl would not have necessarily thought about. And so
(18:04):
I was able to make my mark in some ways
when it came to story selection. So I feel like
I wasn't totally, you know, hamstrung by being in a
more traditional media environment.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Well, I'm relieved and glad to hear that. I think
you're a very strong business woman insofar as the way
you handled this fascination with your personal life in a
way that made it not get stolen from you. You know.
I mean I've felt that my whole life. But I'm
(18:43):
I'm not in New I'm not in news, you know,
but that that that piece is usually not something that
gets it's usually that that personality. And then the private
life is the private life. But you've done such a
sort of beautiful job of taking trials and tribulations, and
you've been open about so much that you went through
(19:05):
personally in your life, but also making them teaching moments
and sharing them for other people's benefit. And I'm curious
as to how you were able to reconcile that.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, Well, you know, I think that morning television is
such a different animal. You develop these parasocial relationships with
the anchors. You do get to know them. You know.
People would say to me, I feel like I know you,
and I said, I'd always say, in many ways, I
think you do. Because they'd see you in serious moments,
they'd see you having fun, they'd see you having casual
(19:44):
chit chat with your colleagues. And I think maybe there
was a lot of interest in my personal life because
I was very authentic to who I was on television
that who I was off camera was really there was
no difference really to how I mean. There were some
(20:05):
limitations of things I would do on television that I
wouldn't do off camera. But I was very much the
same person with the same persona. And I think when
people saw me pregnant, they were with me when I
had both of my girls. They were with me when
my husband Jay got sick.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
You know.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
There I was a forty one year old widow with
two children, six and two, and I think people felt
terrible for me in the most loving way. I mean, obviously,
how can you say that about millions of people, But
I did feel this support coming to me from from
(20:48):
the Today Show viewers and the audience that you know
does welcome you and your home and their home like
your kind of family. And having seen that terrible thing
happened to Jay, and then to see me try to
be resilient and move forward, then I think people became
(21:12):
interested in my love life. Like you know, it made
for good tabloid fodder, and you know, it was just
part of being I think at the time where morning
shows had a real place in the culture, more so
than I think they do today because of the fragmentation
of media, and I think people just were interested in
(21:35):
that how I was going to move forward. I mean,
I mean sometimes it sometimes it felt invasive, but during
the trauma of losing Jay. It was so helpful, It
was so comforting. I felt so cared about by complete
strangers who sent me mass cards and sympathy notes and
(21:59):
store worries about loss that they had experienced. It was
actually really beautiful. And I still have many of those
letters in big tupperware bins in my basement. And you know,
I at Jay's funeral, I asked everyone who came to
write letters to ellieen Carey because I knew that they
(22:20):
were not going to have the privilege of really getting
to know their father, and so to be able to
have those that people wrote such beautiful, thoughtful notes and
letters and multi page letters to the girls. That is
(22:41):
really love. That's compassion, that's empathy. And I felt it
so strongly, and you know, a loss, it was a
terrible loss, but it did help and it was comforting
to know that people were out there holding me in
(23:02):
their hearts.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
You know, when I had very severe postpartum and wrote
and I wrote about it, I still right.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
You came on the Today Show.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
I did. But to this day, people come, women come
up to me and tears in their eyes and they
and they cry and they say thank you. And you know,
and it's that there's something to be said for shared
loss or shared experience, or that you know you're not alone,
and that you know to be willing to be open
(23:39):
to that I think is obviously a sign of who
you are as a person. Well.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I think especially you know, when it comes to taboo
topics like postpartum depression that people are so terrified of
and so frightened by, and to break the stigma and
to let people share and know it's okay and that
there's help. I mean, you did a tremendous public service
and I hope that I did the same with colon cancer.
(24:07):
You know, nobody talked about colon cancer when Jay got
sick and died, and nobody really talked about the fact
that it's highly preventable if you get screened. And you know,
I think when you're a public figure, you have a platform,
and with that platform comes to responsibility and if you
(24:27):
can educate people and arm them with information that will
help them, that could even save their lives. I hate
to say it, but I think it's really selfish to
not share, not to share your experience.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
And I you know, I call this show now What
because it's really about those pivotal times in our lives
when something very massive happens and we really are are
the rug is pulled out from underneath us, and we
are thinking, oh shit, what do I you know? Now?
What do I do? And I imagine you've had many
(25:04):
now what moments? Was that one of your biggest? Now
what moments? How did you move forward from that?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I think when you have children, you really have no
option but to put one foot ahead of the other.
You know, when something like that happens, you don't have
the luxury of staying in bed and pulling the covers
over your head. You have to be there for your kids.
You have a responsibility. You have to parent. And so
(25:33):
that's what I did. And I also, you know, I
was a single parent. I had to keep working. I
wanted to keep working. I loved my job. And I
think early on realize that we're all terminal and we
have a finite amount of time on this planet, and
that I don't think Jay would want to destroy two
(25:55):
lives because he got cancer. I think he would want
me to bring as much joy into our daughter's lives
as possible. Thomas Jefferson wrote that the earth belongs to
the living. And that sounds selfish and cold in a way,
I guess, but I think it means, you know, we're
(26:17):
here and we have to make the most of our
time while we have it, because you never know, and
life is fragile and you have to go on. And
I wanted to go on. I didn't want to or
four lives to be to be destroyed because Jay got cancer,
and god, it sucks. You know, it's so maddening when
(26:40):
someone young, especially gets cancer. They're so cheated out of
so much. And I'm still really angry about it, honestly,
it's just so unfair and infuriating.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
And you started a very important organization, Stand Up to Cancer. Yeah,
you co found it fifteen years ago, right.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Right, and you raised with a bunch of women who
were just really angry, like I was, about the pace
of cancer research. When Jacot diagnosed with colorectal cancer and
it was metastatic, it was all over his liver. The
first line chemotherapy was something that had been around since
the nineteen fifties and this was nineteen ninety seven, and
(27:24):
it just infuriated me that they didn't have more options.
And it was very motivating, not only for me to
get involved with callon Cancer Research, but I realized so
many cancers needed more, more support, more funding. You know,
one out of ten promising research proposals is approved or
funded by the NCI, and that means so many, so
(27:48):
many exciting possibilities are left on the cutting room floor.
And I just said, we have to support cancer research.
You know, it's still so much progress has been made,
but it's still a devastating disease. So many people die
of cancer still.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
I mean that you lost your sister yes years.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Later, she was fifty four and running for lieutenant governor
of Virginia, and that infuriates me too. I mean, anyone
listening to this who knows somebody who was taken way
too soon from this disease. It's just it's awful, and
it's you know, one in one in two men and
one in three women will be diagnosed with this in
(28:30):
their lifetime. So that's why I'm so passionate about funding
research and science. You know, it's really become my life's work.
And I think when you're touched by something personally brooke
as you know, you become really invested in doing something
about it.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Well, it's it's You've made a huge amount of a difference,
and I have hundreds of millions of dollars to research
and cares happened because of stand up to cancer. I mean,
I think there's so much around it. My dad died
of prostay cancer, which you don't have to die from.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
So we have not mentioned your sweet husband, but you
have been with your husband John for You've been with
Mulner for a decade, right, more than a yeah, decade.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, we're having our ten year anniversary this June. And
he really likes your husband Chris too.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
I'm lucky.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
I think we have funny husbands, yes, and kind of
in that dry, sarcastic, funny way. And I have to
say Mulner, who I call by his last name, I
don't know how I started that.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
I call Henchy henchy, so you do.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
He just is a very funny person, and he gets
frustrated with me because I'm a bit of a mess.
I'm kind of like pig pen. I leave a little
trail of junk wherever I go, and he is a
neat freak, so that sometimes creates problems for us. But
most of the time we get along really really well.
(30:05):
And he does make me laugh.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Is there something that you're I mean, I'm I just
love how you keep going forward and the energy you
have too. It's not even reinventing, it's just repurposing and
re exploring or I don't even know if re is
the right word. It's just you know you and you're
such an inspiration to I started a company for and
(30:28):
we've talked about it for women. Yeah, in this era
of our lives, you know, that is full of possibility
and there is so much more and we have so
much to offer, and we're so versatile and we're beautifully complex,
and we we've done so many things, and we've yes
wise and raised children. And is there something you're especially
(30:49):
excited about in this next chapter?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
I mean, I honestly, you know, I just enjoy trying
my hardest and some time succeeding in putting good things
out in the world. Good things don't have to be
happy things. They can be you know, conversations about important topics,
journalism or whatever it is I do. Storytelling is a
(31:15):
can be and often I hope is a public service.
You know that. It's even if I don't have a
huge audience or an interview, I do gets five thousand people,
you know, when I used to have five million people
watching the Today Show. I feel like if that's helped
somebody understand something, if it's helped them kind of take
(31:37):
care of their health, if it's made them aware of
something they didn't know, Like, I don't know, that's just
I guess my love language is telling stories and sharing information.
And I'm excited, you know. I'm excited that I'm starting
(31:58):
a production company and I'm going to get more involved
and scripted and nonscripted projects, which is great. You and
I should talk and maybe collaborate on something.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
I would love that there's I'm going starting to find
fine books and fine stories that I really do resonate
and that I want to see cinematically.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
And I feel like I think female voices are getting
out there in a way that they haven't before. I
think over the last several years, women and their stories
and their voices and the people behind the scenes are
really making their mark. And I'm excited to have that
(32:39):
kind of storytelling be part of my portfolio as well.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
That was Katie Kirk. Head over to katieciric dot com
to subscribe to her newsletter and listen to her podcast
Next question with Katie Kuric. As for me, that's it
for now on behalf of myself and the team at
iHeart Thank you your support has truly meant everything to us. Now.
(33:09):
What with Brookshields is a production of iHeartRadio. Our lead
producer is Julia Weaver. Additional production support from Caitlin Simpson,
Elizabeth Warner, Darby Masters, and Abu Zafar. Our executive producer
is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Bahed Fraser.
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