Couric: “It’s Not a Lot of Fun Being Pummeled in the Press”

By SteveK 

CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric appeared this morning on the Reliable Sources portion of State of the Union, and was interviewed on a variety of topics by Howard Kurtz.

She talked about the early negative press. “It’s not a lot of fun being pummeled in the press,” she said. “But on the other hand, I’ve always had enough confidence in my abilities and my work to know that sometimes there are larger issues at work here about the role of women in society.”

But recently the ratings have greatly improved. “People had to get used to me in the job,” Couric said. “You know, a face that had not been familiar to CBS viewers. And then I also think that, you know, I had to get used to the job, and we had to sort of find the right balance of me getting out in the field and doing interviews, which is what I really enjoy doing, and reporting. And I just think it took a while to sort of be operating on all four cylinders. But Rick Kaplan is doing a fantastic job.”

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Kurtz also asked Couric about how she was able to “lure” the Captain Sully interview away from her former co-anchor, Matt Lauer. Click continued to see her answer…

In fairness, I think they might have jumped the gun a bit, because this whole interview &mash; really, I think maybe Matt was told by one person, but it was really a lot of people involved in the decision-making process, including the entire crew, Sully and his family, the Airline Pilots Association, the flight attendants.

There were a couple of people helping them out from a PR perspective. And so we did it like anybody else does these things. We talked to them, we told them we thought that “60 Minutes” was a good venue for them, it was more controlled. And we thought we could craft and produce a really excellent piece. And, you know, I think ultimately they all got together and they made that decision, and that’s what happened.

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