CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric says she misses the unique connection she had with her Today Show viewers during her 15 years on the show. “People used to say to me, ‘I feel like I know you,'” Couric said in an interview with Brian Solis on the web show Revolution. “And I would say, ‘Actually, you do!'”
Now at CBS, Couric says she’s embracing the web and social media. “I like to have conversations with people, and I just didn’t have an outlet for the kind of spontaneous, natural programming that I had become accustomed working on the Today Show,” she said. “In a way, I feel like I’m revitalizing that through social media.”
Indeed, if you follow Katie Couric on Twitter, she’s one of the most Twitter-friendly of network TV anchors — not to mention, the only network evening news anchor on Twitter. She responds to many @replies from others. Her Facebook page mixes news with personal observations. “I’ve used it to feel closer to my viewers,” she says, adding that she occasionally mines story ideas from Twitter.
Couric also holds the occasional live Facebook chat, and hosts a YouTube channel with clips from her @katiecouric webcast. She admits she’s still “finding her voice” and says the biggest challenge is figuring out “how much of myself do I reveal.”
This is the first of three segments of Solis’ interview with Couric.
Update: Here’s part two of the interview