Katie Couric is writing a memoir titled Unexpected, and it’s scheduled for a spring 2021 release.
According to an announcement from Little, Brown and Company, which is publishing the memoir, Couric “will touch upon everything from the #MeToo movement, which led to the firing of her former Today show colleague Matt Lauer, to what her publisher is calling her own “proto-#MeToo brushes with workplace sexism, like the time a high-ranking executive commented on her breast size in front of the top brass during an editorial meeting.”
Couric’s book will be a candid look at herself and the “the unapologetic ‘Mad Men’ culture” of the TV industry, according to the publisher. She will reflect on her start at ABC, when her job “included making coffee and fetching ham sandwiches for newsroom honchos like Frank Reynolds and Sam Donaldson.” She will remember the network president at CNN who declared that he “never wanted to see that girl on the air again.” She will recall leaving NBC for CBS, and “the less than warm welcome she received upon her arrival from some of her colleagues.” And she will look back at some of her notable interviews, such as her 2008 conversations with GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whose awkward responses convinced many that she was not ready for the job.
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Couric will also write about the 1998 death of her first husband, Jay Monahan, after battling colon cancer, as well as her own health issues, including battles with bullimia.
The veteran TV newser has kept quite busy since departing Yahoo News in the summer of 2017. She founded Katie Couric Media production company; hosts the Katie Couric podcast, and was the first TV newser to make a cameo on CBS’ revival of Murphy Brown, doing so last fall.
Speaking of CBS, Couric will write about her time anchoring the CBS Evening News (2006-2011). She said the experience was her toughest professional challenge over the past 15 years in an interview with Adweek late last year.
“My early time at CBS, when I was under this bright white light. When I was under such a microscope – but luckily, attention turned away from me, and I could actually do my job,” Couric told Adweek. “The attention abated, and I was able to do my job.”