Life and Career of Katie Couric

Although as a cohost of the Today Show Katie Couric has one of the most recognized faces in the United States, her celebrity status was not the result of a protracted and difficult rise to fame. According to published reports, Couric was born Katherine Anne Couric in 1957 and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1979; her degree was in American Studies. After graduation, her father, a journalist and public relations worker, advised her to seek employment in the television industry (Marin, Chang, & Angell, 1998). She worked as a so-called desk assistant at ABC News in Washington, obtaining the job partly on the strength of what is widely reported to be a winning personality (Bumiller, 1996). However, professional capability appears to have been a factor of an almost uninterrupted career rise; she has been called an accomplished reporter (Flander, 1992). In 1980, she obtained a position as an assistant on the news-assignment desk of the newly formed Cable News Network (CNN). and after only a few weeks on the job she was thrust before the camera to re

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n the form of viewer ratings, and partly because Couric was reportedly mentored at NBC in her Pentagon-reporting period by Washington bureau chief Tim Russert (Flander, 1992b). At least as important to Couric's success at Today, however, was the fact that with Couric in an anchor position ratings for the program improved dramatically, literally overnight; they had fallen to a low ebb at the period Norville in that position (Marin, Chang, & Angell, 1998). This does not necessarily mean that Couric was solely responsible for the improvement in ratings, but it does indicate the comfort level of NBC with her performance. Couric's work as a journalist, in particular as an interviewer, has received praise, even in the context of an increasingly problematized medium. "Media-produced reality" has long been held to have a fundamental "defect-ridden quality," which is that it conveys a heightened sense of urgency and importance to whatever the media are transmitting. Indeed, "media do more than merely reflect events; they also create them" (Berg, 1972, p. 256). A generally sharp and negative critique of the television coverage of a mass-murder spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., included mention of an "authentically spontan
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Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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