Katie Couric on Women in Media

popular co anchor of NBC's Today Show. Katie has broken news, made headlines, and one just about every journalism award possible, and she's done that while overcoming the gender bias that has pervaded much of broadcast media. Katie sat down with Milan during Seneca Woman Forum at the New York Stock Exchange.

Listen to their conversation and hear how Katie deals with the boys Club, how she handles critics, and why she's now focusing on creating quality content with purpose driven partners, and stick around after the conversation to hear our top takeaways. We'll be back after this break. I feel like I'm the holy thing between you all in a cocktail. I feel really bad about this, but Hi, You're gonna be

so glad that you're here. We've been talking about transforming culture, and I think there are a few people who have had such an impact on our culture as you have. Katie Couric, so welcome, and it's just right to have you here. You know, I's thinking. I spent my mornings with you for fifteen years in a row, and you

were the whole anchor of the Today Show. And when we look at your achievements from best selling author to award winning journalists to the co founder of Stand Up to Cancer, that organization within ten years has raised a

half a billion dollars for scientists and researchers. That's extraordinary. Ah. You know, these are the kinds of things we don't know about her, And now she's uh the head of Katie Cork Media, working on really extraordinary topics that are so important and which you are bringing to our attention and hopefully that we will respond to uh in ways

that we should care more about them. Um, But I want to start with you're becoming the first female anchor of a major network evening news and I know from what I've heard from you in the past that it was not the easiest job. It was fraught with challenges. In fact, I think you referred to the boys club and that might be something but the women in the corporate sector can understand. But but what made it so challenging? Well, I think this, Well, first of all, hi everyone, I'm

so happy to see you all and nice to be here. Um. You know, this was two thousand six, and you know, I think I was pretty naive. I've been naive, I think several times throughout my life and career. But I thought, you know, you hear about post racial. I sort of thought we were post sexist because I had had such

a prominent position on the Today Show, I had seniority. Uh. Matt was sort of believed it or not a little bit of the second banana to me because I had been there longer than he had and he deferred to me at times, not always. And that's a whole another Operah. We're not going to get into, um, but it would be interesting. You can read about it in my book, which is coming out in about a year. I'm working

on it right now. But um, you know, I think that networks have personalities, and at the time, CBS was I think the most sort of old fashioned, traditional, insulated network. I think people kind of bleed CBS. They stay there for their entire career, and it was just very male dominated. I think also, uh, you know, I was the first female solo anchor of a newscast and you can't really, I think overestimate what a shock to the collective system of viewers that was. You know, I was just a

very different animal. I was different than I wasn't raised in the CBS culture. I think the CBS viewer was a little more traditional and conserve TV. And I was brought in by less move as, which is another oprah. How many men can I mention in this conversation, And

then there was Charlie Rose. But anyway, so so um, you know, and I think that uh that that people weren't really accustomed to me, and even you know, I remember, I'm so happy that Nora O'Donnell is getting support from fellow journalist female especially and also has Susan Zarinsky at the Helm And I think that's real proof about of the importance of having women and leadership positions because they

set the tone. I think they're more supportive, they get each other more, and I think from the get go. I'm happy that Nora, I think, is going to have a much easier transition, not only because she's been at CBS for a while, but because she has someone like Susan Zarinsky at the helm. But I remember doing the first broadcast and and uh, just that, I think because it was so novel to see a woman at the

anchor desk. They you know, talked about the fact that I wore a winter white jacket after Labor Day and I'm like, God, damn it, it's tropical weight wool and it's our Armani people. And I spent more on that coat than I spent on anything in my entire life. And you know, my hair, my makeup, even Nora from which I thought was such a betrayal of my you know, sisterhood that you know, she trashed my makeup and I was like, seriously, makes she rest in peace, But Nora Fron,

why are you doing that? So I realized I was like, Wow, we are not as evolved as I thought we were. And so for all of those reasons, and I also think they thought I was this kind of you know, like lipting cup of soup, you add me stir and the ratings just miraculously went through the roof. But those things take time and nurturing, and I think when they saw that it wasn't kind of instant rating success and that they'd have to be in it for the long haul,

I don't think they knew how to do that. Um. And I think, you know, I probably made some mistakes too. I probably didn't ingratiate myself, uh with some of the people who had been there for a long time. I brought a few people with me from NBC. I mean, you study industrial psychology. I think people felt very threatened and insecure about their own positions, which I totally can understand. UM. So you know, I'm really proud of the work I did. I was there for five years, we won a ton

of awards. I kind of just powered through. UM. You know, I think my interview with Sarah Palin was very impactful. You're welcome, um, and and so a lot of the work I did there I'm extremely proud of. And but it was it was a challenge at times. But I'm wondering listening to you and your mention of Nora and now coming in as the second in that position as CBS, but that CBS, I am to write, but but has the landscape changed that much? As representation changed that much?

I have some statistics here that really makes me wonder are we making progress? You know, I think you when you watch television, you watch cable news, I pay attention to diversity and the number of women, and to make sure I do think outwardly we're making some progress. The Women's Media Center, though, I think those are the stats you're referring to. Milan shows that men still overwhelmingly are

dominating the media landscape. And I think what's what is the most important thing is what I mentioned earlier, that we need more women in leadership positions. You know, Susan Zarinski is now the head of of CBS News, the woman. There's a female who's the had of Fox News. But in terms of uh, you know, other networks, it's still very male dominated. At the executive producer level, I think

is still very male dominated. And this was the women Meeting Women's Media Center, uh, their latest survey that was done in two thousand nineteen. So I think, you know, only when you have true decision making opportunities. I think oftentimes leadership positions are put to prop up the guy who is in the leadership position. You know, they're not quite at the very top. And I think many of the men are interested in maintaining the status quo. So I think we have a lot of work to be

done in that that department. And I don't want to have to just wait for these guys to die for it to change, nor do we. But but most of these statistics basically showed that, um, if we're lucky, we've broken in terms of the various categories of news anchors

and wire writers and social media writers, etcetera. Um, And I think what Gina Davis has been doing looking at how women are portrayed in movies for example, uh, and the fact that in any crowd scene were of the population right, but the crowd scenes typically are thirty percent. So it's like stuck at and that's real progress. It's yeah, clearly we have a way to go. It's very insidious to you know. I did an hour on gender inequality for a series I did for National Geographic called America

Inside Out. It's on Hulu. I highly recommendedly Ladies and Gentlemen. Uh. And I took a look at various social issues from Confederate statues to white anxiety and sort of what's going on in in the rust Belt and this transition to a more technological economy. I looked at what it's like to be a Muslim in America, uh, political correctness on college campuses and beyond, and one of them was a real deep dive into gender inequality, and we talked about

all these issues. I went to Harvard and took the implicit association test that Mustering Banagi administers, and by the way, I crushed it. I have no bias, thank you. I think I kind of gained it because I sort of figured out, but I still don't. I think I'm pretty I was aware, Oh, you're trying to associate gardening with women. I'm not doing that. So um but women are are actually more biased than men in that implicit association test, which is interesting. But um, you know, I I interview

Gina for that. We talked a lot about imagery and one of the movies we looked at they worked with Google to kind of quantify the role of women in movies and even shockingly hidden figures, is uh, you know, the male dialogue is more than the female dialogu if you can believe that so there are things that really

have to start out from the writer's level. And in that hour, Lan I went and visited ju V Productions, which is Biola Davis and Julian's her husband's production company, to get more diversity in the pipeline and from the get go, and we're sitting around the table and it was a very diverse group of people and one of the African American producers, I said, it's probably important that you do that. Writers don't specify who's going to play

a certain role. I think some people were talking about this. He said, that's right. You know, for a doctor, he could be African American or whatever. And I said, but look, you just made him into a heat He could be a woman too. So even people who are working in this space have this, this kind of implicit bias that's the result of years and years of cultural conditioning and years and years of images, you know, being inundated with images. And that's really why I wanted to be the anchor

of the CBS Evening News. I wanted little boys and little girls to see that a woman can do that job confidently and competently, and that you know, it wouldn't be such a novelty and hopefully we'll get more and more women in these leadership positions. And also I had

such an impact on the stories we covered. You know, I would say, I want to do a story on dating violence after Yardley Love was murdered at the University of Virginia where I went to school and Sharon went as well, and you know I wanted to do I want to do a series on sexual assault in the military. You know, these are all stories that were coming from me that a lot of my male counterparts would never think of. But you know, a different perspective gives a

lot more balance. And and that's why diversity inclusions, socioeconomic diversity, racial diversity, all kinds of diversity are so important because everyone has a from perspective and power imbalances. You know, I think for all of the success of the Me Too movement, unless we change some of these power imbalances, we're going to continue to have these kinds of problems

and those kinds of problems. Um but let me ask you, because we were having a vigorous discussion in the green room and we have I don't like looking at that clock over there, but just really really quickly topic that could take hours. How is it for the journalist today with this changing media? I think what's really hard is the proliferation of media outlets. Some are very legitimate doing incredible work, some are less so, and they all get

kind of lumped together. I mean, I don't know how many times I've gone to my iPhone and clicked on something and I have no idea the media outlet, and I read it and I'm like, what or I see that? You know, I'm reading I see a thing about I keep getting joy Behar's last words? Why am I getting

that on my phone? You know, I mean, just the weirdest stuff, and things get repeated, you know, journalism, for the number of people in newsrooms because of economic concerns, are shrinking, and then people are just rewriting other people's stories and they're not necessarily going through an editor or any vetting problem process. So I mean, I think there's a lot of things that are really problematic about the

journalistic landscape. And you know, when I was doing the Today Show, I started in nine and you if you wanted to know what was going on in the world, you turned on the radio, or you got your morning paper, you know, hard copy or you turned on one of the networks to kind of get the latest news. Now there are just a million places to get it. My daughters never turn on the television. They listen to podcasts.

They go to their phones and look at the New York Times or the Washington Post or my newsletter, which by the way, you all need to subscribe to. You just have to text four seven four seven four seven, and then you write Katie and then you sign up. And I'll make your life much easier because I curate all the tsunami of information that we're accosted by every day, and I thought you've gotten today just getting that. But anyway, so it's it's it's tough. And I also think, you know,

the medialy, it's so bifurcated. There are too many people giving their opinions, and you know, people are getting affirmation, not information. They're getting their own reviews, views reflected back at them. And it's a very sad state of affairs when my friends say they watched the BBC to get an objective view of what's going on in the world.

And I just think, sometimes, you know, even though I might agree with some people more than others, I just want to hear what's going on, and I don't want people to roll their eyes or sigh or her romph or you know, just carry on that way. And I gone social media news organizations should not should be really careful with their reporters tweet or put out there because

there should be some appearance of objectivity. And even though our time is up, I'm going to ask you, um about your media company and what kinds of projects you're involved in now, because we're all eager to hear whether Katie go as next. So, um, well, what kinds of topics are you are you looking at, well working on? I mean, I think it's actually quite Germaine to the previous conversations, but I'm not gonna I'm going to give

you guys the abridge version. Um. Basically, you know, I've done so many things in my career, but I love to work. I'm a little crazy. I just I love to be engaged in the world and take part in big, important conversations. So about a year ago I started the very originally named Katie currct Media and you know I were I care about a lot of important issues. I care about gender and gender equality, I care about environmental sustainability.

I care about criminal justice reform. I care about all kinds of issues that companies now care about as well. The Edleman Trust Parometer. I don't know if anyone mentioned this today, but seventy of employees look to their CEO s to take a stand on important issues and look to their companies to to usher and change instead of the government. As trust in the government and media institutions has declined faith in companies, which is sort of ironic. If you grew up, you know where the companies were

the enemies and big big business was bad. But now actually big business is really seen as a source for good and and to change hearts and minds. And again always cognizant of the importance of images in terms of what people see. If you can't see it, you can't be it. And that's why I wanted to do the

Evening News. That's why I said to Bryant Gumbel, I'm not doing this job unless there's a fifty fifty division of labor because I don't want to be seen as the cute girl who does does fashion shows and cooking segments. I covered the Pentagon. I know my stuff, I'm smart, I'm not going to be the second Banana. And so I'm working with with companies to do digital series documentaries, um you know, working with Ally Financial, Rally Hells, people

who you know. I care deeply about medical issues because of my cancer work, and so I'm creating what I think is really important content that will help address some of the issues that aren't being really covered in mainstream media because they're too busy covering sort of the drama of the day. And it's a way for me to continue to have a voice. I've done a lot of documentaries.

I did one called fed Up on Childhood, obe City under the Gun about gun violence, gender revolution, about our changing notion of gender identity and uh and to help people understand that new complicated arena. And so this is really a continuation of my desire to do content that really matters that people hopefully will be uh you know, enlightened by, and will illuminate the very complicated and ever

changing world we're living in. So the only thing we can all say is you go girl, thank you, because you know, thank you for caring, thank you for being crazy busy, Thank you Katie, thanks and having you all so much. Stay tuned for our takeaways after this break. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with the incredible Katie Kirk. Check out Katie Kurrek dot com to find Katie's newsletter, podcast and more our top takeaways. First, we need more

women in leadership positions at the major media outlets. As Katie says, a woman's perspective can balance the way stores are told and can help eliminate the unconscious bias that often creeps into reporting. Second, we need to become more aware of this unconscious bias so that we can recognize it and address it. Lastly, although women are half the population, women's voices are still underrepresented in media. We at Seneca Women are committed to amplifying women's voices, as we know

that progress for women is progress for all. You're listening to Seneca Women Conversations on Power and Purpose, brought to you by the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart ray Do with support from founding partner P and G. Listen to Seneca Women Conversations on Power and Purpose on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please support this podcast by telling your friends, subscribing, and rating us for more information on

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