Broadcast veteran Katie Couric says that she was so ahead of the online curve when she took over the anchor desk at “CBS Evening News” in 2006 that an exec scolded her for being on Twitter.
“I remember being at CBS and asking people on Twitter – before it became such a cesspool [and Elon Musk rebranded it as X] – about what they thought about the [2010 Deep Water Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Texas],” she recalled at a recent dinner at the Hotel Chelsea in New York, to launch Netflix’s new series “All The Light We Cannot See.”
“The second in command at CBS News, who was such a d—k, he said to my producer… ‘It’s actually beneath the anchor of the ‘CBS Evening News’ to be on Twitter.’ And I was like, are you serious?,” she continued.
Couric helmed the storied news broadcast from 2009 until 2011.
Couric told the anecdote to Misty Copeland and WIE Suite’s Dee Poku Spalding, who led the intimate conversation “to discuss the power of finding and using your voice in your career,” according to an insider, who added, “those are the important themes of the new series.”
Couric also opened up about other pressures she faced making history as the first sole female evening broadcast news anchor – including scrutiny over her wardrobe choices.
“It was very difficult for me… when people are saying, ‘You know, why did I wear a white jacket after Labor Day,’ my first night on the air,” she said.
Cindy Leive, Crystal McCrary, Dyllan McGee, and Jessica Lomax were a few of the NYC tastemakers in the room.
Couric had come a long way. A 1994 clip of Couric and co-anchor Bryant Gumbel struggling to understand an email address became so famous that the pair eventually parodied it in a Super Bowl commercial.
After the CBS gig, Couric went on to become the “global anchor” at Yahoo, where social media use was very much more acceptable.