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" &amp;amp;#8220;This is the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.&amp;amp;#8221; Months before Walter Cronkite&amp;amp;#8217;s deep voice uttered that introduction for the first time, pundits and critics&amp;amp;#8212;even Couric&amp;amp;#8217;s friends&amp;amp;#8212;were abuzz: Would she be able to pull off this history-making gig as the first solo female anchor of an evening newscast? Now, a couple of months into Couric&amp;amp;#8217;s adventure, you have to wonder: How could anyone have doubted her? We&amp;amp;#8217;re talking about the woman who catapulted the Today show into first place and kept it there for a decade, aired her own colonoscopy live on television, who turned a chance encounter with former President George H.W. Bush into a lengthy hard-hitting interview, and flew across the Today set on a wire as Peter Pan. Her boss, Les Moonves, president and CEO of the CBS Corporation, saw the effect of Couric&amp;amp;#8217;s pixie dust immediately. As of press time, in its first five weeks, Couric&amp;amp;#8217;s broadcast is rated number-one among much-coveted younger viewers. &amp;amp;#8220;The news division was reinvigorated by her joining us,&amp;amp;#8221; Moonves says. &amp;amp;#8220;She brings a joy of life, and on top of that she&amp;amp;#8217;s a phenomenal journalist.&amp;amp;#8221; Couric, who once couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t shake the description &amp;amp;#8220;perky,&amp;amp;#8221; has already landed some serious interviews, including Bush and Condi. But she&amp;amp;#8217;s also courted controversy: On October 2, the day of the Pennsylvania school shooting that left five Amish girls dead, Couric ran a &amp;amp;#8220;FreeSpeech&amp;amp;#8221; opinion piece quoting a man who argued that legalized abortion and a lack of religion in public schools were partially to blame for the massacre. Shame on you, Katie Couric, read dozens of viewer responses. How do we know about the backlash? Because, under Couric&amp;amp;#8217;s direction, the CBS News website posted the angry opinions. It&amp;amp;#8217;s all part of the honest, open approach to television that&amp;amp;#8217;s long been Couric&amp;amp;#8217;s trademark and strength. As for the criticism, Couric says she can take it. &amp;amp;#8220;You&amp;amp;#8217;re going to ruffle feathers no matter what you do,&amp;amp;#8221; she says. &amp;amp;#8220;I would never want to be so bland that I made everybody happy, because that&amp;amp;#8217;s so boring. And I&amp;amp;#8217;m interesting!&amp;amp;#8221; Never more so than now. Here, Couric talks about the challenges and the drama of being the new girl. GLAMOUR: Were you nervous about taking the CBS job? You could have stayed at Today forever. Katie Couric: Oh, yeah, it was a huge risk&amp;amp;#8212;talk about splaying myself wide open and saying, yeah, go at it! [She throws her arms open.] That&amp;amp;#8217;s something I thought about: Did I have the constitution to handle the slings and arrows that would inevitably come my way? GLAMOUR: So you knew you could deal with it? Katie Couric: I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t sure, to be honest with you. I&amp;amp;#8217;m kind of hypersensitive. Well, I&amp;amp;#8217;m not hypersensitive&amp;amp;#8212;I&amp;amp;#8217;m a sensitive person. That sounds like Bette Midler in Beaches, when she says, &amp;amp;#8220;I&amp;amp;#8217;m deep&amp;amp;#8230;I&amp;amp;#8217;m very deep&amp;amp;#8230;.&amp;amp;#8221; But no, I am, I&amp;amp;#8217;m sensitive. GLAMOUR: What&amp;#x27;s stung you over the years? Katie Couric: Oh, if someone said I had chipmunk cheeks, or when I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t ask the right follow-up questions when I first started&amp;amp;#8212;I remember that stinging. I&amp;amp;#8217;m always internally second-guessing myself without the help of outside sources. But sometimes I laugh at [critics who say things like] you shouldn&amp;amp;#8217;t be wearing a winter-white Armani jacket after Labor Day. [It was her opening-night outfit.] That makes me laugh because obviously, they aren&amp;amp;#8217;t reading Glamour! GLAMOUR: Evening news has always been so serious, but there&amp;amp;#8217;s humor in your broadcast. Why? Katie Couric: I think most people equate humor with intelligence and comfort in one&amp;amp;#8217;s own skin. I&amp;amp;#8217;m proud I have those qualities. It&amp;amp;#8217;s funny, through all the discussion of gravitas, I realized I don&amp;amp;#8217;t really want to have gravitas. I want authenticity. I want good journalism&amp;amp;#8212;but gravitas is sort of a pretentious word. I don&amp;amp;#8217;t want to be pretentious. Of course we want an informed populace, but you have to make news compelling. So much of it feels like newzak, news that&amp;amp;#8217;s just there but doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t sink in or register. I want to make it more understandable. GLAMOUR: It was thrilling to see you talk to Condoleezza Rice intimately, woman-to-woman, on 60 Minutes. Katie Couric: I have to say, it&amp;amp;#8217;s been very gratifying to be in a position where I&amp;amp;#8217;m interviewing the secretary of state, who&amp;amp;#8217;s an African American woman, and I&amp;amp;#8217;m the anchor of an evening newscast. To have two intelligent&amp;amp;#8212;hopefully I&amp;amp;#8217;m semi-intelligent&amp;amp;#8212;to have a brilliant woman and a semi-intelligent woman having a discussion about foreign policy was really exciting. GLAMOUR: I don&amp;amp;#8217;t want to get too bogged down in gender issues, but&amp;amp;#8212; Katie Couric: No, no, it&amp;amp;#8217;s OK. I mean it is Glamour. Come on, sister! GLAMOUR: OK then! The traditional male anchors have a certain self-seriousness&amp;amp;#8230; Katie Couric: Well, it borders on Ted Baxter-ish [the blowhard anchor character on The Mary Tyler Moore Show]. And, you know, I think that viewers are smarter than that. And if I had any success on Today, it&amp;amp;#8217;s because I am essentially the same person off-air as I am on-air. People gravitate toward that authenticity. GLAMOUR: Your legs have literally made headlines. Do you ever think, I give up&amp;amp;#8212; from now on I&amp;amp;#8217;m just wearing pants? Katie Couric: A man recently came up to me and said, &amp;amp;#8220;I loved you on the morning show, and you used to do something with your leg, and I felt like you were saying, &amp;amp;#8216;Look at my legs!&amp;amp;#8217;&amp;amp;#8221; I said, &amp;amp;#8220;I wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t doing that! You were just looking!&amp;amp;#8221; He thought I was trying to entice him. I had to laugh. I think it&amp;amp;#8217;s important that I embrace both my femininity and my intelligence. Let&amp;amp;#8217;s face it, I&amp;amp;#8217;m not Pamela Anderson. I&amp;amp;#8217;m not so attractive that it gets in the way of being taken seriously. But I do what I can with what I&amp;amp;#8217;ve got! Honestly, it&amp;amp;#8217;s a back burner issue for me. GLAMOUR: Your daughter encouraged you to take the job. Is she still supportive? Katie Couric: It&amp;amp;#8217;s hard, honestly, because this job is much more time-consuming. So she&amp;amp;#8217;s still supportive, but the other night she said, &amp;amp;#8220;You said this job would let you come to my morning dance recitals, but I don&amp;amp;#8217;t have those anymore!&amp;amp;#8221; I think she just meant, Mom, your schedule stinks. We&amp;amp;#8217;re still figuring things out. The big key is being disciplined enough to walk out the door of CBS at 7:05 P.M. The other day I ducked out to watch my daughter&amp;amp;#8217;s volleyball game from 4 to 5, which was cutting it close, but it&amp;amp;#8217;s important. Our weekends are precious. They&amp;amp;#8217;re waiting for me right now so we can make pies with the apples we picked last weekend&amp;amp;#8212;how wholesome is that? GLAMOUR: Do your girls get a kick out of it when you mention them on the show, or does that get a big eye-roll? Katie Couric: They don&amp;amp;#8217;t like it. I quoted Carrie, my 10-year-old, when I interviewed Condoleezza Rice, saying, &amp;amp;#8220;Who made us the boss of them?&amp;amp;#8221; meaning who made the United States the boss of all these countries worldwide? But Carrie missed watching me say that, because she&amp;amp;#8217;d been sent to her room for putting a bracelet in her mouth. GLAMOUR: That&amp;amp;#8217;ll teach her to put a bracelet in her mouth&amp;amp;#8230; Katie Couric: It&amp;amp;#8217;s so dangerous! She could have choked. She puts jewelry in her mouth, and it makes me crazy. GLAMOUR: Speaking of crazy, what&amp;amp;#8217;s with that huge Today billboard right across the street from your new office? Katie Couric: I think it&amp;amp;#8217;s funny. It&amp;amp;#8217;s mostly seen by people who work at CBS and the people at the methadone clinic next door. It&amp;amp;#8217;s silly. GLAMOUR: Any moments on the show you&amp;amp;#8217;ve kicked yourself for so far? Katie Couric: Nothing cringeworthy, but I&amp;amp;#8217;m still getting my sea legs. There have been times when I&amp;amp;#8217;ve felt too anchorman-ish or have asked a question that&amp;amp;#8217;s gotten a canned response, rather than taking a step back and asking what the viewer might ask. We try to get off our high horses and keep it real. GLAMOUR: Who do you call at 7:05 to ask, &amp;amp;#8220;Whadja think?&amp;amp;#8221; Katie Couric: I don&amp;amp;#8217;t really have someone I call. I have a lot of confidence in the team that&amp;amp;#8217;s here. I think if you listen to 87 disparate opinions, your head would start spinning. GLAMOUR: What advice did your friends give you this summer as you prepared? Katie Couric: Barbara Walters has always been a huge supporter of mine. I marvel at her. [But] I&amp;amp;#8217;m not sure she was completely pro my taking the job. Another close friend told me he thought it was the worst idea he&amp;amp;#8217;d ever heard&amp;amp;#8212;he thought it was the wrong format, that I should have my own show, that it didn&amp;amp;#8217;t use my quote-unquote talents. I listened&amp;amp;#8212;and I had my doubts&amp;amp;#8212;but I&amp;amp;#8217;ve always trusted my own gut, and ultimately I did what was right for me. That&amp;amp;#8217;s the way I&amp;amp;#8217;ve lived my whole life. GLAMOUR: Why did you take the job? Katie Couric: The answer is because I can! Because it was important work, and the work itself would be so exhilarating and challenging. Change is scary and&amp;amp;#8212;all this sounds so clich&amp;amp;eacute;&amp;amp;#8212;but I wanted a new challenge because I think sometimes your psyche and brain atrophy when you&amp;amp;#8217;re in a routine, no matter how exciting it may be. GLAMOUR: Have you thought about what you&amp;amp;#8217;d do if it doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t work out? Katie Couric: At the end of the day, it&amp;amp;#8217;s a job. It&amp;amp;#8217;s an important job and a source of fulfillment, but it&amp;amp;#8217;s not my entire life. I have two daughters who mean the world to me. I have friends and family, my colon cancer work. My experiences with loss [Couric&amp;amp;#8217;s husband and sister both died of cancer] taught me that there are many important things to a rich life; work is just one of them. If this turns out&amp;amp;#8212;I think it&amp;amp;#8217;s going well&amp;amp;#8212;but if something unexpected happens, I&amp;amp;#8217;m confident there are other exciting things to do. I&amp;amp;#8217;m basically an optimistic person. You know when you&amp;amp;#8217;re little, and you take those tests that tell you what you should do when you grow up? Mine always came back that I should be a social worker. GLAMOUR: The work you&amp;amp;#8217;re doing now is pretty socially significant too! Katie Couric: I&amp;amp;#8217;m proud to be the first female solo anchor, and I don&amp;amp;#8217;t want anyone to think that I&amp;amp;#8217;m not, but it just wasn&amp;amp;#8217;t the main reason I took the job. GLAMOUR: But it must feel good to break that glass ceiling. Katie Couric: Sometimes I&amp;amp;#8217;m in the weirdest places, like going into a Duane Reade [a New York City pharmacy], and someone walking her dog will say, &amp;amp;#8220;I&amp;amp;#8217;m so proud of you.&amp;amp;#8221; That is very gratifying. If I can break down another barrier, that&amp;amp;#8217;s a good thing. GLAMOUR: You can&amp;amp;#8217;t walk half a block in New York without seeing an ad with your smiling face on the front of every bus in town. Are you still pinching yourself? Katie Couric: It&amp;amp;#8217;s just bizarre. A couple of my friends have almost been hit by those buses&amp;amp;#8212;they see my face and it&amp;amp;#8217;s slightly menacing&amp;amp;#8230; GLAMOUR: It&amp;amp;#8217;s very Sex and the City&amp;amp;#8212;except that hopefully none of the buses have splashed a puddle on you! Katie Couric: Yeah&amp;amp;#8212;but I&amp;amp;#8217;m wearing a bra!"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/magazine/2006/10/katie-couric>