Katie Couric Interview: From Sunny Days to Stormy Nights

[Music] you want me to look at the camera look at you nancy okay jay said that you were born on a sunny day and he was right of course what does that say about you how is your organic positivity helped get you through your life or were you just born this way my husband jay used to say i was born on a sunny day and i think what he meant is i am a very positive person i'm very upbeat and outgoing and i think that's made me someone who has been a full participant in life i'm very aware of my surroundings i get energy from other people but i'm also an energy giver and i think that when you're hardwired for happiness and you're basically a positive person that even when you face disappointment or failure or even unspeakable loss you're able to be resilient you're able to absorb the blow but then see not the positive in the situation but you're able to come back and still somehow find joy because that is your default position i think i'm someone who looks for joy in life most the time there are other times i get very down but in general i think born of loss in a way i've tried to stay positive because i think loss in a weird way has made me realize my own mortality and the fact that we are all terminal and so while we have the opportunity to be alive and to exist that we have to make the most of it so in a way my loss has absolutely affirmed my positive outlook if that makes any sense it makes perfect sense and i'm wondering when it's a stormy day or the weather's bad and it's not a sunny day how do you get through i've had a few stormy days i mean more than a few actually and some recently i think that getting older uh sometimes makes me feel sad knowing that more of my life is in my rear view mirror than is in front of me i think that the state of the world is very depressing when you hear about mass shootings and children dying when you hear about atrocities being committed in ukraine when you hear about rights being taken away when you hear all the partisan rancor it is very depressing i deal with it by trying to help people understand it that actually is healing to me because i feel like i'm being proactive and explaining situations to people and there are times when i just kind of feel really down that happened to me the other day and i just was sort of depressed for the whole day i made the mistake of reading some comments on a social media post about me written by people who don't know me and it made me feel terrible and you know it kind of ruined my day and i thought i'm an idiot for even looking at that stuff but i think ultimately i just get through it and the next day for whatever reason i felt much better but i remember my daughter ellie telling me james corden gave one of the kardashians of all things a pep talk and said people say things about you but they don't even know you and ellie said mom these people don't know you they objectify you and it says more about them than it does about you which is of course something i've always known but it was a helpful reminder so i'm able to i guess ride through the storm and pick myself up but but sometimes it's hard especially in this day and age what about when you get really mad what really upsets you and makes you sort of pissed off let's see there are a lot of things that make me mad and pissed off i would say injustice people who are just unfair you know i have this strong sense of fairness what's right what's wrong i think i i really dislike people who are ignorant and biased and all those ist things racist sexist anti-semitic although that's not an ist word um you know people who make rash generalizations about people based on their own ignorance that really makes me mad i think other things that really make me mad are when i'm misrepresented that really upsets me when people either twist my words or make assumptions about me that simply aren't true that really is upsetting to me apathy makes me mad when people don't care about other people or the world around them that is infuriating to me and cruelty obviously people who are cruel to people insensitive lack compassion and empathy that really makes me mad and sad a lot of what you just said speaks to your value system and i'm wondering how much of that comes from your upbringing you had a really wonderful childhood do you think that you draw on that daily or regularly that it still informs who you are as a human being and how so i think everyone is informed by their upbringing by the values taught to them by example by their parents and family members i've thought about this a lot lately because i've been reading a lot about generational trauma and not just when it comes to things like slavery or holocaust survivors but i think we're all products of our environments and of the values imparted by our parents and not all of us are lucky in that way and i feel incredibly fortunate that i never for one nanosecond thought that i was not loved unconditionally and i realized that that's a real gift that not everyone has and i think my parents taught me the importance of being honest i think they taught me very early the difference between right and wrong i think they taught me the importance of hard work i mean every quality i have derived from my parents and they didn't lecture me about these things i think they lived their values and they passed them on to me and i feel incredibly lucky because they gave me such a strong foundation a lot of people get really screwed up when it comes to success or fame and it's really tests your character and your values and i think the fact that i had such a strong foundation allowed me to ride the highs and lows of my career and the highs and lows of my personal life as well and if i had one wish i would wish that everybody had the kind of parents and the parenting that i had that's amazing and how absolutely essential it is that you have the gratitude because i think that that also grounds you you don't take any of that for granted ever i know that um and it answers my question how come you're not a spoiled brat really nicely [Laughter] it's funny because i have made more money than i ever thought possible which i'm proud of because it's been a mark of my hard work and success on the other hand i'm not very materialistic i do like i mean i've enjoyed the fruits of my labor i've enjoyed being able to afford a nice house and if i like a dress i can usually buy it without worrying too much having said that i'm still very frugal and very careful and i want things of value so i think especially my mom's frugality is still very much in me and some people say why aren't you why didn't you buy a boat or a this or that and those kind of material possessions just don't mean that much to me i live a very nice lifestyle but it's not what's important to me i think the fact that i've been successful and have you know i'm comfortable financially is it's one less thing to worry about and i know that money can create a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety and i've been very fortunate in that having money has made those things less present in my life so i feel very lucky about that too how tough are you on yourself how do you hold yourself to the same rigorous standards to which you hold others i try to do everything 110 and i think i'm tough on myself and sometimes tough on other people because i'm demanding and i but i never demand anything that i don't demand of myself so i mean i think as i've gotten older i've gotten more flexible and i don't think i was ever cruel or belittling or made people feel less than i think that i just always would strive for excellence and i would want people my colleagues to um you know take that as seriously as i did and take take as much pride in their work as i took in mine do you ever hear your parents voice in your head when things are going really well or when something goes wrong do you draw on any of their wisdom i sometimes think about my parents when i'm facing certain challenges and wondering what they would tell me and i think that they would just say keep going you're doing the best you can i think they would be annoyed if i was complaining about something because i think my success has so exceeded anything they experienced and any expectation they had for me so i have a feeling they would tell me not to sweat the small stuff and that i should be proud of what i've achieved i'm never really satisfied though i always want to achieve more and i wish i could rest on my laurels a little bit more than i'm able to do but i think the drive that made me successful just doesn't go away and so i'm always looking for ways to either you know do something better or or continue to do it and that is sometimes hard because you know i think that success is really interesting because i think you can have a level of success but it's not going to last forever so for me dealing with this white hot spotlight of success and being kind of at the epicenter of media for a fairly long period of time and then having that not evaporate but the the light lesson is really challenging and i wrote about that in my book and handling kind of the vagaries of fame and celebrity um is sometimes is sometimes difficult and i often think about that for for certain people and how destabilizing it can be and i'm just so grateful that i have a foundation from my parents and a a feeling of sort of solid grounding that i'm able to deal with sort of you know the highs and lows that i've had in my career so you're also competitive do you think that you're more competitive with yourself or others both i'm competitive with myself and i'm competitive with others you know i've thought a lot about that because i think to achieve a certain level of success you have to be competitive and i've always been very competitive whether it was being the fastest runner in my elementary school i think i ran the 50-yard dash in 6-2 but who's counting and i ran for office when i was in elementary school i was president of jamestown elementary i beat steven russell by 11 votes but who's counting and so i think i've always had this very competitive drive and i think to be successful especially in media you have to be competitive because you want to get the big story you want to scoop everybody else you want to nap the big get so i am extremely competitive but i also am competitive with myself and that i want to excel in everything i do so i think it's both i i have a lot of internal self-drive but externally i get motivated when i'm trying to beat other people what key incidents from your youth created the person you are today there are many life lessons i learned growing up but i guess a few do stand out when i was in kindergarten or first grade i thought i had to learn all the w words what when where why and i was hysterically crying to my parents because i thought i had to know them the next day they worked with me that night and i told my teacher the next day i knew all the words and she said you you didn't need to know all those words but isn't that weird that i remember i did and i was very proud of the fact that i tol could identify them and read them so i thought wow i'm i'm pretty driven and slash neurotic i broke my tooth when i was in first grade and in third grade and i don't know i was really upset and so was my mom but we made the most of it and i still have my cap teeth i ran for president of my elementary school and one and my dad helped me write my speech and my mom helped me draw my posters and we it was always a family affair when we ran for office so i think we were expected to be leaders um [Music] and i remember in eighth grade the gym teacher picked captain of the cheerleaders even though it was supposed to be a democratic process and the cheerleaders were supposed to elect the captain and the co-captain instead the gym teacher picked her favorites and my sense of fairness was really that was such an affront and i remember being so upset about that and i think that was an early lesson that life isn't always fair that things happen that you know aren't the way they should unfold i also think that working at a camp for blind kids in washington dc taught me the fact that there are so many different people in the world from different backgrounds and different socioeconomic situations and i think it really exposed me to a microcosm of humanity that made me see the world in a much more inclusive way and to recognize that not everything looked like it did on 40th street in arlington virginia where i grew up but there were people from all kinds of backgrounds and experiences so those are some of the things i think that shaped me as a kid also the fact that just i could not tolerate dishonesty in myself i broke the banister of my parents four poster bed because i think i was having a pillow fight with my brother or something happened and i glued it and i remember saying to my mom when she was washing the dishes mom i have something to tell you because i think she was blaming it on our housekeeper emma and i said i broke i broke your bed not emma and i felt so much relief being honest and i still have nightmares about lying or covering up something that i've done that's bad and not being able to tolerate it so i think i have this very strong moral compass about being honest how have you tried to impart these life lessons for your own children people have asked me i think because of my parents and maybe they think i've done a halfway decent job of parenting myself how do you be a good parent and i always say by being a good person i think kids watch what their parents do they watch what they say they watch how they behave and interact with other people i've always tried to be someone who my kids could emulate in the best possible way and that means being kind to people being courteous being respectful of everyone around me no matter their station in life and i think because of that my kids are exceedingly polite and compassionate and have a lot of empathy so moxie it's a term your father used when you heard how you landed your first job in tv news and it's a quality that moxie of yours that's such a key ingredient to your success what did your father see in you as far as your moxie is concerned and how has having moxie helped you professionally my dad once said i had moxie and i have forever taken it as a huge compliment and i think he saw me someone who was utterly uninhibited who would have no compunction about saying something or approaching someone i think really i don't have a shy bone in my body and i'm completely and utterly without guile and so moxie to me is spirited determination and i think it's just something i was born with maybe it's because i'm the youngest of four kids or um you know i got a lot of positive attention for being outgoing and smiling a lot and being friendly but i think that that kind of behavior for me was reinforced and i think as a result i it was kind of my my go-to personality and i really think having moxie means you go for it you just are determined and you figure out how to get around obstacles that might be in your path and you are just you know very directed and i always love that word you know it's also the name of a soft drink that's manufactured in maine and i always like the symmetry of the word because x is right in the middle and i wanted to name my book moxie but everyone thought it was too old-fashioned um i wish i had stood my ground because to me it's such a compliment and i don't think it's conceited to say you have moxie in my case i think it's absolutely true okay the early days of your career really speak to how challenging it was to be a young woman coming up in journalism which was largely at the time of man's world can you describe the hurdles you had to triumph as a woman i think my early days in tv news were challenging because it was very male dominated in the 80s this was an era when cranky old guys would want to get the broads out of broadcasting and i always joke that when i enter television news harass was two words instead of one which always gets a big laugh but you know i think it was hard because i think i also didn't necessarily fit the mold of what was a desirable broadcaster back in the day you know i was you know fine looking but i wasn't you know super glamorous um i looked extremely young for my age and i think i didn't have sort of a tough exterior you know i looked kind of like a cheerleader or something you know i was cute and so my packaging didn't necessarily lend a ton of credibility to my craft if you will so i think all those things the the sexism and in some cases misogyny that was pervasive in the media business when i entered it in 1979 the fact that i didn't necessarily fit the mold of what the male executives were attracted to at the time and you can take what you want from that statement made it made it challenging for me i don't think anyone said hey you've got a real future so i had to kind of make my own future because i had a lot of naysayers basically discouraging me and telling me i was never going to really make it in the business when you were working at wrc in washington as a general assignment reporter you covered a horrific human tragedy involving the accidental death of two teenage girls killed in a car accident you had to meet up with one of the victim's mother and you write i was struck by how two complete strangers would find a way to connect in a crisis this is something that you would have to do over and over and over for the rest of your career does it ever get any easier i think covering tragedies never gets easier and i think if it does perhaps you've been doing it for too long and you've become jaded i think every tragedy or sad story i have to cover affects me profoundly and i've often wondered what would make someone talk about that in a public way when their suffering is almost indescribable but i've come to understand that people want to commemorate the life lost they want to feel like that person mattered and sharing it in a more widespread way i think helps affirm that for the people left behind and i do think recognizing that validating that life and even celebrating it in a way posthumously brings comfort to the people left behind you also describe still feeling anxious sometimes when you're invading a person's privacy how do you manage that anxiety that's a very tricky question because i remember when i got my job on the today show and i told my parents if anyone ever comes to the door please shut it in their face and it's a i was talking about a reporter like me when jay died somebody from the national enquirer called his parents which is so disgusting and they called before i had a chance to call them myself so i don't know that's a hard question returning for a moment to your beginnings in 1986 there was a newsweek article called the marriage crunch it had a big effect on you how come i came of age during second wave feminism and i very much wanted to have a career i did not want to depend on a man to support me now not everyone feels that way but that's something i knew i didn't want i knew that i wanted to have financial independence that i wanted to have a career that i didn't want to rely on a man to support me i don't know i just i think perhaps because of the feminist movement and the fact that i think my mom never really had a career and she was an incredible wife and mother but i often wondered what she would have done if she had had more opportunities or if she hadn't been so restricted in the what was expected of her in the 80s there was a lot of conversation about making choices as a woman either you decided to be a stay-at-home mom or a working woman but it was very hard to merge those two and newsweek had a cover story that said women over the age of 30 had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than finding a husband it might have been over the age of 35. and i remember thinking whoa i love my career i think i want to work my entire life but i don't want to wake up one day and say oh my god i forgot to have children or i forgot to get married or i ignored that part of my life and coming from a really happy healthy nuclear family i also knew that was something i wanted so i think that was a bit of a wake-up call for me to say yes focus on your career but also if this is something that you would like in your life a family a husband not necessarily in that order then you need to pay attention to that as well so i think when i got to be 30 or so i thought i need to really make sure that i'm focusing on this because i think i was very pragmatic and i knew that i didn't want my child-bearing years to necessarily pass me by when you became the first female anchor of a network evening newscast how important was it to you to be first in that position i've always thought that it's very important to be aware of the images projected in media whether you're talking about television news or scripted shows or billboards or advertisements that it really influences the way we see ourselves as a society and i thought it was really important to take on the job as a solo news anchor because it was a first and i didn't want people to think that was the only the domain of men and that a woman could do that job with confidence and competence and so i thought it was high time we had someone in that role that wasn't wearing a blazer and tie i think an important lesson i learned going to cbs was that the culture both inside and outside that network wasn't necessarily ready to have a female in that role and perhaps a female like me who they had seen in a very multi-dimensional way they had seen me do serious interviews but because i was on a morning show they had seen seen many sides of me so i might not have been the best person to be the first woman it might have been better to have someone who had just covered the state department or capitol hill who had been really only perceived in a very serious way and i think people probably unfairly rejected me some because they saw that i could also have a personality and be funny and kid around and i think as a result it was hard for them to maybe take me seriously as a serious news person because i think the tendency is to put people in boxes you know they're serious they're funny they're but but the fact is we are you know multi-faceted individuals with many sides but i think on a screen it's very hard to take that into consideration so i think i thought society was really ready but in many ways it wasn't and particularly i think for a woman like me who had been vulnerable and open and exposed sort of every aspect of my personality what overarching life lessons are learned from your professional mistakes i think one of the biggest lessons i've learned is that it's laudable to take risks but you should take calculated risks and at times i don't think i was calculating enough i think i threw caution to the wind and said i'm going to go for it i'm going to try it and if it doesn't work that's okay and i think in hindsight i wish i had been more methodical about some of the choices i made and really considered every aspect of it and had someone who might have said you know here are the pros and cons or might have made sure that i was better prepared to appreciate where i was going to land and some of the specific challenges that would present themselves in those situations i think i've learned that it's really important to do your due diligence that you can take risks and try new things and not necessarily be certain of the outcome but to mitigate any kind of unforeseen obstacles or challenges you really need to go in with your eyes wide open and make sure that you've reviewed every aspect of what you're doing so you can be really prepared for whatever is going to happen and understand the risk reward of any given situation this is a really abrupt shift but the way you describe the death of jay is as powerful and poignant as any such depiction i've ever read it is brutally frank it's beautiful and it's very very brave why did you spare no details given what you know about the dynamics of privacy and family how did you draw the line between what you wanted to share and what you did you know for for many years i did not talk about jay's illness and death because i felt it had happened to him and not to me but 20 years after he died i wanted to share the experience because i know very well how many people go through similar experiences and i wanted to make sure people who lost a loved one or feel that they have regrets or didn't really have anyone to talk to about the painful details of watching someone you love slowly die was really important and i think that we need to be able to talk about illness and death in a much more transparent way i think we don't have the vocabulary to talk about things like this to talk about choices we make to talk about how we handle these really tough conversations and i felt it was a service for other people who were in a similar situation to be very honest about the things that i thought i did right and the things that i thought i did wrong and i also want to convince people to [Music] make sure that they're screened and i think by giving these details of what it's like to die from a highly preventable cancer may motivate them to take care of their health and spare other families from experiencing what mine did when jay was sick did you ever feel angry at cancer did you ever feel like angry at not being able to control the situation angry at jay for allowing this to happen i was never angry at jay ever i was really angry at cancer i was really angry at god i was really angry at the unfairness of a young man who took care of himself at 41 being diagnosed with stage four colon cancer i think the note that resonated the most to me was from a mother of one of ellie's classmates and at the end of the note she said damn cancer and that's how i felt i was furious and i would look at other people on the street smoking cigarettes or morbidly obese and i think why are they walking around and my heretofore healthy husband is dying i think anger is a natural emotion and i think anger is a lot easier to to deal with than fear so i i think i was both terribly afraid but also furious at the world you

Channel: Life Stories

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Keywords: Katie Couric Interview, From Sunny Days to Stormy Nights, katie Couric, katie, celebrity, entertainment, katie couric moments, katie couric news, katie couric secretariat, art of storytelling, the art of storytelling, kunhardt film foundation, how to tell a story, art of storytelling in journalism, master the art of storytelling

Id: I4lpRDRwaAs

Length: 41min 8sec (2468 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 08 2022