Veteran journalist Katie Couric reflected on her time at “60 Minutes,” saying she faced resistance over proposed interviews with major figures like Hillary Clinton and Lady Gaga. She described the role as a dream job, but opened up about the challenges she faced while working on the CBS program.
Katie Couric explains that she felt “gaslit” during her time handling 60 Minutes interviews with Hillary Clinton and Lady Gaga
Couric, who spent five years working as a correspondent for “60 Minutes”, talks about her interviews with Lady Gaga and Hillary Clinton on Alex Cooper’s podcast “Call Her Daddy.” She described her show as a sort of her dream job. Katie said, “You know, even if I hadn’t been asked to anchor the evening news, I think that would’ve been a great job for me.”
But she recalled how the heads of the series were not happy with her being brought over from NBC’s Today show. The distaste among higher-ups made it difficult for her to pitch ideas that might have brought more attention to her show from pop culture.
Couric and Cooper also discussed how frustrating it was when ideas were approved and later changed without proper communication. Couric said she felt “gaslit” by the company over situations where decisions were made behind her back. Katie said, ” So like, stuff like that was, you know, talk about getting gaslit. I mean, to me, that is the definition of it. And so those were some of the really tough situations I had to deal with when I was there.”
Further, she explained that she felt “60 Minutes” was often behind on major cultural moments, pointing to Lady Gaga as an example of an artist she believed was on track to become the next Madonna.
“She went to Catholic school, but she’s so outrageous, and she’s huge, and she’s got, you know, a huge number one song. I think we should do a profile of this person, Lady Gaga,” Katie added. At that time, the producer rejected her pitch; a year later, Lady Gaga became a huge star. They were ready to interview her, but Couric thought she was overexposed.
Couric remembered that the same thing happened with Clinton when the network decided to interview her when she was Secretary of State. Later, the network changed its idea. She decided to go to Jeff Fager, who said, “Yeah, we decided to change things up.”
She became the first woman to serve as the solo anchor of weekday evenings when she began hosting “CBS Evening News With Katie Couric.”
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Originally reported by Aman Sharma on Mandatory
