Katie Couric on the Shifting Landscape of News

DAN MCGINN: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Dan McGinn, Senior Editor. Today we’re talking with Katie Couric.

Katie spent 15 years at the Today show. She anchored the CBS Evening News. And today she’s a global news anchor at Yahoo! News. We’re going to touch on Katie’s career highlights and how the shift to digital media is changing the world.

So Katie, you’ve had long career in TV news which is one of the most political kinds of businesses around. And you’ve thrived at different networks. How did you learn to manage up so effectively and deal with bosses?

KATIE COURIC: I don’t know if I’m particularly good at managing up. I think the way to get along with your bosses is to deliver and to do well and to succeed at whatever metrics are that organization’s particular measure of success. So I think that I wasn’t really good at managing up.

And in fact, I think that’s one area where I could have really improved, and probably could still improve. I’ve always related to my colleagues, bosses, people I’m working with, people who are working for me, I think in a way that is very natural and not political. I’m kind of apolitical in that way. And I probably could have been much better at sucking up in different instances of my career.

DAN MCGINN: So we’ve been interviewing world leaders for a quarter century now. Have you noticed any difference in the qualities of leadership that people value or the kinds of people that get into those leadership roles over that long span?

KATIE COURIC: Well, I do you think there’s a very interesting trend toward authenticity. I think social media and technology has kind of blown wide open the notion of managing one image. And I think that one of the reasons that Donald Trump is resonating is people are craving authenticity. They’re craving this very kind of natural interaction between the consumer or the voter and the public figure or even the celebrity.

DAN MCGINN: It’s interesting because in your career, you were perceived to be someone who was authentic very early on. People really got to see the personal side of you that they don’t with many people on TV. How did that affect your image long term. And do you think that created some challenges when you stepped into an evening anchor role?

KATIE COURIC: Well, I think that the morning show is such a loose format. And it provides an opportunity for casual conversation and interaction that make your essence particularly obvious. And I think that that was one of the reasons I was successful in the morning. I think people felt like they were getting a genuine article and sort of what they saw was what they got, that I was the same off camera as I was on.

And so I think, probably, it did present some challenges when I went to do the CBS Evening News. Because that format did not provide me with an opportunity to be more relaxed or to interact as much and to ask questions and to show my personality. The format is so tight, 22 minutes in all, it doesn’t allow you to really relate to the audience in a way that I was able to in the morning.

DAN MCGINN: What surprised you most about the shift to digital media at Yahoo! and doing the news online?

KATIE COURIC: Well, I think it’s, obviously, distribution is as important as developing great content itself. I’ve been trying to do really interesting stories that have a lot of range, whether it’s an issue-oriented story or personality profile, things that I think are really interesting. People are watching my videos and staying with them longer than a lot of other videos that are available online.

Having said that, I think we’re still trying to figure out the proper length, how to get them in small, snackable portions, if you will, how to make longer interviews available if people are interested. So it’s still a learning process for me. But I think there’s so many different fire hoses from which you can deliver content and trying to accommodate all those different outlets or avenues– if you will– I think is one of the things that we’re trying to figure out.

DAN MCGINN: Shifting gears a little bit, you’ve spent more than 15 years now as a very prominent advocate and fundraiser on cancer-related issues. Despite all that, and despite significant progress in detection and prevention, are you at all surprised or frustrated that there hasn’t been more progress towards treatment and cures?

KATIE COURIC: I think the word frustration and cancer goes hand in hand. I do think that there have been some significant breakthroughs. And I think we’re on the precipice.

I hate to say it, because I feel like, probably, I say this every year. But some wonderful new approaches and treatments that will help cancer be managed, if not cured. And yes, it’s very frustrating.

How can you not be frustrated? One of the things I’ve learned through all my years in cancer research is cancer is a thousand different diseases and a thousand different biologies. There’s not one-size-fits-all treatment or a therapy for all these cancers.

At the same time, we’re learning much more about how cancer behaves. And not just liver cancer or lung cancer or breast cancer, but some of the commonalities that these cancers share in terms of the way they develop and the way they spread. And so I’m feeling cautiously optimistic that because of technology, because of our understanding of cancer, because of the things like Stand Up To Cancer that are funding the research that really needs to be done.

DAN MCGINN: Your daughters are now young adults. I wanted to ask you a question about their ambitions and sense of challenge based on their gender. How do you think their sense of the possibilities for their careers is different than yours was when you were their age?

KATIE COURIC: Both my girls, while they, I’m sure, experience some of the pressures of their gender, some of the objectification that still takes place when it comes to women in any setting, I think they feel that anything is possible in terms of their careers. I don’t think they feel held back by their gender. While they’re cognizant of pervasive sexism that still exists.

And I think that probably they will face the same challenges that I have faced in my career in terms of balancing career and family. And I think the country still is in the Dark Ages in terms of accommodating working families. But I think they see endless possibilities when they look at the horizon for what they’ll be able to achieve.

I do you think they feel a little pressure, having someone like me as a mom, whose been very high profile and hard charging. And sometimes they feel that’s a little daunting. But in terms of their careers, I think they feel very positive about their futures.

DAN MCGINN: Last year you produced a documentary that was entered into Sundance. Tell me about your work in that role.

KATIE COURIC: One of the great things about working at Yahoo! is that it gives me a lot of flexibility to pursue other projects. I did a documentary about childhood obesity that really seemed to resonate. And it was called Fed Up.

And not only did the film do very well, I think it was, like, one of the highest-rated documentaries of 2014. It had a significant impact.

And then we were able to do a secondary campaign, getting the film in a one-hour version to schools across the country. So for me, that kind of work, along with my cancer work, it’s allowing me to do a real public service by focusing on a critically important social issue. And I think documentaries, in many ways, are the new journalism.

It’s very hard to have a network provide an hour or more on an important social issue. So documentaries, I think, are filling that void. So I was able to do Fed Up and now I’m working on a documentary about gun violence in America.

And I think these are providing an incredibly satisfying outlet for me to work with a really talented team of people, and to spend time and resources on really explaining and exploring various social issues.

DAN MCGINN: That was Katie Couric, global news anchor at Yahoo! News. For more, go to HBR.org.