Katie Couric

Katherine Anne "Katie" Couric (born January 7, 1957, in Arlington, Virginia) is an American journalist and television presenter best known as co-host of NBC's morning program Today. Her career unfolded during the decades when network television news was the dominant source of information in the United States, and she became one of the few women to anchor a flagship news broadcast on the country's major networks.

Raised Presbyterian in a family with Jewish, French, English, Scottish and German roots, she studied American Studies at the University of Virginia, graduating in 1979. Her early jobs took her from ABC News to CNN, where she worked as an assignment editor, and then to local stations in Miami and Washington, where she reported and won an Emmy. She joined NBC News in 1989 and, after a period of substitute work, became permanent co-anchor of Today in 1991, a role she held for fifteen years.

In 2006 she moved to CBS to anchor the CBS Evening News, becoming the first woman to solo-anchor a weeknight news broadcast on one of the three major networks. Her tenure drew attention for its high salary and for ratings that never matched the network's hopes, although the programme won awards for its journalism. She left the anchor chair in 2011, later worked at ABC and as Yahoo's global news anchor, and then built her own media company and podcast.

Her legacy lies largely in opening the anchor desk of prime-time news to women and in long-form interviews with political and cultural figures. She has continued to work in media production and public conversation since leaving daily network news.