 Katie
Couric has been co-anchor of "Today" since April 5, 1991. She
joined the program in June 1990 as its first national correspondent and
then served as substitute co-anchor from February 1991 until becoming
permanent co-anchor. She is also a contributing anchor for "Dateline
NBC."
Since joining NBC News in July 1989 as deputy Pentagon correspondent,
Couric has conducted a number of newsworthy interviews. Her 1996
interview with Bob Dole and his wife, Elizabeth, concerning Dole’s
stance on whether tobacco is addictive, made headlines. Couric also
conducted the first television interview of First Lady Hillary Rodham
Clinton, the farewell interview of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin
Powell, Anita Hill’s first television interview concerning her
allegations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas, and General
Norman Schwarzkopf’s first interview after the Persian Gulf War. In
October 1992, after an interview with First Lady Barbara Bush at the
White House for the 200th anniversary of the building, Couric conducted
a 20-minute impromptu interview with President Bush. More recently,
Couric anchored two days of live coverage from Littleton, Colo.,
following the shooting rampage at Columbine High School in April 1999.
Her critically acclaimed interview with the father of one of the
victims and the brother of another made national headlines. She
continued her coverage of the tragedy the following week with an
in-depth interview at the White House with President Clinton, focusing
on gun control and youth violence. In July, Couric was on location in
Nantucket, Mass., following plane crash that killed John F. Kennedy
Jr., his wife and sister-in-law. In an exclusive television interview
for "Dateline" in February 1999, Couric spoke with the parents of
Matthew Shepard, a gay college student at the University of Wyoming who
was the victim of a nationally publicized hate-crime incident.
From 1987 to 1989, Couric was a general-assignment
reporter at WRC-TV, the NBC Television Station in Washington, D.C.
While there, she won an Emmy and an Associated Press Award for her
work. From 1984 to 1986, she was a general-assignment reporter at WTVJ
in Miami. She began her career as a desk assistant for the ABC News
bureau in her native Washington, D.C., in 1979. In 1980, she joined CNN
as an assignment editor. She moved to Atlanta as an associate producer
and later became the producer of a two-hour news and information
program. She eventually became a political correspondent. Couric has
won two Emmys, an Associated Press Award, a Matrix Award, a National
Headliner Award and the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma
Delta Chi award. She has also received the Washington Journalism Review
Award as Best in the Business and been named one of "Glamour"
magazine’s Women of the Year. Throughout her career, Couric has covered
countless cancer-related stories, and has made colon cancer her focus
both in her work and in her personal life. In the spring of this year,
she will launch a national campaign aimed at increasing awareness of
the disease. The National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance (NCCRA)
was established in 1999 by Couric, Lilly Tartikoff and the
Entertainment Industry Foundation to end the threat of colon cancer
through education, new research and regular medical screenings. In
1998, Couric spearheaded a five-part series on colon cancer that aired
on "Today," and will do the same this year in conjunction with the
launch of the NCCRA. Couric graduated with honors from the University
of Virginia. She lives in New York with her daughters, Elinor Tully
Monahan and Caroline Couric Monahan.
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