From cancer to #MeToo: How Katie wrote about the hard stuff in her memoir

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Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Curic and this is next Question today on the show, part two of our behind the scenes look at the making of my memoir Going There Now. Last week I introduced you to my team, Lucy Kalen and Adriana Fasio. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, you might want to check it out first. It will give you some helpful context and some fun stories. It's in your feed now. Meanwhile, this week, Lucy, Adriana and I dive into the tough stuff like writing about my husband Jay's death twenties some odd years later and the downfall of matt Lower. But first we pick up where we left off talking about the structure of the book and why it was so helpful to reevaluate past interviews and moments in my life from our current lens of I think one of the as I said, one of the interesting aspects of writing this was to be able to look through the lens of one um and really twenty nineteen and all the things that were happening in the culture, and then reevaluate these moments in time, whether it was Reginald Denny or Matthew Sheppard and you know, and and the kind of pushback. I mean, I was sort of full of some pride along with occasional embarrassment of how I handled interviews like David Duke, I'd like to repeat something you said in nineteen quote, I think the Jewish people have been a blight and they probably deserved to go into the ashbin of history. Well I don't. I don't agree with that quote, and that certain doesn't my feelings. That was only six years ago. Well that doesn't, so what my feelings accurately? A lot of things are taken out of context. And you know, I'm not opposed that's a direct quote, Mr Duke, I'm not. Well, I'm not opposed to Jewish people. That's not my position today. And I think and how I, you know, handled the Governor of Wyoming when we talked about convert in therapy and if in fact it fostered kind of this this feeling of discrimination or intolerance towards gay people was sort of an interesting avenue to go down. And so, um, I think there are things that I would change. But then also there were moments when I was really, you know, filled with pride that I had accomplished something and that I had communicated something, even bigger than the event I was covering. Well, I think something that we found so interesting to talk about in the book, of Course, was that, you know, for instance, at the time of the David Duke interview, you were, you know, on fire as the most beloved, you know, person on television. Was really quite early in my career. I mean it was like early in the Today Show. I think I had only been there a year. People were bonkers for you, and you were, you know, on the road to America's Sweetheart, dum and I remember um and we've talked about it a lot. You know, you really had to wrestle, although I'm not wrestled too hard with the fact that, you know, I might have an amazing smile and i might be america Sweetheart, but I'm going to tell some really hard stories and I'm going to go hard when I have to. And that decision that you made that I think, to be honest, is a hard decision for a lot of women on television to make, and not only on television, but I think women still struggle with these two sides of their personalities, wanting to be liked and wanting to be popular in the workplace, whatever work they've chosen and also being able to make hard decisions and you know, tell people the truth without being labeled a bit. And I think that one of the themes throughout this book is sort of the Katie Catherine dichotomy and a trying to tell everyone sort of how that plays out in the book, Well, one of the most obvious places that plays out is on your first day on the Today Show, when and early in your career or you went as Katherine news This Is Today with Bryan Gumbel, Katherine and Joel. You were Katherine Kuric covering the Pentagon first day on the Today Show, Katherine Kuric, and you put your hands on your head and you say, I still can't decide whether I'm Katherine or Katie. I still can't decide whether I'm Katie or Katherine, And which is sort of very much a huge theme in the book. Yeah, And whether it's the stories you chose to cover, the way you hand carried yourself, whether you stayed at the Today Show, whether you went to the CBS Evening News. It's all a divide of Katie and Katherine, And am I the cute, perky you girl who does features or am I this hard core serious journalist. And I think at your core you are the hardcore serious journalist, and you just have this packaging. We've talked a lot about packaging that allows itself to sometimes be taken in a different way as this silly goofy, which you are. But you can be both. And I think one of the things I've struggled with professionally my whole life is is this need almost too to categorize people you know, and to not see them holistically. And I think we're all I feel like Pett Midler impeaches I I'm deep. I'm very deep. Remember when she did that TV interview and um, but I do think that that somehow television and we talk about this in the prologue, kind of puts you in a box and shrinks you down and makes makes you kind of telegraph, um, a one dimensional kind of persona. And I think what I always always struggled with is I think, at my heart, I am like a person that cares deeply as Bet did in Beaches, but really cares about kind of getting to the heart of issues and helping people understand them and figuring out them myself and and and hopefully as people see me figuring out things that helps them. But on the other hand, I do have this sort of fun, loving, outgoing, gregarious style personality, and it's really hard for people to understand you can be both right. And I think it was interesting because part of my job on the Today Show was to highlight that kind of uh, my personable side and my fun side and quick witted if I if I could say that side. But it sometimes came at a cost of people thinking, well, she's perky, which I think is a very marginalizing, diminishing word. Um. I always think of Susan Sarandon and Bull Durham when she said, you know, baby ducks are cute and and I the reason I wristled at that word, and the more I bristled, the more like the New York Posts like to call me that um is. I felt like it was really sexist and really um minimizing. And so it was really hard to balance these two things. And we write in the book about when I when I did that David Duke interview, and I, you know, kind of had that velvet hammer thing going that you know, people at home are like, oh my god, Martha, what happened to that nice Katie Currect, you know, and so it was trying to be taken seriously because I am a weirdly serious person, but also making sure people enjoyed watching me. So that was always the balance on the Today Show. And I think when I went to the CBS Evening News that really did create problems for me. Some of it was just old fashioned, you know, run of the mill sexism because I was a morning show person and how many men have been morning show was a morning show person is l and John Chancellor was a morning show guy, and Charlie Rose and um, you know. But I do think it just getting back to the whole packaging and the whole idea of images being so important. The fact that I am short and you know, cute, I guess you'd call me and vivacious. Um that that it It put me in that box, and didn't that box couldn't expand to say, well, she has a you know, a pretty keen intellect as well. But when I went to the CBS Evening News, I think you know, there were that was kind of amplified, right, and people were like, oh, she's not she's not a real journalist, you know, she's a morning host. That's so funny because if you look at your record at the Today Show, everyone who you had interviewed Yasser arafat all of the presidential candidates. You had so many hard interviews under your belt. And in fact, I think I said at the time, you know, I've I've done more hard hitting interviews than any of the Evening News dudes combined. I mean, I don't know if that's totally true, but but I had done just as many. I mean I didn't tally them up, but I think I had. And so, um, you know, that was a that was a really interesting experience for me. Um interesting slash horrible, uh, which you can read all about of going to the CBS Evening News, which a friend of mine recently asked after she read the book, She said, do you regret it? And I don't really even know the answer to that question. Do I regret it? I try to live without regrets. But if I knew then what I know now, what I have made the move probably not well the way I think of you thinking of it, which is probably me projecting, but it's just someone had to be the first, and you were the first, and it sucks to be the first, and thank god you did it. And I think we're saying that at the end of the book. I hope you made it easier for Nora O'Donnell and all the other women to come. But it just sucks to be the first. I just and I think I was not naive about it, you know. I think because I had been so successful on the Today's Show. I think that I thought that that this blatant sexism, pervasive sexism, had hadn't evaporated, but had had what would be the word, you guys have kind of waned waned, thank you, Lucy, and and and and and the fact of the matter was it was two thousand six and I was like, oh, come on, you know, people think women can do anything. And it was a really hard lesson in what a firm grass sexism can continues to have on our society. And I think I saw that not only with my experience there, but then of course with Hillary Clinton's candidacy, um, and how acceptable it's still that is, Yeah, exactly exactly, And I think it's totally fascinating, really interesting stuff in the book, of course, is you know, you experienced your own, um, really blatant sexism and had a lot of questions about the way these you know, bastions of male journalism operated, and you know, soon enough, only a handful of years later, we'd all find ourselves smack in the middle of me Too. And you know, you you obviously, you know, had a lot of you know, proximity to that. And I know when working on the book, that was a huge thing for you to sort through and figure out, you know how what you wanted and needed to say about it. And I think what's what was um most therapeutic and cathartic about writing this book was um it was was not long after Matt had been fired from The Today Show, and I think, um, you know, I think what we tried to do in the book is really illustrate how I processed this, how I processed everything that was happening in the Me Too movement, but also how someone with whom I had a really nice professional relationship with and cared about, um, sort of how he crossed a line. But also how the environment that existed during you know, the high points of my career us really set the stage for something like this happening because it was uh, you know, so tolerated it and really kind of considered part of the part of the culture, not only in television news, but in all a whole host of professions. You know, I've talked to my friends who are lawyers and who are you know, bankers and worked in finance or and you know, all kinds of careers, fashion, you know, and the kind of behavior that went on that was acceptable. Um, it's just it's just really actually pretty appalling when again you look through it through the lens of of the twenties twenties. Yeah, and you know, it was not only sitting next to Matt and working with for all of those years, but so many guys who were filled by this that you know, you had your brushes with, and it was a huge part of figuring out what you were going to say to sort of you know, you know what you know, what those encounters were like and what in retrospect was going on. I mean, you know, Less Moon was Jeff Fager. You know, you certainly had some encounters with Charlie Rose. I mean, you know, just so many with Harvey Weinstein, not knowing at all of course the extent of what was going on, but it just being in the world you were in and being who you were there was. I mean, it was all around, you know, and that was i know, a huge um task for you to sort of sort through what the hell was going on. And I think also, you know, generationally, you know, I see a very different perspective from people agrean his age and my daughter's ages and and Sofie's age, you know, where I still have to kind of say when people will say, well, people were throwing themselves at him, or you know she was really you know, she really pursued him, or this that about any of these people who were felled by the me to move. And sometimes I'm like yeah, and then I'm like, wait a minute, and I realize how easy it is to kind of switch and put the onus on women when when really these men are in you know, it is a power dynamic, is about power, but they're in these positions, as I write in the book with as Peter Parker would say, with great power comes great responsibility. And my girls always kind of, you know, set me straight. But it's it's such a different perspective, uh on on sort of male female relationships and the power dynamics in a workplace for young women then women our age. Having said that, I do agree. You know, I talked to Jodi Canter about this, about this idea of believing all women, and as a journalist, I just don't follow that, uh that advice because I think that that our our job is to get to the truth. And I think there are times when the pendulum has swung too much, and you know that with one tweet, somebody's career can be can be destroyed. And you know, it's really really really important that that that these stories are covered with a lot of care and diligence and just to play devil's advocate though and statistically, when you do get to the bottom of the story, though the women are often telling the truth, what is it of women of sexual harassment or assault cases end up being true? Women are telling the truth, right. I agree they do have to be properly, but that that's a good you know, see here you go and exhibit a. But Lucy, I mean I think you and I kind of had to recalibrate our perspective in some ways as as two women, uh you know, in their early sixties, you know, trying to kind of um, you know, change our perspective because I think we had become in some weird ways accustomed to what was deemed acceptable. I mean, I was at GQ magazine UM for nineteen years and I was very, very very much in the minority as a woman. And you know, it was the nineties, It was the odds. I started in the in the late eighties, and it was you know, it was a pretty It was you know, fabulous guys who are great friends to this of mine to this day, really smart, really amazing, great mentors. But there was a frat house aspect and they're the the you know, the humor was body and you know, there's a lot that you sort of took as a woman if you're like the only one at the conference table who like, there was a lot of ribbing and things like that. And I think one of the things that was tricky for me is that, like I mean, I think, and I think you do too, could fair amount of pride in having you know, survived those years in style. I mean, I and this is something I have to be very careful about, is like, you know, you don't want to in any way undercut the really important work that's being done now by you know, women and four women for a more equitable workplace. But there is that kind of like you know, old school thing of you know where when you're not When you and I came along, it was like, you know, good on us for like finding a way and kind of getting through a really tricky time by our wits. Um. So I mean, it's just a very different workplace for women today. Yeah, and I I mean, good on us in some ways, but bad on us for maybe not me, I'm speaking about myself, maybe not speaking out in certain situations because you know, it was a question of survival in some cases. I remember one of my UH one former anchor called low level employee of a very disgusting word, and I didn't even know what it meant. That's how how sort of shielded I guess I was. But when I realized it was, you know, he was using a part of the female anatomy to describe her and saying it in front of other people, I said, you go to his office and tell him to please not call you that. I mean part of me, I think I wanted her to stand up for herself, and maybe part of me was afraid of backlash from him if I had been the one to bring it up, and she did, and I don't think he ever talked to her again. And uh, you know, so there were we don't write about that, but there were incidents like that that that we're really unacceptable that I think maybe I shouldn't have put up with as much as I did. That said though, I mean that what you did at CNN, um, you know, way back in the day when you weren't Katie Kuric yet. I mean that was brave. And people, young women who wanted to keep their jobs in places like CNN and you know, magazines and whatnot didn't do that. It's a great story. Yeah, and I think people should read the book because I can't remember the memo I wrote, but it was, you know, pretty direct after someone had made an inappropriate comment about me, someone in a in a very high position. And um, you know, I credit my my mentor Don Farmer for really encouraging me to do that. So I I really appreciate that Don kind of um you know, set me on a path that said you don't have to put up with this, which was really, I mean incredible when you think about how how important that that moment was for me and and uh made me realize that I could stand up for myself even though I ultimately do believe it cost me. Yeah, it's true, you know, in the short term, Yeah, in the short term, But it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I was just gonna say, in kudos to Don for being a man to use a male ally before we ever knew exactly right exactly. We'll be right back with more behind the scenes moments from my memoir that's right after this. Meanwhile, we really wrote the bulk of this book in the middle of a pandemic and in the middle of massive social upheaval right in the country. Um and and not to mention, you know, the biggest political story of the last fifty years, I would venture to say at least one of the most transformative political stories. I eat the president see of Donald J. Trump, and so those things really I think impacted the process in a way I am. I would never say I'm thankful for the pandemic because I would never say that, and I don't feel that way. But it did present us with an opportunity to really focus on the book. Well wait, let me let me tell this from my perspective. A little well, go ahead, so a little miss pushy. Yeah, I learned I learned from my role model. Um, so we were supposed to come out to the Hampton's to work on the book for a weekend, and because a lot of Katie's archives, as I stated, are in the basement here, and um, we were going to come out for a weekend to quote unquote ride this thing out, that thing being like March. And then John called me the morning that we were leaving for a weekend and said you should pack your bags for a week. And then I didn't leave this establishment until December, right, Indiana became an honorary member of the currect Muelner Monaghan family. And then I would nip in for a week here and that we would just be in our pajamas all day, bent over our laptop. Because also I would like Katie and I are. We like to work a lot, We like being productive. Lucy has a work ethic I have never seen and will never see ever again. It would be literally one in the morning. She is naturally pretor naturally or preter nationally either. Okay, I usually say I usually say pradtor, you say preator, I say predator. Let's call them. But Lucy is predor naturally preter naturally focused. I have never seen someone who can just I mean, I'm pretty good at tuning out the world, especially when I'm watching commercials for some weird reason on TV, I'm like, people are like, hey, but Lucy in her lap top, lying here just like in a little nest, a creature creature her like. I don't know why I'm imitating a possum right now, but Lucy is is just the most focused, hard working. It would mean I ever met, Yeah, it would be midnight and Katie and I would actually be begging to go to bed, and Lucy would say, no, we have to keep working. Well, a couple of things on that, um. One is that I have a very very very narrow skill set. I don't know how to you know, I don't like to shop. I don't know how to cook. There's a lot I don't So it's good that I have these skills because I ride them hard. These are my skills and this is what I do. Um. But secondly, just the material is so great and of course when I'm working with you, but I love them. I mean, your life is just incredibly interesting. And you know, if it were crap material, boring, you probably would have seen less focus. Meanwhile, you know, all these things were happening. We were having racial reckoning. We're having me too. You know, George Floyd was murdered. Black Lives Matter was was really uh, I think reaching the masses in a way it hadn't before, even though I think it had, you know, been around for many years prior, or at least several years prior. And you know that was also fascinating too, because I think it informed and kind of brought into sharper focus many of the things we were writing about and and really gave a new perspective to some of our own implicit biases and our own view of different social situations are different societal issues, I should say, um, And so to me, it made the book much stronger, um that that we that the country was scrappling with all of this, and that we were And I think it comes through the pages of the book, not to mention. You know, there's a whole section on on Ja and his love of the Civil War, and he was particularly enamored by the Confederacy and Robert E. Lee having gone to w L and being a history buff even as a little boy. Wall paper of the presidents and you know that was a really interesting and at times painful exercise and and trying to understand what it was about these moments in history that's so fascinated Jay, and that that he really romanticized. I mean, I think there's just really really beautiful, amazing, UM chapters concerning your family, your incredible daughters, your wonderful current husband, and certainly the the tragedy of Jay. It's really strong stuff. I think that, you know, my hope is that writing so honestly about you know, Jay's diagnosis at such an early age, and it's still so tragic to me. Um. I think people who have experienced those kinds of tragedies will well, will really relate to what I was going through, and I think a lot of the feelings and the things I did in retrospect I think will resonate with a lot of people. And that was really hard to do. I just actually almost finished with the audiobook of of reading it, and to revisit those terribly oh my god, I mean and possibly sad and worrisome and fear fear filled days was really it was really hard, but I think it was so UM. I think it was some of my best writing because it was so so close to the bone and to my very being, and to to be able to write about it, which I never would have done until now, because I always did feel this it was an invasion of Jay's privacy, but you know, I think it was. I hope it's it's a tribute to Jay Um, And I think the whole book is a lot of the book is because I think he comes through and I'm just sorry that I couldn't write about Ellie's wedding and the ways that his presence kind of informed so many things that we did. Um. But but I hope that people appreciate and you know, sometimes marriages aren't always like in the very best place once a tragedy like this happens, and I think that's sorting through that is really hard as well. Well, I think another huge, huge piece of it. I mean, yes, Um, I think there are sadly many women will who will relate to when something like this happens to your family and men. But the other thing that perhaps they won't relate to, and I think makes for really extraordinary reading, is you were at the height of your fame when this news came down, and you know, we talked a lot about the juggling is not a sufficient word, but the juggling of the public and the private, and the way those aspects of your life would come crashing together, like you know, learning of your sister's diagnosis, when you're on the Tonight Show and you're in the green room and you've just done a great performance, and you know, that was one of those horrible And there are so many with Jay, just the way the public and the private, the professional and the personal would just come crashing together. And that was an interesting thing to sort through. I know. Yeah, but come on, any moll, no, come on. Then there was of course my current husband who just popped up. Come here, come over here, moll, come on, just for a second. Come on, come sit, sit, come on over, come on, John Muller. He loves it, come on like you know actually, and we were this is a good spot because we talked about when we met. He's not really loving me. He thinks I'm a slab and I am. And I'm sorry anyway, um about when we met and um and our marriage. I mean, but listen, I just want to ask you, is it will at the exterminator from we have to be out of the house for two hours. Why do we need an exterminator? I guess there are bugs? Can can they do it on Sunday when the audiobook is done and we're gone? Oh I could? Would that be better? Okay, okay, I'll just tell it. Actually we can just say we talk back to the We talked about your first day. This segment brought to you by Organ. We talked about our first day, about getting married, about finally finding a partner that was worthy of me, who's that unfortunately didn't return, About how you had a health scare and the wedding almost didn't happen, and we thought you were going to buy the farm and you did remember. Yeah, anyway, you all need to read the book to learn more about it. Thanks for thanks for coming in and really contributing to this podcast. Bye. Who doesn't Love a Mulnar cameo will be right back with more of my behind the memoir conversation right after this. Let's talk about some of our our favorite moments or our favorite part of this experience. Adriana, what was yours? Oh? Thanks for asking, Catherine um Well, so obviously I wanted to be Katie blah blah blah blah. I always wanted to work in television. Blah blah. We've all heard it before. She has a million super fans. I'm just the president of the fan club. TV is admittedly very different now than it was back then. So one of my favorite parts to research and relive with both of you was the booking wars and the crazy shit they would do to get the get in the early nineties. It was cut throat to say the least, and terrifying and amazing, and as an incredibly competitive person, it would have thrived. And you have to read the book. Just that era of television, the once magical world of TV news. It was very fun to relive with the queen of it. I loved I mean, I love it all, but I love the early chapters. Um, when you're you know, not at all famous yet and you're just trying so hard in the most occasionally bumbling and always charming ways to kind of get your piece, and you know, just you know, get the assignment, get on aired, whatever it takes, and it's it's really knowing what is up ahead. It's it's just so entertaining and really fun. Um. But especially I love those you know, really strategic moments that are leading to your, um, you know, getting the co anchor job at the Today Show. It's it's goose bumps for me every time. And I know the story really well, but it really is goose bumps. It's so kind of cinematic and you know, just funny and triumphant, and you know, it's it's just seene scene by scene. It's great. I enjoyed really all of it. Uh, it didn't feel like that sometimes at the time, but um, you know, I think for someone who becomes a public figure, whatever that means, that people write about you and they project upon you and they analyze you, and I think for me it just felt so fulfilling to be able to talk about what it felt like at the time for me personally, and you know, they were so often I couldn't and to be able to kind of take it the my entire life experience, and of course not my entire because we had to pick and shoes, but to really kind of share that was was so gratifying. And and for me, I think I really loved learning a little more revisiting my roots and talking about sort of where I came from and my father's side of the family and my mother's side and kind of talking about the fact that I discovered my mom was Jewish when I was ten years old, because it's something I remember so so vividly, and to me, that's that's such an interesting cultural uh snapshot in many ways about what it meant to be Jewish growing up in Virginia and assimilation and maybe my mom's own issues and um, you know, and and again it's something that shaped who I became. So just kind of learning about that and reading about it again and learning more was really special for me. And I think something's a gift to my girls. I mean, carry has done all kinds of research already into our our family history and and as I I believe, a much better writer than I will ever be. But um, you know, it was it was fun to kind of do that, uh you know, in her footsteps in a weird way too. So so I really enjoyed that. Um but it's really hard to even isolate one part of the book because it was so it was hard, man, it was hard. But I just loved writing the whole thing. I loved being with you two. And I think I've said this many many times to privately to Lucy and Adriana but the fact that they never wavered in their interest and passion and enthusiasm for telling my story. I mean, it's such a gift because I mean, to me, it's so selfless. It's not your story, it's my story, but in a way, it's all of our story. And I'm so grateful because never did you all say, oh God, I'm so sick of you, or you probably were, but like, I can't believe we have to work on this part again, or who cares, or honestly or and I even behind my back, I don't think you were saying those things. And you know that is such, that is so I mean, I don't even know how to put into words how wonderful and special that is for me. So I just really really appreciate you guys. And um you know, there's so much of both of you in this book. Um and and I could never ever have done it without you. So thank you, we love you, and we're the lucky ones. Thank you for well the pinnacle to say anything, pinnacles of my professional life and the beginning of mine. Again, thank you so much to Lucy Kalin and Adriana Fasio for joining me on this podcast and for making my memoir Possible, Speaking of which, then Up Going There is out now, so I hope you all find time to give it a read. And by the way, I still have a few stops ahead from my book tour. I have some incredible guests. I have Jenn Garner and Lost Angeles as well as Toronto Burke talking about the Me Too movement, Leslie Jordan's in San Francisco, Na Garden in Atlanta, Kim and Brad Paisley in Nashville, and Chance the Rapper in Chicago, which I'm really excited about too. All you have to do is go to ticketmaster dot com slash Going There. Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Currik Media. The executive producers Army, Katie Curic, and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements, Adriana Fasio, and Emily Pinto. The show is edited and mixed by Derrick Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter, Wake Up Paul, go to Katie currect dot com. You can also find me at Katie Currik on Instagram, and all my social media channels. For more podcast from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H