For more than forty years, Katie Couric has been a presence in the media world. In her memoir, she reveals what was going on behind the scenes of her sometimes tumultuous personal and professional life.
Katie Couric has lifted a lid on the background politics, personalities and infighting that accompanied the former NBC Today Show and CBS evening news anchor’s rise to the top ... Blistering ...'The perky, friendly image of a person you could talk to across the backyard fence is something she has long tried to dispel,' Thompson said ... Couric’s candid memoir might just nail that.
Couric attempts to fill in those messy parts, to demystify herself and the world she inhabits. What readers learn is that behind that chipper veneer there was a sharper-edged, savvier figure quietly taking notes — and judging everyone. If she is attempting to prove that she is not as nice as her on-air persona, she succeeds. Her descriptions can be unsparing ... If Couric’s memoir settles scores, it also forces her to reckon with her past self. Looking back at her old interviews, she finds that she has a lot of explaining to do. She cringes when she examines some of her choices ... Toward the end of the book, when Lauer was ousted from NBC and the 'Today' show amid allegations of sexual harassment and assault, Couric professes confusion about the beloved co-host she knew and the sexual predator she was reading about. These pages are a navigational challenge for Couric, as she threads her way through reputational land mines that she barely escapes. But with Lauer protected all around by professional sycophants and facilitators, Couric was hardly the only one who didn’t pick up on his transgressions ... Couric has not written a capital-J journalism tome, self-righteously outlining the highest ideals of her profession. Rather, she pulls back the curtain on her life and times in the business, with much to celebrate and apologize for.
There is no relentless people-pleasing in her fearlessly frank memoir, a wildly entertaining and often emotional ride through the volatile media landscape of the last 40 years in which no subject is off limits ...Despite early reports, Couric doesn’t really go over the top in her critiques of former colleagues at NBC. The brunt of her barbs are aimed at CBS. If you’re a producer or executive who worked with her there and don’t see your name in the index of Going There, consider yourself extremely fortunate ... Couric also provides a deftly written tick-tock on her reaction to the downfall of her longtime co-anchor Matt Lauer. It’s compassionate without excusing his behavior, to which she was admittedly oblivious when she worked with him ... civilians who read Going There will be most transfixed by Couric’s raw and unvarnished account of losing her first husband, attorney Jay Monahan, to colon cancer at the age of 42.
