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.
By the time I hit page 50, she’d already finagled me into her corner. Reading it was a two-day crash course in the American infatuation with Couric’s wholesome smile and cap of tousled brunette hair, spiced by her late-life regrets over how she once handled everything from race and gender to homelessness. The book satisfies the appetite for two types of voyeurism: the desire to peek into the lives of the rich and famous, and the wish to see them do penance for the sins they committed along the way ... full of reckonings of the type widely demanded these days, although Couric’s are exceptionally candid ... The tales of glory, the mea culpas, and even the dish proved less fascinating to me, however, than Couric’s command of the art of being likable. (In fact, the tales, the confessions, and the astutely deployed gossip are all part of that art.) This is a skill often derided but disastrously beyond the reach of figures ranging from politicians to fictional characters. Going There is a master class in likability, the careful balance of self-deprecation, identifiable yearnings, and chipper indomitability ... She really seems to be fulfilling the promise in her prologue of delivering, in this book, 'the whole me' ... dishes out anecdotes, funny or chilling, that resemble scenes from Lifetime movies ... The book absolutely convinced me that it was delivering the real Katie Couric, unvarnished and unpretentious, someone I could well imagine befriending. Whether that’s just another outfit that Couric can shed at will is something I’ll never know.
Going There, as she calls the Epic of Couric, might as well be subtitled 'Owning This,' starting with rattlesome family skeletons: subdued Judaism on one side, 'blighted with racists' on the other ... Of sex and the newsroom, her attitude is basically that was the way it was, to paraphrase her avuncular idol Walter Cronkite ... Honestly, with all the enablers above her, it’s hard to fault Couric for being oblivious to a colleague’s compartmentalized exploits. If there’s one thing Going There conclusively proves, it’s that she always had a lot going on ... But I don’t believe for a second that she, so refreshingly candid about her competitiveness, wants the first line of her obituary to be 'Katie Couric was a tireless advocate for cancer awareness and research.' In this generally sporting tam toss of a memoir, such an assertion lands with the soft plunk of sanctimony. And that’s never good for ratings.
One of the more unexpected and interesting aspects of the book is the way it brims with experiences of the body: Couric's skin turning orange after a misguided carrot diet or years struggling with bulimia, as well as funnier, grosser stories ... You get the feeling Couric is relishing her ability to be visceral and vulnerable after so many years of being coiffed and poised on screen ... The warping effects of having her looks managed and curated by various media overlords are on display in Couric's frequent portrayals of herself as an awkward ugly duckling ... But while she occasionally comes off as clueless or blinkered, it's also harder to blame her for these views when she writes about, for example, CBS releasing a promotional photo of her edited to make her look dramatically thinner ... Couric works hard to fulfill the promise she made in early pages of Going There, of putting as much of her whole self into the book as she can. But Couric built her reputation on seeming ordinary and relatable, with an 'approachable, girl-next-door person' she can't seem to shake even now.
[Couric's] gossip-filled autobiography Going There, reads more like a never-ending vendetta than a memoir ... Couric would argue that she's also tough on herself. That's somewhat true ... But too often Couric paints herself as either the victim of her times or someone on the sidelines ... I wish Couric had spent more time focusing on her journalism chops and less on her celebrity status ... Couric isn't terribly interested in prepping the next generation of journalists. Going There seems more about getting her name back in the press — and getting revenge.
Couric transforms the events of her long, illustrious career into an immensely readable story—a legacy-preserving exercise, for sure, yet judiciously polished and insightful, several notches above the fray of typical celebrity memoirs ... Throughout, Couric maintains a sharp yet cool-headed perspective on the broadcast news industry and its many outsized personalities and even how her celebrated role has diminished in recent years ... Readers who can recall when network news coverage and morning shows were not only relevant, but powerfully influential forces will be particularly drawn to Couric’s insights as she tracks how the media has evolved over recent decades and reflects on the negative effects of the increasing shift away from reliable sources of informed news coverage. The author also discusses recent important cultural and social revolutions, casting light on issues of race and sexual orientation, sexism, and the predatory behavior that led to the #MeToo movement. In that vein, she expresses her disillusionment with former co-host and friend Matt Lauer ... A sharp, entertaining view of the news media from one of its star players.
