Of course I would, I told him.
On November 29th, Jeff was named president of CNN. His first hire? Allison Gollust.
Oh, and I never did hear from him about that job.
80
Flop Sweat
FOUR MONTHS IN, with an ominous feeling rolling through the place, we pulled the staff together for a reset.
I recently stumbled on a notebook from that time in which I’d jotted down some takeaways alongside nervous-looking doodles. A few phrases jumped out:
Median age of viewer: 60!
TARGET AGE = 45!
RELATABILITY is a MUST! Women want to see themselves reflected in TV
The meeting was also an opportunity to reconnect with Lisa from Elmhurst, Illinois. I’d scribbled in the notebook:
What does Lisa want from daytime TV? Why does she watch?
time filler
laugh, smile, relax
entertainment
information
The idea that we were busting our asses every day to create “time fillers” was hard to swallow. And if there was still any doubt that the daytime landscape might not be the perfect place for me, there was this:
WHO IS KATIE?
Read book The Hero Within
All about archetypes
We start out naive—Bambi in the woods
We have to move forward to be hero
From hero you become ruler, then wizard, all along you are wandering
Lisa—what is her archetype?
At home she’s the ruler, at work the wanderer…
The thing had flop sweat all over it. I wondered, did Frustrated Talk Show Host count as an archetype?
WE WELCOMED A few new producers, who’d worked at places like Ricki Lake, Dr. Drew’s Lifechangers, and The Tyra Banks Show. The lack of news experience at that level was a real problem with some of the topics we wanted to cover. Like my trans-disaster.
I always felt compelled to help people better understand what they may not. So when a producer pitched Carmen Carrera, the transgender model and reality star, I thought it was an opportunity to educate people, including myself, about something that had long been in the shadows.
When she came on, I was struck by her beauty: delicate features framed by cascading chestnut locks; ample cleavage in a black slip dress with spaghetti straps. The producer didn’t provide much in the way of guidelines about what we could or couldn’t talk about, so I began by asking Carmen when she realized she was in the wrong body; we flashed a photo of her as a sweet but confused-looking kindergarten boy. Then came the whammy—when I inquired about her anatomy: “Your private parts are different now, aren’t they?”
“Shhh…” Carmen literally shushed me on national television, saying she didn’t want to talk about it. “I still have my career goals, my family goals…I wanna focus on that rather than what’s down there,” she said, concluding, “there’s more to trans people than just that.”
Scrambling to recover, I explained that it’s all still a mystery to a lot of people, and that’s where my question came from, adding, “I hope you don’t think it’s prurient interest.”
“No, no, no,” said a really gracious Carmen. “At least I can say people are becoming more interested in learning these days, rather than judging without experience.”
“And that’s a good thing,” I said.
“That’s a great thing,” said Carmen. “But just me, personally, I’d rather not talk about it.”
“I understand that,” I said, “and I totally respect that.” Smiles all around.
After the break, I introduced Laverne Cox, the transgender star of Orange Is the New Black. I asked her if she felt as Carmen did, that people were preoccupied with “the genitalia question.” Laverne enumerated the horrific statistics regarding the discrimination, unemployment, and violence that trans people face, pointing out that “if we focus on transition, we don’t actually get to talk about those things.”
After the taping, the producers asked me if I wanted to take out that awkward exchange with Carmen, but I said, “No, let’s keep it in. I’m a fairly sophisticated, open-minded person, and if I could ask such a dumb question, I bet others might do the same.” At the end of the episode I even said, “We want to hear what you have to say about the topics we discussed today. Head to our website, our Facebook page, or tweet me @katiecouric”—completely unaware of the fusillade of rage I was inviting into my feeds.
The next day, which happened to be my birthday, I flew to Las Vegas for CES—the Consumer Electronics Show—where I’d be introducing Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. En route, I noticed that my phone was blowing up. The trans community was in an uproar.