That’s because algorithms were making the decisions, giving placement to whatever brought clicks and revenue, prioritizing news partners like the Huffington Post over content from their own people （us）。 We started joking—darkly—that we were in the witness protection program—that’s how hard it was to find us or our work.
I quickly learned that the journalism I lived for just wasn’t in Yahoo’s DNA because Yahoo was more about the delivery system and ever-mutating tech functionality than the news itself. Building an operation with a true editorial mission that would become a go-to for original content would prove to be an exercise in…well, frustration doesn’t do it justice. After I hosted the Yahoo Superstar Awards, where the company handed out honors for things like “targeting user profiles for full funnel analysis across search data,” John said, “If you’re still wondering if Yahoo is a media company or a tech company, I think you have your answer.”
A year and change into my tenure, Marissa invited me to have soup with her at her favorite spot in Midtown.
Soup? Sure, I like soup.
We met at La Bonne Soupe on West 55th, the eatery time forgot, specializing in lady-lunch food like crepes, quiche, and, yes, all kinds of soup. Kind of a weird choice, I thought.
I walked up the narrow stairs to the atelier-like second floor and saw Marissa sitting at a small table staring at her phone, looking surprisingly svelte for someone pregnant with twins. She suggested I have the tomato basil soup, her favorite.
As we slurped at a cramped two-top, I told Marissa our team needed a stronger, more coordinated effort getting our stories out there.
“I know you’re expecting me to land big interviews,” I said, “but it’s really challenging if people need Magellan to find them.” I didn’t say that exactly, but that’s what I meant. “It’s a bit of a cycle: You do an interview, you make news, people see the interview, you get metrics that convince other people to do interviews.” Conversely, if you conduct an interview in the forest and no one hears it, did the interview really happen?
Marissa nodded.
Yahoo was a strange place for me, culturally. I’d come up in energetic newsrooms with police scanners and excitable news directors providing the soundtrack, the place popping with a shared sense of purpose we all got off on. Here, the “newsroom” was pretty much silent—people wearing hoodies and earbuds, staring at screens in their own virtual pod-worlds. I know it makes me sound like I’m 110, but it was a huge adjustment （that I never really made）。
There was institutionalized bonding, like yodeling for Yahoo’s 20th anniversary and staff-wide purple-shirt-wearing. I never really liked the color purple （even though I loved The Color Purple）。 It would have made a great TV show. Wait, it did—Silicon Valley.
I tried my darnedest to give Yahoo journalistic cred, and what better time to do that than an election year? Especially a doozy like 2016. One of my first assignments was heading to New Hampshire to interview John Kasich. The Ohio governor was considered a new breed of Republican, very much his own man. As the crew and I made our way to the back of the campaign bus where the interview would take place, Kasich said he wanted to speak with me privately. I had no idea what this was about.
“Katie, can I ask you a question? You used to be the anchor of the CBS Evening News,” he said with reverence and gravity. “Now you’re with Yahoo News,” he said with a bit less reverence and zero gravity. “What is that like for you?” Well, Governor…
I proceeded to explain how the media landscape was changing, how digital news was growing, blah, blah, blah. He listened, expressionless.
Post-election, Kasich came to the Yahoo “studios” in Times Square to hawk his new book. And again, he asked to speak with me privately. We ducked into the hallway.
“Katie, can I ask you a question? You used to be the anchor of the CBS Evening News—now you’re with Yahoo News. What is that like for you?”
I’d just about had it with this tool. “I don’t know, Governor Kasich,” I said. “You used to be running for president of the United States, and pretty soon you’re going to be out of a job. What is that like for you?”
I got time with almost every candidate. Ted Cruz talked my ear off for an hour; Carly Fiorina accused me of being sexist when I asked her if she was positioning herself to be vice president （I responded that if a male candidate was polling at 1 percent, I’d ask him the same thing）。 Bernie Sanders strolled in solo carrying a Saran-Wrapped sub he’d bought at a deli, while Marco Rubio and I chatted over arroz con pollo at the Cuban restaurant Versailles in Miami.