John knew what it took to build businesses, and now he’d thrown himself into the business of me. He says, “I want to help Katie keep doing what she loves to do.”
It’s a unique business model: We partner with companies that care about the same issues I do—gender equality, the environment, racial justice, entrepreneurship, health and wellness—and they underwrite our content. The idea is to reach people where they are （on their phones）， with a daily newsletter, a podcast, digital series, documentaries, even scripted projects. One morning at my neighborhood coffee haunt, a woman came up to me, earbuds in, and said, “This is so weird—I’m listening to you right now. And here you are!” I love the sense of community we’ve built.
While social media can be blamed for many of society’s ills, I appreciate that it lets me communicate in a quick and agile way, direct to consumer. Every day, I’m grabbing interviews with consequential people: elected officials, scientists, and heroes, like the hospital chaplain bringing peace to the dying during a pandemic. I’ve virtually made cocktails with Ina Garten, baked cookies with Queer Eye’s Tan France, and talked Hollywood, religion, and parenting with Jen Garner. Sometimes I’m Katherine, sometimes I’m Katie—now my work allows me to be both.
I’ve got a new lease on my professional life. It always galled me how anchormen could look like shar-peis and still be stars while newswomen were kicked to the curb the minute their AARP cards arrived. Thankfully, I don’t have to let some network bozo decide if I still have value or tell me what kind of stories I can do. There’s truly no limit to the content I can create. These days, I’m much less concerned about media’s holy grail—relevance—than I am about being able to continue flexing my journalistic muscles.
As you might imagine, working with your spouse isn’t always easy; when John and I told friends what we were doing, one said, “Good luck with that.” We try to maintain some sort of boundary between work and real life and joke about not letting our newsletter subscriber base become pillow talk. We’re both strong-willed and have been known to butt heads. So far, no concussions.
PRACTICING JOURNALISM IN the post-Trump era is challenging. Trust in the media has crumbled, and no wonder; people consume news in echo chambers, with algorithms serving up content that aligns with their POV （a bit like Netflix saying “If you liked [X], you’ll love [Y]”）。 As a result, we’re getting affirmation instead of information, with bogus news packaged up to look like it’s coming from a reputable source. “Truth decay” has officially set in—a clear and present danger to our democracy.
Cable news exacerbates the problem with its eye-rolling, soliloquizing anchors who abandoned any pretense of objectivity long ago. Unfortunately, feeding the outrage machine has proven really good for ratings. I wish I could talk to Tim Russert about all of it.
On this frightening new frontier, I’m glad I am viewed as an honest broker, bringing old-school rigor and ethics to the job, using my skills to sift through the warring agendas and help decipher what’s real.
Yes, it’s hard, sometimes, not being part of a network news organization. Watching coverage of the 2020 presidential election from the comfort of my couch, I felt regular pangs; during the debates, I had to resist the urge to crash through the screen and shove aside the very capable moderators （moderating a presidential debate being one of the few things I never got to do）。 But it’s a thrill to see a new and diverse generation of women handling it all so skillfully, neither as tokens nor window-dressing, but as formidable journalists in their own right.
Increasingly, women are getting the top jobs, making real decisions and setting the tone, not just playing second banana, propping up their male bosses. As president of CBS News, Susan Zirinsky was one of the first, followed by Rashida Jones at MSNBC, and Kim Godwin, a colleague of mine at CBS, who became head of ABC News. It’s about damn time women are rewarded for their leadership and smarts, and not how they look in a safari jacket.
But old habits die hard: After I covered the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, I heard that one of the top executives at National Geographic chastised my producers on a conference call, telling them, “I never want to see her on camera without makeup again.” I’m sorry my face wasn’t riot-ready. As far as I know, they haven’t invented tear-gas-proof mascara yet.
My success may have come with a side of BS, but I like to think it did some good. When Norah O’Donnell became the big kahuna at CBS, I hope I’d smoothed over some of the bumps in the road by having been first.