There was breakfast with my lifelong crush, JFK Jr. We met at a restaurant in Midtown so I could convince him to do an interview with me. He ordered cereal with fruit, and out came cornflakes topped with cubes of honeydew. We laughed—Kennedy had seen everything, but this was a first. （Tragically, the interview would be his last.） I also had the distinct displeasure of an irate Yasser Arafat snapping at me, “Who told you that?” when I asked him about the Palestinian charter that called for the destruction of Israel.
Then there was the time I interviewed King Abdullah and Queen Rania of Jordan at their summer palace in Aqaba. My producer/friend Nicolla—a master at nabbing world leaders for interviews—had spent months cultivating them. Afterward, the king and queen lent us their yacht. The camera crew, Nicolla, and I spent the day swimming and sunning on the Red Sea.
I GATHERED MY “KITCHEN cabinet” in my living room to take their temperature on the whole idea. Lori and Lauren, of course, but also Bob Peterson, an incredibly talented producer/editor I’d known since our days at WRC; producer Matt Lombardi, who infused any piece we did with something fun and special, like interviewing Tom Cruise while we were mountain-biking; Matthew Hiltzik, a personal publicist I had recently hired; and Alan. We plopped on the overstuffed sofas and took a collective breath.
“Welcome, and thank you for coming,” I said in a mock-serious tone, as if this were a corporate board meeting. First, I told them about the NBC offer.
“Wow,” Matt said. “Wow.”
We all knew what that would mean: covering big stories, going to major events, scoring huge gets. I could see from my colleagues’ expressions that visions of plum assignments were dancing in their heads.
Our conversation turned to the second option: CBS. “How long is the actual newscast, minus the commercials?” Matt asked.
“Twenty-two minutes,” said Lori. Matt shot me a look like You’re going to hate that—knowing I was always negotiating for more time for my stories.
Then Matthew piped up. “You’d be surprised how much damage you can do in 22 minutes.”
I told Matt I knew what he was thinking. “But,” I said, “I’ll have 60 Minutes to do longer pieces. Besides, Les wants me to do interviews as part of the newscast, so there’s that.”
Bob reminded me that I was loved at NBC. “Will CBS feel the same?” No one had an answer for that.
The H-word was brought up repeatedly （mostly by me）， as in “Guys, this is a chance to make history.” I told them I wanted Ellie and Carrie to see that they could do whatever they wanted, that it would be hugely symbolic to have a woman helming the anchor desk on her own.
Finally, Lori weighed in. “I’m not sure this is you. People love your personality. How much personality can you have while reading the news from a teleprompter? It sounds amazing and important going in, but then you have to do the freakin’ job!”
I heard her. But ultimately, I knew I’d regret not taking the leap. Here was a chance to have the respect I craved: to be a real journalist, full stop, not a TV personality. I thought of the framed New Yorker cartoon that Tom had given me: two middle-aged women are ice-skating, and one says to the other, “Then one day I woke up and just couldn’t do perky anymore.” That’s exactly how I felt.
And there was something else: my dad. When I first told him about the possibility, he said, simply, “Oh, my.” I kept him apprised every step of the way and could tell how excited he was for me. In terms of our shared dream, this was the mountaintop. How could I not? For both of us.
My mind was made up. It was made up even before we sat down. I was ready for a change, and any cautions or caveats that had come my way hadn’t really penetrated—not even one from Warren Beatty. After Jay died, I had become one of his phone pals, with whom he’d engage in long, rambling chats. He told me I was crazy. “Who cares about the evening news? Nobody even watches it,” he said. “Mornings are much more important.”
I told Warren Beatty to stick to acting.
A BIG ISSUE REMAINED. Moonves was offering $10 million—two-thirds of what I was making at TODAY and half of what Jeff was offering. But the morning show was the network’s cash cow, raking in $500 million a year. The evening news wasn’t printing money like the TODAY show. That didn’t seem to matter to my mom.
“That’s ridiculous,” she said flatly. Then, channeling her inner Ari Gold, she said, “Tell him you won’t take the job for less than what you’re making now.”