Katie: The Real Story | 
 enlarge | Author: Edward Klein
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 487189
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 4.9 x 0.7
ISBN: 0307353516
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780307353511
ASIN: 0307353516
Publication Date: September 16, 2008
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Product Description
New York Times Bestseller
A no-holds-barred account of the rise—and dramatic stumble—of a media icon.
In this probing portrait of a struggling news queen, bestselling author Edward Klein rips away the mask that has hidden the many faces of Katie Couric: the strong, independent woman and the needy wife and lover; the grieving widow famed for her kindness to others and the fiercely competitive diva; the consummate television interviewer and the stumbling network anchor.
Drawing from scores of interviews with people who have never spoken openly about Couric before, Katie: The Real Story absorbingly chronicles Katie’s rise to the top—from her early days at CNN to her nightly spot on CBS. You’ll read about:
Katie and her husband, Jay Monahan: “Jay had come to believe that the only thing that stood between Katie and divorce was her fear of negative publicity.”
Katie’s diva behavior at CBS: “A technical problem left Katie standing without a script. . . . As soon as the red light on the top of the camera went off, she screamed. One of the executives said, ‘Just a minute, Katie; the reason you make $15 million a year is to carry off these little glitches like a pro.’”
Katie and her parents: “She constantly sought [their] approval, but . . . [they] were better at telling her what she had done wrong than what she had done right.”
Katie and Matt Lauer: “Matt had privately told several executives at NBC that he would quit his job if they signed up Katie for another four years.”
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
 Katie: The Always Ultra-Liberal News Spinner September 4, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Who really cares about Katie Couric?!? She has never really been that relevant and is not a good solid television news journalist. Katie Couric is your typical ultra-liberal "face-girl" who has always slanted her stories and is not shy about tipping her pro-democrat hand while attempting to report the nightly news. She and the "mainstream media" needs to get a clue and start reporting the news impartially with no agenda, hidden or not.
Why do you think the viewership numbers have been eroding over the years for the evening news? It's the same as the dwindling numbers for the newspapers as well. People are tired of being presented with overtly pro-democrat propaganda. If they would go back to reporting in an unbiased fashion they would see their viewership and subscriber numbers jump.
Don't waste your money on this book. Katie Couric brings absolutely nothing to the table that is remotely interesting or worthy of being published in a book ever.
Not that great a book December 18, 2007
1 out of 9 found this review helpful
Seemed more interested in telling about what she did to get where she is & who cares???? I still have the book opened with about 1/4 to read & may never even finish it..... when usually I read a book a day, if it's god.
 Coming of Age and The Big Makeover November 5, 2007
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
Edward Klein, author of "The Truth About Hillary," "The Kennedy Curse," and "Farewell Jackie," has turned his attention to one of America's most important media icons, Katie Couric, in his "Katie: The Real Story." Klein felt that there were many unanswered questions about Couric - What explained her extraordinary success in the world of morning television? Who helped her on the way to the top? - and set about to find the answers.
After two hundred interviews with both her critics and most ardent supporters, he has produced the first unauthorized biography of Couric with the claim that "Katie" was not based on a negative premise. He intended to be scrupulously fair while saying something true and important about this media icon.
The book is a tightly woven story of Couric, "America's Sweetheart," from childhood (Arlington, Virginia) to her role today as anchor for CBS Evening News. Klein's inside sources describe Katie in her early professional years as young and hungry - "one of the most ambitious women I have met."
She has abundant self-confidence, is cheerful, carefree, and fearless but is easily hurt, quick to tears, and susceptible to feelings of embarrassment and humiliation. She projects an image of a strong and independent woman but privately she is extraordinarily needy and dependent on the support of men.
Couric's father is a soft-spoken man with conservative values. He was a reporter then publicist for the National Association of Broadcasters. Katie showed her father's fascination with journalism, particularly TV journalism. He always said that the number one job was Walter Cronkite's, as anchor for CBS Evening News.
"Katie" provides plenty of background, not only on Couric's rise to the top, but also a behind the scenes look at CNN, NBC, and CBS. Klein provides little known tidbits on how Katie barely escaped from being fired by CNN, her years at CNN Headquarters, and the help she received from the CNN executive, Guy Pepper, with whom she had a long-standing affair.
Some of the juiciest tidbits of the book center on the NBC's Today Show and Couric's rise to America's Sweetheart including departure of Jane Pauley, the rise and the fall of Deborah Norville, the difficult Bryant Gumbel and his eventual dismissal, a growing rivalry with Diane Sawyer, her marital strife with husband Monahan, and her efforts to become more glamorous. Through it all, Couric transforms into a diva with all of the perceived negatives.
The book contains sixteen pages of pictures detailing Couric's life. While this is a fast read, it took some time to get through it as my wife kept taking my copy to read for herself. That is about as good a recommendation anyone can give for this book!
Katie bashing October 25, 2007
5 out of 14 found this review helpful
This book is the height of Katie bashing. I'm an admitted fan but not so myopic as to think she is without faults and never did a single thing on her rise to the top that some might find objectionable. The author had little, if anything, good to say about Katie and that's an unbalanced view that causes me, like an earlier reviewer, to regret having bought this book. I'll now do something I seldom do - toss it out rather than pass it on. The least I can do is spare others.
Klein Rips Away The Mask That Has Hidden The Many Faces of Katie Couric! October 22, 2007
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
Edward Klein's Katie: The Real Story is a probing portrait of the multiple personas of Katie Couric -- the strong independent woman and the needy wife and lover, the grieving widow famed for her kindness to others and the fiercely competitive diva, the consummate television interviewer and the stumbling network anchor. Many critical of this book consider it to be a hatchet job and/or a whitewash. In my opinion it is neither. I view it to be a truthful, no-holds-barred portayal of a woman who used every wile she could to claw her to the top of her profession. While this can be said about many successful men as well, it doesn't make it any less true about Katie Couric. Couric never seemed to mind using her femininity to help her reap the rewards she so desparately desired. However, she was the first to cry "sexist" or "jealousy" to anyone who pointed this out in regards to CBS paying her $75+ million to be the first solo anchorwoman on a network nightly news program. Further, she never seemed to hesitate using these defensive mechanisms to counter claims about being less successful than anyone at CBS ever expected her to be. To me, and apparently to many viewers and industry experts, Couric's rapid decline from queen of morning television to the falling star of evening news is that, at heart, Couric is not an anchor person -- sober, authoritative and wise. Rather her failure to-date as a solo anchorwoman is due to those qualities that helped her meteoric rise on The Today Show -- her cuteness, funniness and girlish charm. These do not seem to be the qualities many people want when watching a "hard news" program. Klein succeeds in delivering an unflinching book about a woman who is fast to blame anyone else but herself for her lack of success in making her monumental career move. In short, Katie: The Real Story is basically a book about a woman who could not reconcile her ambition with her personality.
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