Katie Couric dismisses early coverage of book as ‘strange, willful misinterpretation’

Veteran journalist Katie Couric criticized recent media coverage of her memoir, in which she is open about her personal and professional struggles as a journalist. 

Couric called the way outlets have covered the contents of her book “strange,” saying there has been a “willful misinterpretation of what I wrote,” by some of the journalists who have written or broadcasted about her memoir. 

“It’s clearly not representative of my book, and I think it probably says a lot about the media environment we’re in and the tenor of the times we’re in,” she said during an interview with USA Today. “So, I was surprised, but not that surprised.”

In the book, excerpts from which have been leaked to the press in recent days, Couric writes about her struggles working in network television, her friendship with disgraced former co-anchor Matt Lauer and a controversial decision to selectively edit an interview with the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

“I wrote this book not for tabloid reporters who are looking for clicks,” she said of some of the headlines her book has created. 

“I wrote this book for young women who are maybe trying to make their way in the world, for people who have a terminally ill spouse, for someone who took a chance on a job and was disappointed with the way it turned out, for the person who has to work for a jerk who is sabotaging her. I wrote this book for real people.” 

While appearing on The Today Show last week, Couric, who anchored that show for more than a decade, defended her decision to edit the 2016 Ginsburg interview, during which the justice criticized racial justice protests.