Katie Couric (1957 - )

Arlington County

Television Journalist

Arlington County native Katherine Anne Couric began writing for the school newspaper as a student at Yorktown High School, where she was also on the cheerleading squad. She worked for the campus newspaper, the Cavalier Daily, while studying at the University of Virginia, from which she graduated with a B.A. in 1979. Although eager to follow her father's path in print journalism, she became a desk assistant at the ABC News bureau in Washington, D.C. She quickly moved to the nascent Cable News Network (CNN), serving as a political correspondent during the 1984 presidential race and as a producer. Wanting to spend more time reporting, Couric went to work at WTVJ in Miami and then for WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. After serving as a Pentagon correspondent for NBC News in 1989, she became a reporter with the network's morning broadcast, The Today Show. Named the show's cohost in 1991, Couric helped catapult Today to the top spot among morning news shows and it remained the leader for more than a decade. Determined to have an equal role on the show, she negotiated for an equal share of newsmaker interviews.

After her husband's untimely death from colon cancer, Katie Couric helped establish the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance to fund new research and encourage early screening. She left NBC in 2006 and became anchor of the CBS Evening News, the first female solo evening news anchor at a major U.S. network. She joined ABC News in 2011 and later formed her own film production studio. Couric has received numerous accolades throughout her career, including Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, and an Edward R. Murrow Award. In 2004 she was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.


2004 Virginia Women in History honoree, Virginia Foundation for Women.