The Cruella syndrome
She's too rich! She's a boss from hell! She had a brow lift! Katie Couric, NBC's perky princess, is suddenly getting the media's queen-of-mean treatment. What's our problem with powerful women?
By Rebecca Traister
March 18, 2004 | Halfway through her "Dateline NBC" interview with "Jersey Girl" star Ben Affleck on Friday night, Katie Couric asked the actor about the inescapable press attention his now-defunct relationship with Jennifer Lopez garnered.
"[Jen] was treated unfairly by the press," said Affleck. "Oftentimes people tended to see the worst in her and really, she's a kind, decent, good woman who's done nothing but work really hard. For some reason she's resented or viewed as this diva or something ..." Here Couric chimed in, with a tight, knowing smile: "Well, I think that still happens with strong women."
She should know.
In February, Women's Wear Daily reported that Couric, the 47-year-old host of NBC's "Today Show" and the highest-paid journalist on television, was scheduled to undergo a plastic surgery procedure called an Endotine brow lift, a story she denied on "Larry King Live." The New York Times, Newsweek and the New York Post have all carried reports on former Ladies' Home Journal editor Myrna Blyth's new book, "Spin Sisters: How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness and Liberalism to the Women of America," in which she argues that Couric "wants us to believe she's just like us," but gets $550 haircuts and employs a trainer who charges $7,500 a week. A Feb. 23 issue of industry publication Broadcasting & Cable reported that "Today," which has led morning ratings for more than eight years, is losing ground to ABC's "Good Morning America" and that "some inside the network say Katie Couric is leading the charge" to have "Today" executive producer Tom Touchet canned. The piece reminds readers that "the $13-million-a-year superdiva was widely viewed as orchestrating" the 2002 dismissal of former "Today" boss Jonathan Wald. And the March 22 cover of the Globe tabloid bears a sour picture of Couric's puss next to the headline "Katie Couric: TV's Queen of Mean! Stabs Matt Lauer in Back. Throws Temper Tantrums on Set. Makes Own Staff Cry."
The Queen of Mean. You may have heard the epithet, coined for hotel magnate Leona Helmsley, recently applied to two of Couric's television sisters, Rosie O'Donnell and Martha Stewart. O'Donnell and Stewart got rich and powerful by plying womanly arts: O'Donnell gushed over Tickle Me Elmo dolls and published a book called "Kids are Punny," while Stewart made quiches and reupholstered her own toilet seat covers. But as they became wealthier, it turned out that both women were ambitious, political, hot-tempered, occasionally potty-mouthed, and unbecomingly concerned with their own finances. O'Donnell, who has since come out as a lesbian and married her girlfriend, has paid in bad press and a civil suit over the demise of her magazine. Stewart is going to jail, and on Monday quit the empire she built.
Couric is not, so far as we know, a lesbian, nor has she ever been tried for white-collar crime. She is a reporter from Virginia who has earned her professional stripes in tough interviews with George Bush Sr. and Bob Dole, while also capably kibbitzing about products like Kinara Nighttime Skin Quencher with unnerving "'Today' style maven" Steven Cojocaru. Mother to two girls, Couric lost her husband, television legal analyst Jay Monahan, to colon cancer in 1998. Accessible, bright, reassuring, and yes, perky, Couric has become so valuable to her network that in 2002 she became the highest-paid journalist -- ever -- by signing a four-and-a-half-year contract reportedly worth $64 million.
For years, journalists have tread on cat's paws around Couric's Big Money Deal and the issues it raised about journalism vs. celebrity, observing a grace period following Monahan's death. But "Today" and its host are finding themselves under sudden scrutiny. With an average of 6.3 million viewers, it still leads "Good Morning America" by about 1.3 million viewers daily and is a network cash cow, generating a reported $497 million annually. But February "sweeps" ratings show "GMA" beating "Today" in six of the top 10 markets, including New York and Los Angeles. The scent of blood has overcome the respectful media: Unable to resist, they have ripped off their widow's weeds and are cheerfully pumping Couric full of lead.
"She's being treated in the same way a well-paid athlete would be treated, or a big movie star," said Andrew Tyndall, publisher of the Tyndall Report, which monitors television network news. "When she got that raise, she crossed the line from journalist to personality. The treatment she's getting now has nothing to do with her ability as a journalist but with her value as a journalist. Part of being in that income bracket is that people gossip about you."
And try being in that income bracket and having breasts. "When a woman makes the kind of money Katie Couric is making, she's going to be hit with a tomato anytime she steps out," said columnist Liz Smith, who is also targeted in Blyth's "Spin Sisters." Smith stressed that she is not a personal friend of Couric's, but she has long been familiar with the peculiar nexus where journalism, gender and celebrity convene. As for some of the tomatoes that have been thrown Couric's way of late, Smith, a veteran purveyor of the printed whisper, laughed and said, "There are a couple of fair-game subjects and plastic surgery is a big one. No matter how much the subject denies it, usually they do look pretty good!"
Couric denied on "Larry King Live" that she was ever scheduled to have the Endotine brow lift, in which biodegradable hooks are inserted to raise sagging skin, claiming that if she ever did decide to undergo cosmetic surgery, she'd do it on television. (This is a woman who broadcast her own colonoscopy as part of her campaign to raise awareness of colorectal cancer after Monahan's death.) On "Larry King," Couric also blasted the reporter on the brow-lift story, WWD's Greg Lindsay, for irresponsible reporting. A spokeswoman for WWD said, "We still stand by the story but have no further comment."