My Afternoon with Katie Couric - No, really!
Before my morning TV was hijacked by Dora, Arthur and Spongebob, I was a die-hard Good Morning America fan. I NEVER watched the Today Show. Never! Isn't it funny how we form our allegiances? Because of my love for GMA, I formed an actual dislike for Katie Couric and Matt Lauer. So snotty, I know.
When Katie moved to the CBS Evening News, and Charlie Gibson moved to the World News, I naturally stuck with Charlie. (Again, it's not like I ever get to actually WATCH any of these intelligent shows now that my kids have taken over the TV). But, I think my mind has been changed. On Friday I got the chance to meet with Katie, and surprise, surprise, I loved her!!
You know those people who just seem totally genuine? Yeah. She was that. I really and truly did not expect to like this woman as much as I did. Color me surprised.
I got the invite because of my connection to the Chicago Moms Blog. The fabulous Beth Blecherman set the whole thing up, for which she deserves many, many kudos. A group of 18 of us met at the CBS Studios and we met with Katie in two groups of nine. I was in the first group, and we had a blast chatting with her in her very pretty, very white office.
We all sat in a circle (Katie was barefoot and cross-legged on the floor!) and just chatted for about 15 minutes. She asked us a ton of questions about blogging, and we all shared our thoughts. We then got the opportunity to watch her tape some promos, and my level of appreciation for her increased many-fold. When she read something that didn't make sense or seemed "off," she spoke up and requested changes. This impressed me. It creates more work for her to do this, and I'm sure many newscasters just read the teleprompter without any involvement or consideration for what they are saying.
I love explaining blogging to people. It's always rewarding to discuss what I get out of it, why I do it, WHEN I do it, and to talk about all of the great friends that I've made along the way. To explain all of this to someone like Katie Couric was an extra-special treat, and it's great to see mainstream news come to the conclusion that the crazy mom bloggers actually do have an influence!
Katie's post about the afternoon is here.
For a video of part of our session, click the below screen (I was heavily edited, so some of my comments are funky, and my discussion of my food blog got completely removed!!):
