After the release of former Today Show co-host Katie Couric’s new book, “Going There,” in which she trashes people left and right, and the report that Couric had tried to humiliate her colleague Ashleigh Banfield at the 2000 Olympics, Fox News meteorologist Janice Dean blasted her on Twitter, writing, “I take it back. I was going to give her a chance, but @katiecouric is a mean girl. We talk about terrible men in this industry but we need to shine a light on the females who tear down women too. They should be shamed. No one should buy her book.”
I take it back. I was going to give her a chance, but @katiecouric is a mean girl. We talk about terrible men in this industry, but we need to shine a light on the females who tear down women too. They should be shamed. No one should buy her book. https://t.co/GNTrL9ggc2
— Janice Dean (@JaniceDean) October 6, 2021
“Couric humiliated Banfield when she made her wait outside while Couric finished up an interview, continued to leave Banfield cooling her heels while Couric’s then nine-year-old daughter interviewed a guest for her school paper, and then mocked Banfield after she was scolded for asking an ‘off-limits’ question during an interview with Olympic Gold medalist Michael Johnson,” the Daily Mail reported, adding, “The producer reportedly told Banfield to ‘sit outside the studio door on this chair.’ The chair belonged to the show’s security guard who looked on mortified. The producer then looked at the production assistant and said, ‘It’s ok, you can come in, but she has to sit outside,’ referring to Banfield.”
Couric reportedly elicited laughter by saying, “I hope it wasn’t too mean having her kicked out of here.”
After Banfield asked Johnson about drug use by athletes at the Olympics, triggering his anger, Couric reportedly said to those around her, “What is she doing? Who does she think she is? This is so embarrassing for me and for the TODAY Show.”
A reported NBC insider told the Daily Mail:
Here was America’s so called sweetheart, showing she was no supporter of her colleague or another woman and she openly took joy in the fact that she’d at first blocked Ashleigh from being on set, then had her child do this pathetic school project interview with Michael and then she relished in Michael’s response when he stopped the interview at the point Ashleigh asked the most important question.
Ashleigh Banfield was the only journalist in the room that day. While Katie Couric sold her fake perky dark soul for access to Michael Johnson, Ashleigh attempted to ask the question that was pertinent to what was happening at the Sydney Olympics. And she was vindicated years later when Johnson handed back one of the gold medals he won in Sydney for the 4x400m relay because his team mate had in fact used performance enhancing drugs behind his back.
In her book, Couric notes that she was cognizant “someone younger and cuter was always around the corner … For a minute there, Ashleigh Banfield was the next big thing; I’d heard her father was telling anyone who’d listen that she was going to replace me. In that environment, mentorship sometimes felt like self-sabotage.”
Piers Morgan reacted to Couric’s new book by stating, “She reveals herself to be a nasty piece of work who chews up female colleagues and competitors like a hungry hippo gorging on watermelon.”
The Daily Wire reported in 2016:
A pro-gun control documentary produced and narrated by Katie Couric edited an interview with a gun rights organization in an attempt to portray them in an unfair light.
The documentary, Under the Gun, focuses on victims of gun violence as well as families of those who lost loved ones to gun violence that lobby for further gun control. In the scene that has come under scrutiny, Couric is interviewing members of the pro-gun Virginia Citizens Defense League. In the clip, Couric asks: “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?” She is met with stunned silence from the organization, as they look sullen with a lack of eye contact, seemingly embarrassed that their argument had been defeated.
But the Washington Free Beacon reported, “However, raw audio of the interview between Katie Couric and the activists provided to the Washington Free Beacon shows the scene was deceptively edited. Instead of silence, Couric’s question is met immediately with answers from the activists. A back and forth between a number of the league’s members and Couric over the issue of background checks proceeds for more than four minutes after the original question is asked.”
A previous version of this article misspelled the name of Couric’s colleague. She is Ashleigh Banfield, not Ashley Banfield.