Advice from Yahoo! Global News Anchor Katie Couric- Special interview by Christine Mahoney, JMC Internship Coordinator

“Now?!”
One word and a rather startled expression was the response I got when I plopped down next to Katie Couric at the Denver Press Club’s 20^th annual Damon Runyon Award Banquet, and requested a quick interview.  Couric was the evening’s keynote speaker and winner of the Runyon award, celebrating her remarkable decades-long career in television news, as well as her empathy in covering sensitive stories like the Columbine High School shooting in Denver in 1999.

My request – for career advice for young, aspiring journalists – came out of the blue, but Couric’s response was thoughtful.  It even put a new twist on the standard advice journalism students often hear:  Be persistent.  Don’t give up.  Evaluate your skills.  Her perspective, as a professional journalist and mother of two girls, added a layer of intention and purpose to the process of job-hunting. She suggests a more passion-driven strategy.

Here are Couric’s nuggets of advice:

•  ”Be persistent:  You may not get offered the job you want right away, but go back and ask again.  Don’t give up.”
• “Take a critical look at your skills, and understand which part of the (journalism) business you really like. For example, if you’re really detail-oriented, you might make a good assignment editor. If you’re reticent about intruding and asking a lot of questions, you might want to re-think becoming a reporter. Find out what you love and what you’re good at, and pursue it.”

During her acceptance speech, Couric recounted her own early struggles in the TV news business. During college at the University of Virginia, where she earned a BA in English with a focus on American Studies, Couric wrote for what is now the Cavalier Daily, UVA’s student-run newspaper, and interned at radio stations each summer.

Even with that relative wealth of experience, Couric says it was hard to land her first on-air job. She worked as a desk assistant at WJLA, the ABC news affiliate in Washington.
“I basically got sandwiches for the anchor,” she said.
Then, she happened to be in the right place at the right time. CNN launched nine months into her sandwich runs, and she jumped ship.

“CNN was a non-union shop – a start-up,” Couric recalled.
She was able to jump onto the update desk as a fill-in anchor. The experience wasn’t exactly confidence-building.
“In my earpiece, I could hear the other anchors asking, ‘Who is that? She looks about 12 years old!’” she said.
But she persisted – working on her on-air delivery and presentation skills, staying at CNN for four years and working in every imaginable role:
“Assignment editor, producer, you name it,” she said.

Couric’s first “real on-air job” was at then-WRC Channel 4 in Washington. There, she met Tim Russert. Couric had found a mentor.
“It only takes one person to believe in you, and my person was Tim Russert,” she said.
Everyone is familiar with Couric’s career trajectory. The TODAY show, CBS Evening News, Katie. Through it all, she maintained her journalistic principles.
“Asking questions is not enough,” she said. “A journalist’s job is to get answers.”


At her new post as global anchor at Yahoo!, Couric says she’s going to bring old-fashioned journalistic practices– fairness, accuracy, experience – to this new platform. But she’s also going to keep her favorite new acronym in mind:
“TMI and NEU – Too much information and not enough understanding,” she said.
Couric will provide coverage with compassion.





CU JMC student Annie Melton, winner of Tim Russert
Scholarship, with Katie Couric at the Damon Runyon
 Award Banquet, March 14, 2014
 
So, aspiring journalists, keep Couric’s advice in mind when plotting your own career
path. What’s your passion? How can you align your career goals with your life goals? How can you stay true to yourself while pursuing success? Keep Couric’s advice in mind, when considering job offers. “There are a lot of opportunities in journalism today,” she said. “Find one that matches your skills and your passion.” I had to wonder if Couric had heard that same advice from her mentor, Tim Russert, way back when. And I hope journalism students are listening, when they hear it from her today.

A Day in the Life of a Veterinary Journalist

As a May 2011 graduate, Kate Spencer was part of one of the last graduating classes from CU's School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

"I really never thought of doing journalism in high school, but decided I might as well try out CU's SJMC when I came to CU in 2007," Kate explains. "When I got involved with the CU Independent, CU's online news source for students, I discovered that I loved journalism."

That love of journalism led Kate to the CU Independent, where she held multiple editorial positions, including editor-in-chief, before graduating with a double degree in journalism and international affairs. In addition to journalism, Kate has also been passionate about animals since she was a child, when she would constantly rescue wild animals and try to convince her parents to get another dog. 

Now, she has combined these two passions in her job as an online reporter/editor for Trends Today, an online source for veterinary news that is produced by the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA).

"Finding a way to combine my natural love of animals with my journalism skills was the best thing that could have happened to me right out of college," she said.

As a veterinary journalist for Trends Today, Kate writes, edits, develops and posts content to the website. She's also working on redesigning the AAHA's Web content management system, and she's a member of the AAHA's Social Media Task Force. Kate says that the most fun part of her job is that her coworkers always bring their pets into the office, so she's always surrounded by animals, and that she loves all of the traveling she gets to do as she attends conferences all over the United States.

Kate found out about her present job from her former internship coordinator at the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA), where she served as a social media intern during her junior year.

"My former internship supervisor from the Colorado Veterinary Medical Association called me one morning and said she had found me a job that I would love," Kate explained. "She said she had already talked to the hiring manager there and had already sent along a letter of recommendation — all I had to do was send my resume and officially apply! If I had never had the internship with the CVMA, I wouldn't have my current job."

  

What does a day in Kate's life look like?

> From 6:30 to 7:30 a.m., she wakes up then checks her email and responds to anything urgent.

> From 7:30 to 9:00 a.m., Kate makes the daily hour and a half commute to work. 

> From 9:00 to 11:00 a.m., Kate reads the veterinary news of the day and posts at least one story online about what is happening to various social media outlets.

> From 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., she works on more in-depth stories that will be published later in the week.

> From 1:00 to 2:00 p.m., Kate attends a departmental meeting for Trends Magazine and Trends Today, the online news source.

> From 2:00 to 3:30 p.m., Kate meets with the social media task force.

> From 3:30 to 5:00 p.m., Kate works on redesigning the Trends Today website before heading home for the night.
What's ahead for Kate?

"I love my job – I think that’s a very rare thing to be able to say these days. There’s really nowhere else I’d rather be right now. I love knowing that I am putting my degree to a good use and am making a difference while I do it. I would like to get into government work someday, either in policy or communications, but I love where I am now. I know I also want to go back to school in the next five or seven years, likely to law school. CU is also an incredible atmosphere – I love the university and will always remember the opportunities it gave me and the friends and connections I made during my time there. I would love to come back someday and work in communications for either the Boulder campus or the CU system."

What advice would you offer current CU students?

"It was really my practical experience throughout college that landed me a job after graduation. To be competitive in today’s job market, students really need to tap into the resources the university offers and connect with professionals in the CU community."

Careers in the Spotlight: Working for a social media agency

One of the great things about going to school in Boulder is that career opportunities abound in such a technologically advanced city. Elyse Heslin is just one CU graduate ('10) whose pre-graduation career search led her to job in an industry she is passionate about. (more...)