Hey: I’m Smarter Than Katie Couric!

19. January 2009 by Jenn.

It seems I may be more of a journalist, or at least one better-rounded, than Katie Couric, the first solo female anchor on a major broadcast network. At least according to one controversial cultural commentator. Of course, the only national exposure I’ve had includes a tiny front-of-the-book piece in Gourmet and a lamely edited page in Ode, and I’m print, not broadcast, with all of its special requirements. But still.  

In a recent Salon.com column , Camille Paglia discusses the media take-down of Sarah Palin, whom she admires for being scrappy and perceptive as well as a lot smarter than many people believe. Paglia here makes reference to the Couric/Palin interview on foreign policy, and wags her finger at what she sees as the hypocrites who won’t give Palin a break, stating, “And let me take this opportunity to say that of all the innumerable print and broadcast journalists who have interviewed me since I arrived on the scene nearly 20 years ago, Katie Couric was definitely the stupidest.”

I interviewed Paglia in spring of 2005, and as we had a three-hour, wide-ranging conversation – I was excited to be meeting her and didn’t want to let her go – she may actually remember me as she mentally flips through the pages of the various reporters she’s encountered. And I stupidly brought her something - olives, which I’d read she loved since she was four. I heard later that, though she would normally not accept anything let alone avail herself of whatever it was, she ate them and loved them. So there. I’m smarter than Couric. Now if I could just be richer.

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