Katie Couric slammed her time at Yahoo News saying the website failed to support her ‘high quality’ journalism
Katie Couric slammed her time at Yahoo News, saying the outlet did not support her journalistic abilities and called her time with the company ‘not fulfilling.’
Couric, speaking with the podcast Recode Decode says she sought to do high-quality journalism, and would have preferred to stay away from the typical ‘low rent’ stories the site was known for. She even went as far as to liken the website to ‘the boy who lived on ramen noodles for 30 years.’
She said her boss, CEO Marissa Mayer, was simply too overwhelmed to allow her to reach her full potential.
‘And I think she had a lot of other things on her plate, in fairness. I wouldn’t say it was an unhappy marriage, but it certainly was not fulfilling for me. I had all this great content, I was getting big interviews, and it was sort of like a tree falling in the forest.’
‘I don’t think she ever understood the commitment it would take,’ Couric said.
She also lamented how Yahoo was unable to take her quality content and get it to a larger audience.
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Overwhelmed: Couric said CEO Marissa Mayer was simply unable to support her work properly because she had a lot of other things on her plate
‘They didn’t put it on the front page or they didn’t know how to — even now, they don’t have very good distribution,’ she added. ‘They didn’t really know how to market things properly. They didn’t know how to take quality and make it scalable.’
Couric said she had expected more from the outlet when she signed on in 2014 considering her previous experience at the ‘Today Show’ and ‘CBS Evening News.’
Yet, the tech giant did not know how to market it’s stars including tech reviewer David Pogue and political columnist Matt Bai.
‘I would say to the Yahoo folks, ”Could we please do a newsletter? I’ll push out everyone’s content,” Couric said, as she wanted to go above and beyond to not only make sure her own content was top notch, but to help Yahoo’s overall exposure.
‘They hired some big names, and yet they were in the witness protection program.’
Couric also touched on the issue of tech companies who push out content for clicks, and not for the sake of great content.
‘These tech companies are not media companies,’ she said. ‘They do not care about stories, about content, about true connection. I think they care about widgets and gadgets and delivery systems, but they aren’t super-interested in the vegetable soup that’s running through the pipes.’
‘I think the secret sauce is people who are technologically savvy, but also respect and care about storytelling,’ Couric added.
‘The company that combines those two things is gonna win the day. I haven’t really found it yet.’
During her time at Yahoo News, she interviewed some of the biggest names on the planet including a then Vice President Joe Biden, Tony Bennett, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tom Hanks, and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in Moscow where he was living in exile after leaking highly classified government documents to journalists and exposing the NSA’s surveillance program.
She ultimately left the company after Yahoo merged with Verizon-owned AOL to form Oath.
She said that before she left, she told Oath CEO Tim Armstrong that the company should be called ‘Rize,’ as both an optimistic brand and a play on the word ‘Verizon,’ but the name was already taken.
‘I think they paid a lot of money to come up with Oath,’ Couric said. ‘Whatever.’