After months of speculation, it’s official: broadcast journalist Katie Couric will be leaving NBC’s Today Show at the end of May to anchor the CBS Evening News. As noted yesterday in the Washington Post, three women — Barbara Walters at ABC, Connie Chung at CBS and Elizabeth Vargas, at ABC’s “World News Tonight” — have co-anchored alongside men. This makes Couric the first solo female anchor of a weekday network newscast. Fishbowl DC has the low-down in their Television section.
Couric has some strong District roots. Born in Arlington and a graduate of the University of Virginia, Couric got her start as a desk assistant at ABC News’ Washington bureau. After stints at CNN and at a station in Miami, she returned to the Beltway and reported for WRC-TV, Washington’s NBC affiliate. The December 2003 edition of the Washingtonian noted that her gig involved “covering murders and fires.”
