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31/10/21 14:20 Katie Couric on ‘Going There’ - The New York Times

Oct. 29, 2021

Katie
Couric
on
‘Going
Book Review Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts

Th ’
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 There’
31/10/21 14:20 Katie Couric on ‘Going There’ - The New York Times

Couric
discusses her
memoir, and
John McWhorter
discusses his
new book,
“Woke Racism.”
October 29, 2021  •  October 22, 2
1:13:11 1:13:51
More episodes of
Katie Couric on ‘Going One Factor
Book Review
Hosted by Pamela
There’ Bigger Sto
Paul

Transcript
Published Oct. 29, 2021 Updated Oct. 31, 2021, 2:48 p.m. ET

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | How to Listen

In her new memoir, “Going There,” Katie Couric writes about her career as a host of
“Today and the first woman to anchor the “CBS Evening News” solo. She also, as the title
suggests, writes about difficult personal subjects, including the deaths of her father and
of her first husband. On this week’s podcast, she says the most difficult part of the book to
write was about her former “Today” colleague Matt Lauer and his downfall over
allegations of sexual misconduct.

“My feelings were so complicated, and they definitely evolved over time,” Couric says. “I
felt like I was almost doing my own therapy sessions. I did original reporting — which
sounds so pretentious — but I actually revisited some people who were affected by his
behavior, and it was really, really helpful. And I talked to a lot of experts about this. I
reached out to people who had written extensively about men in power. This was at the
time it happened, because I was really trying to make sense of it in my head. I talked to
gender studies people, I talked to lawyers who have represented victims. It was a real
mission for me, and a lot of soul-searching honestly.”

Katie Couric, whose new memoir is “Going There.”

Andrew Eccles

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John McWhorter visits the podcast to discuss his new book, “Woke Racism: How a New
Religion Has Betrayed Black America.”

“I think that there is a certain kind of woke person who is caught in a frame of mind
where the idea is that how you show that you’re a good person is by showing that you are
woke — that you’re aware, for example, that racism exists, and it’s not just the N-word
and people burning crosses on people’s lawns,” McWhorter says. “You want to show that
you’re aware of this. But it’s narrowed to the point where a certain kind of person thinks
that showing one’s awareness of that is the key, regardless of what you prescribe’s effects
upon actual Black people. So although it’s the last thing these people would suspect about
themselves, they do not think of Black people as more important than their own showing
that they are not racist. That is a woke racist, as far as I’m concerned.”

Also on this week’s episode, Tina Jordan looks back at Book Review history as it
celebrates its 125th anniversary; Alexandra Alter has news from the publishing world;
and Dwight Garner and Jennifer Szalai talk about books they’ve recently reviewed.
Pamela Paul is the host.

Here are the books discussed this week by The Times’s critics:

“The End of Bias” by Jessica Nordell

“Colorization” by Wil Haygood

We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s
podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

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