How Katy Tur Battled Sexism and Family Drama on Her Rise to Media Stardom

By Katy Tur

In early 2007, after a few months in New York, I was alone at Keith's place overlooking Central Park and getting myself mentally prepared for a big job interview the next day at 9 a.m.

In the next room, I had picked out a black DVF wrap dress with long sleeves and a hemline to my knees. I planned to wear it under a brown tweed blazer I had picked up at a secondhand store. As I pictured myself striding into the interview and getting the job, I bit down hard on a stale baguette and I felt something snap.

My front teeth were already crappy, a pair of old veneers, a fix of a fix (of a fix) from that time I broke them on a waterslide in Hawaii. Had one of them snapped again? I poked my tongue around and, sure enough, found a stump.

I needed to be at the offices of News 12 The Bronx/Brooklyn at nine the next morning, where I was vying for a spot in the News 12 pilot program for new reporters. The news director had seen my tape, aka my reel, a physical VHS recording of twenty-three-year-old me doing news reports that never actually aired anywhere. The tape was all a demo, a mockup, my way to help my hopefully future boss imagine me as a real reporter.

The station was New York's smallest and most local. The actual tagline was "as local as local news gets." And while I might have imagined myself starting out with a grander gig, I wasn't ready for one. What I needed was experience. What I needed was this job. This job was my way to the next job and the next job after that. I was ready to put my best face forward.

But I had no front tooth.

I couldn't call News 12 and cancel the interview. I knew enough to know that journalism was about showing up. But I also couldn't show up with a missing tooth. I’d tell them about the waterslide and the baguette, but honestly would you believe that story? I wouldn't. I’d write down "likely drunk" and decline to offer me the job.

That's when I remembered the dentist office on the first floor of the building.

Was it still open?

I ran down to check, hoping that if it was I could talk my way in without an appointment. It was a decent test, I now realize, for an aspiring reporter. Also a wonderful test of whether I’d retained anything from my eighteen years of living with two journalists.

Could I think clearly under pressure? Could I act quickly?

Could I talk my way into a place I was not meant to be? Could I solve a problem?

I could and I did.

The dentist glued my baguette-broken front tooth into my head and sent me off with a warning.

"Don't eat," he said. "And try not to talk too much." I got the gig at News 12.

But I wasn't yet on television.

While I had made it through the reporter trial and then got a full-time job, covering Brooklyn, everything I’d done had either been a tryout or a voiceover. My face wouldn't appear on screen until the news director had approved me for air. I wasn't sure what that meant, exactly, but two or three weeks into the job, I was called in to his office for a review of my abilities.

He leaned back behind his big desk, in his big office, and took on an air of casual truth. He spoke.

Your boobs look too big in your TV clothes, he said with a shrug. He might have said breasts or chest or just gestured with a pencil. I don't remember, exactly. But we both nodded in mutual understanding even if I was mortified at the same time.

The news director wasn't done.

He reached for a binder on his desk. Ladies and gentlemen, I shit you not, it was a binder full of women. He pulled out a half dozen glossy pictures of the sort you might see in the front of a salon at the mall.

I wasn't sure where this was going. I thought I was ready for this kind of meeting. It's the TV business. People were going to comment on your appearance. But I didn't expect some sort of headshot hall of fame. The news director sighed and handed me the photos. "If you want to appear on camera at my station," he said, "you need to cut your hair."

He pointed to the pictures.

"You can choose from any of these styles I’ve picked out for you."

I looked at the news director. He wasn't unstylish, exactly, not by the standards of the news business. But was he really an authority on women's clothes and hair? Did telling me my boobs were too big and that I needed to cut my hair like he wanted, not strike him as a little presumptuous, not to mention sexist?

I looked down at the photos.

They were, to put it bluntly, blunt. We’re talking severe bob cuts. Hard angles. Terrible streaky highlights. Lots of hairspray.

I wish I could say I told him to get bent. I certainly thought it. But I didn't.

As I was leaving, pictures in hand, the news director added one more requirement.

"Your name" he said. "It's taken."

He was talking about Katie Couric, co-anchor of the Today show, one of the most famous journalists of the era. I can't be "Katy" because she's "Katie"? Apparently not.

I don't remember the story, but sometime that summer "Katharine Tur," a twenty-three-year-old with her hair shaped into a hard plastic dome, appeared for the first time on television in New York or anywhere.

I’m happy to say the tape is not online.

"Princess."

That was my nickname at News 12. No one said it to my face, but I heard about it from a friend. I guess I had to prefer it to my other nickname, the one that showed up on the label of all my tapes around the office. Everything that said "Tur" had been changed to "Turd." I felt like I was back in middle school, waiting for someone to sign my yearbook, "Dear Zitface."

I wasn't being hazed. I was being punished. I was a new reporter in a new city and I was supposed to agree to every assignment with enthusiasm and humility. Instead I was confident, some would say cocky, and unlike my father, I wasn't willing to get myself killed for a story. So when I refused to go cover a small fire alone a few minutes before my 11pm shift ended, I became the "princess."

Princess Turd recovered but not at News12. I sent out a new tape and got a freelance job reporting for the 5am morning show at WPIX.

Yes, the schedule was brutal. I was going to work as people were still stumbling out of bars and the morning papers were still being printed. But it was also an odd kind of privilege to be awake and sober in the hours before dawn, working, witnessing New York as few people do. I was making the city my own just as my parents had done for Los Angeles.

I covered shootings, stabbings, robberies, gas explosions, crane collapses, and fires. Local news is easily mocked and often is, but don't let the occasional bad toupee fool you. National news has sweep and an air of grandeur, but local news is much more likely to tell you something that's going to change, if not your country, your morning, your evening, your weekend plans. Will the subways run? Where are the cooling centers during a heat wave? How are the police responding to crime? What's the city doing to keep buildings up to code? It's not always exhilarating but it's essential. I was proud of the work.

And Keith helped me. He taught me to imagine an audience of one viewer, not many, and certainly not millions. He taught me that every report should deliver heat or light, or some combination of both, a shorthand for coverage that held power to account or said something new. He told me if I don't find it interesting, no one will find it interesting. And he told me to read books out loud to improve my tracking voice. I chose the latest Harry Potter novel, which I’d bought in line behind Salman Rushdie.

But I paid a price for that relationship. When media reporters found out that Keith was living with a twenty-three-year-old, I became, in tabloid-speak, the bimbo. Photographers staked out the apartment. Editors dug up a photo of me at a nightclub in college. Keith's career never suffered, but long after we broke up I was still "Keith Olbermann's girlfriend" to the industry. For years those old articles were the first thing you’d see if you searched for me online. The whole experience was bruising. So much so that I hesitate to bring it up now. I don't want every headline about me to be about him. And I don't want to go back to that headspace where I felt judged and belittled. I never blamed Keith. We split on good terms and we stayed friends. The problem was the world: sexist, misogynistic, and gross. Even after I was assigned to the Trump campaign, and even today, when people want to criticize my journalism, somebody will bring up Keith. It's still the easiest, quickest way to try to diminish me.

Over time I learned the key to being a decent live reporter (or, for that matter, these days, a good social media star) is being yourself. Loose. Natural. Unscripted. Interested in the material, not agitated by it. Print reporters are sometimes taught to tell it like they would in a bar. For television reporters, the same adage is true—not to mention dangerous. There's no five-second delay for the censors on a live news report. No editor to save you from yourself.

And, yes, there were times I needed saving.

In 2009 I got a job chasing tornadoes for The Weather Channel.

Near the beginning of our trip, in Norman, Oklahoma, we’d all go to dinner at a place called BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse. After about five days there, we felt like locals, and just before we left, during a live TV broadcast, one of the anchors asked me what I’d miss the most.

It was a weird thing to ask. I didn't have deep ties to Norman. I had only been there a week. And frankly, the assignment was to be on the road. So the question kind of threw me. I didn't know how to answer it. The only thing I could think of on the fly was food.

"I’m going to miss BJ's," I said. Panic, danger, abort, abort, abort.

I was standing next to Mike Bettes, the Weather Channel's lead meteorologist on the story, but I was too mortified to look in his direction for help. What I should have done was laugh and explain myself, but I just smiled and said nothing and hoped no one would notice.

Two seconds after the shot was over, a voice in my earpiece: "Did you just say on my show, ‘I’m going to miss BJ's’?"

It was the executive producer. "Yes, I did."

"You meant the restaurant, right?"

"Yes, a thousand percent, yes, oh my God."

"Well, I guess we’ll keep an eye on late night and YouTube." That executive producer is now the president of MSNBC, Rashida Jones.

But here's the twist I hadn't expected.

Back in New York, I got a call from Gus LaLone, manager and executive producer of the Weather Channel. He liked my work. I think he was surprised, frankly. For him, I was kind of a wild card hire. I didn't have deep experience reporting on extreme weather. I wasn't a meteorologist. I wasn't a road warrior (at least not yet). But if journalism requires you to be a quick study and a halfway decent explainer, I learned that I was both.

I also found it easy to get excited about the work. I didn't grow up with weather. There are barely seasons in Los Angeles. So I enjoyed translating science and expert analysis into everyday conversation. And I knew that it mattered. People in the middle of the country live with a gnawing daily threat, a risk that a tornado might take their homes or their lives. VORTEX2 was an effort to prevent that sort of destruction and that singular fact grounded my reporting. Gus noticed that too.

But perhaps most of all, he liked how natural I was on television, screwups and bloopers and all. To him, they made me not only informative and watchable but can't-turn-off-able.

"You’ve got it," he told me.

Even then, I realized where I’d gotten it from. My father's live reports were always a mix of anecdote and expertise and always filled with "uhhs" and "umms." He was casual and familiar and even goofy. He’d call every police dog "Rin Tin Tin," for example, as if that were a standard generic term for a trained German shepherd. Other times he’d just go blank but talk through. During a massive flood in the agricultural region of Ventura, he couldn't remember the word "lettuce."

"I’m flying over the . . . uh . . . salad fields," he said on live TV. The salad fields?

He wasn't perfect. But he was real. And that's a big reason why he broke through like he did. It's also a big reason I’m where I am today.

When I was a kid, my parents had a collection of stuffed bears. They loved these things for reasons that would stump Freud. But that's why my brother and I have "Bear" as a middle name. We were joining "the bear family." One of the first was "Blacky Bear." (My son is named Teddy.) My father got unofficial custody of him after the divorce and he’d send me pictures of the bear, posed like a tourist on his travels. I loved it.

But another side of my father remained. He often made me feel worthless. It was like he was carrying a bucket of water and his bucket had a leak and the only way he could keep his bucket full was by taking from mine. And so he took. And he took. And he took.

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He seemed to think I was being lazy by trying a more traditional route up the ranks of television.

"Come up with something new," he’d tell me. "Find the next big angle," he’d say. "Lead, don't follow."

He didn't seem to understand that we were different people in a different era. I didn't have a helicopter like he did to impress people. I also didn't have a penis to ward off the wrong impression with sources. Had my father ever shown up to a meeting that his subject thought was a date? Was he ever assigned a story on pole dancing as exercise? Did an editor ever ask him, "Do you have stripper shoes you can wear?"

"I’m not you," I told him. "I’m doing it my way."

Meanwhile, he was still trying to figure out his own way forward. Although more than a decade had passed since he lost the helicopter, he hadn't found a steady new outlet for his work. Certainly nothing with the pay or recognition of what he did before. The older I got, the more I understood how hard it must have been for him. He was on top of the world at thirty-eight but unsure of his place by fifty.

I was sympathetic. I wanted to help and I did. I gave him a little money, some contacts, free labor for Los Angeles News Service. I cheered him on as he pitched his big idea for a national helicopter service, Newscopters.net. "Welcome to the future of broadcasting, cable, G3, and mobile news technology," his promo began.

In 2006, he became the first person to sue YouTube for copyright infringement, accusing the company of publishing hours of LANS footage without permission. I followed the case as it turned heads and generated coverage for years. In 2007, GQ called him a "maverick" in a long profile. My dad ultimately dropped out of the case. But for an instant billionaire and HDNet owner Mark Cuban was reportedly considering an "8-figure" offer for LANS.

Dad also started appearing on television more, mostly Fox News, doing analysis for Hannity & Colmes or The O’Reilly Factor. He was great on anything related to aviation, or law enforcement, or first responders. He seemed to need more fame and recognition, though, and to secretly believe the rest of us demanded it too.

If I acted like a twentysomething with a life of her own, he was liable to take it as a brush-off. He was paranoid and accusatory, always a victim, the whole world against him, even his own daughter.

"What have I done to deserve the cold shoulder?"

"Is this what you really want? To sever all ties with your father?" We went long stretches not talking or just yelling past one another. He’d blast off notes across three different email addresses.

Subject line: "FROM DAD." Greeting: "Katy Bear."

Inside there were guilty reminders of the good times, our family trips, shared books, the way we watched X-Files every Sunday. Then the heavy emotional artillery. My dead grandmother would be "devastated" at my behavior. My uncle was embarrassed by how I had treated him. All I cared about was money and the fact that he didn't have much was the real reason we weren't closer. In one email, he listed off all of his professional accomplishments, his whole résumé, in detail.

"TWO Edward R. Murrow Awards."

"TWO AP National Breaking News Awards." "FOUR Golden Mics."

"SEVERAL heroism awards."

In closing, he referred to his own YouTube lawsuit as "trail-blazing."

Like a town slowly rebuilding after a disaster, though, we’d reopen the relationship. After months of not talking, we’d see each other over the holidays. Chat about cute dogs and good movies. Act like father and daughter again. That's what I wanted. I loved him. I still do.

On April 15, 2013, a pair of pressure cooker bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon, and I rushed out to cover it for NBC Nightly News. I wasn't prepared for what I’d find.

Days into the story, I finally got a call from my father. I’d had one bite of my cheeseburger, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed. The plate rested on the sheets in front of me while I reclined on the pillows behind me. I was exhausted and starving, drained by four days of round-the-clock coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing. Now my first meal not out of a wrapper in days was over before it started.

"Katharine?" my father said.

My dad was talking on speaker, but I wasn't really listening.

Not yet.

My eyes were still fixed to the television screen. There was a breaking news update. An officer shot at MIT. Could this be part of the manhunt for the second marathon bomber? Maybe I should get dressed, I thought. Go back to the stakeout position.

I picked up my phone to text my producer. "Katharine!" Dad said, louder this time.

"Hi. Sorry. Hi. Yes, I’m here." "I asked if you’re alone."

"Yes. I’m sorry."

I regretted picking up the phone. I wanted to focus on what was happening in Boston. I wanted to get dressed and figure out where I should go. Or I wanted to rest. I didn't want to have what I assumed would be another conversation with my father about a big plan and how I needed to be a part of it. I didn't understand what he was talking about—until he said it again.

"I’ve decided to become a woman."

I paused this time, giving him my full attention.

And I do mean "him." Because in this moment, in these first revelatory seconds, that's still how I thought of my father. In telling this story, and looking back, I don't want to pretend I flipped a switch in my mind, erased thirty years of habit, and shifted effortlessly into she/her. I supported my father immediately, but it took a conscious effort to get the words right, and I want to be honest in the telling.

"A what?" I said. "A woman."

From ROUGH DRAFT by Katy Tur. Copyright © 2022 by Katy Tur. Reprinted by permission of One Signal Publishers/Atria Books, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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