Opinion | Katie Couric: Network Newscasts Need to Better Reflect America

Norah O’Donnell recently announced that she will be stepping down as anchor of “CBS Evening News” after the election, after five years at the helm. I know her tenure must have been both exhilarating and challenging — seeing a network anchor wearing lipstick and earrings might still be slightly jarring to those viewers who assume that authority figures have to look like Walter Cronkite.

I cheered Ms. O’Donnell as she carried out her duties with intelligence and grace. I was proud of the fact that she tackled topics that were especially important to women, such as sexual assault in the military, and that her work helped prompt the Pentagon to institute wide-ranging reforms. I appreciated her focus on the long-term effects of Covid on women. I watched her interview powerful women chief executives and the four highest-ranking women in the military, all of whom were four-star generals and admirals. I knew viewers were seeing these stories because Norah was the driving force behind telling them.

The same week Ms. O’Donnell revealed she would be leaving the anchor desk to focus on conducting high-profile interviews for CBS, the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics team was crushing it at the Paris Olympic Games. Like so many watching, I marveled at the incredible athleticism of these young women, as well as at their diversity. The team looked like America, and I found that exhilarating. Equally exciting was the fact that this was the first Olympics in history where there were as many women as men competing. We’ve come a long way. And I couldn’t stop watching an Instagram post of a 5-year-old Black gymnast on the balance beam in her living room, performing walkovers and dreaming of becoming an Olympian one day. Wow, I thought — this is why representation matters.

We’re also in the midst of a campaign that could result in the election of the first woman president, and first woman of color as president. It’s a potentially historic story — one that needs a diverse group of journalists covering it.

So it was more than a little disappointing to read that Ms. O’Donnell would be replaced by two men, John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois. Don’t get me wrong: I know, like and respect these two journalists. But soon, on the big three networks, there will be four male anchors. Yes, the talented Margaret Brennan will be contributing stories from the Washington bureau for CBS, but the two people who will be greeting Americans watching evening newscasts will be men.

More important, the three people behind the scenes, making most of the editorial decisions, will be three white men: Bill Owens, Guy Campanile and Jerry Cipriano. Mr. Cipriano was my right-hand writer during my tenure on “Evening News.” I loved working with him and he always had my back.