Katie Couric recalls radio station manager asking about her breast size
Katie Couric interned at a radio station after she graduated from college in 1979.
Katie Couric was stunned when a former manager made an inappropriate comment about her boobs.
The broadcaster interned at a radio station after graduating from college in 1979, and she was "taken aback" after the general manager said her breasts looked bigger compared to the last time they saw Katie.
On the latest episode of 31-year-old Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast, she recalled: "I graduated from college in 1979, and so I started working in television news in the early '80s.
"I was an intern at a radio station in Washington, and I walked in, I went back to say hello because I was graduating, and I was kind of trying to maintain relationships. I wasn't quite sure what I was gonna do.
"And the general manager of the station - I went and said hi, and he said, 'Are you on the pill?' And I said, 'Excuse me?' He said, 'Well, your breasts look much bigger than they did last summer.' Can you imagine? ...
"I remember my whole body - you know when something happens and you get hot?"
Katie, 69, faced more workplace sexism at CNN.
She remembered: "I walked into an executive kind of story meeting, a production meeting in the morning, and I was filling in for the producer who was on vacation.
"And I walked in, I don't know what they've been talking about, but [the male executive] said something like, 'That's not like Katie. She's been successful because of her hard work, her writing skills, and her breast size.'"
Katie noted that the instance happened at "a big table surrounded by male executives", and they were all "pretty young because CNN was kind of a bit of a startup back then."
She added: "And it was just so crazy."
Someone who had Katie's back was reporter Don Farmer, who died from complications related to progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare neurological disorder in April 2021 aged 82.
The author recounted: "I came back and I was so like flummoxed. I said, 'This just happened.' And he said, 'Sit down. We're going to write him a memo together.'
"And he got on his little Smith Corona typewriter, and together we wrote this memo saying, 'What you said to me was inappropriate, insulting, sexist, and totally unacceptable. I expect an apology immediately. If you do that, we can keep this between us.'"
Katie noted being unsure if there was a human resources department where she could report the situation.
Don helped her to "realise the importance of standing up for yourself".
She said: "But how great that my friend Don Farmer said, 'You do not have to put up with that. We are going to write him this memo.'
"I don't think I would have known what to do. And I mean, honestly, I am so grateful to him because not only did he help me in that moment, he helped me realise the importance of standing up for yourself.
"So it was a life lesson that extended way beyond that incident, and I really owe him a lot, and I've always really been grateful to him for that."
