Ashleigh Banfieldis responding to a leaked section ofKatie Couric’s upcoming memoir that detailed Couric’s thoughts on Banfield when they both worked at NBC.
Couric admitted to feeling like she needed to “protect my turf” while on the morning news show, where she worked from 1991 through 2006, and shared that she was aware “someone younger and cuter was always around the corner,” naming Banfield as an example.
“I have to say I was pretty stunned to find out what Katie wrote, first I was scared, then I was surprised,” Banfield, who was an NBC correspondent in the early 2000s, said on herNewsNation showWednesday night.
“Let’s just be clear here, I was a bit of a peon at MSNBC back in 2000 when I first met Katie Couric and she was the queen of television and nobody was better than Katie,” she continued.
Katie Couric and Ashleigh Banfield.Rich Fury/VF20/Getty; Lars Niki/Getty
Banfield read out some of the portions ofGoing Therethat mentioned her, noting that she wanted to “correct the record” on one section where Couric referenced Banfield’s father.
“For a minute there, Ashleigh Banfield was the next big thing; I’d heard her father was telling anyone who’d listen that she was going to replace me. In that environment, mentorship sometimes felt like self-sabotage,” Couric wrote, perDaily Mail.
“I want to correct the record here, because you went after my dad, that’s just not true,” Banfield said in response. “When I was in Afghanistan, there were a lot of reports about it being a very dangerous assignment and aNew York Postreporter got the home phone number of my father who was near 80 and extremely senile and living in a care home.”
She continued, “They got his landline and they called him and said ‘Are you afraid for your daughter?’ to which he said ‘Yes and I think NBC should bring her home and give her a desk job like Katie’s.’ That is a far cry from being able to even leave that facility, let alone telling anyone who would listen. So that hurt my feelings deeply and I hope Ms. Couric corrects the record on that.”
“I remember thinking I want to be just like her,” Banfield said. “There’s so much that I learned from Katie Couric, and I’ll be honest with you, it saddens me that we couldn’t collaborate, it saddens me that she didn’t want to mentor me. I wasn’t that much younger than Katie, quite frankly, I think we could have had a really good working relationship together, I wish I had that.”
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She also said that, in her view, “mentoring women in this business is one of the best investments.”
“In the early 90s, I remember thinking, ‘Why do women think there’s no room at the top?’ They all think it’s this apex that you’re just going to get boinked right off of if anybody dares to climb higher, but the truth is it is massive — there is a giant space, a big flat spot right at the top, where we can all lift each other up and help each other out,” she said.
“I have never, ever found that that policy of helping other women, younger than me, who might even be in my newsroom and maybe take my job, has ever come back to bite me — never once,” Banfield continued. “The opposite has happened. I am a better journalist today for all the young women who I worked with, who I gave advice to, it came back to me in spades and it will come back to you in spades as well.”
“I wish nothing but the best for Katie Couric, she remains my number one female television journalist of all time,” she concluded. “She’s a trailblazer, I think other people should look at her and the guts that it took to be spunky and awesome and natural and authentic and I wish her really well in life.”
Banfieldon NewsNation airs weekdays at 10 p.m. ET.
source: people.com
