Next Question with Katie Couric

Latest Episodes:

Julia Haart’s unbelievable journey from communist Russia, to strict Orthodox community, to jet-setting fashion designer Apr 14, 2022

Show notes

If you’ve binged much TV this pandemic, you might have happened upon a new reality TV show on Netflix called “My Unorthodox Life.” The show is centered around Julia Haart, a high-powered CEO and fashion designer with a penchant for short skirts and sky-high heels. In between design meetings and runway shows, Julia is also seen managing her growing — and grown up — kids, in a straight-talking, cool-mom kind of way. Their lives appear glitzy, fashionable, busy, and champaign-filled. But it’s a far cry from the world Julia left in 2013. Until she was 40 years old, Julia lived in an extreme ultra Orthodox Jewish community in upstate New York. If you’ve ever watched the show and wondered how this all happened, Julia is finally sharing her full story in her memoir, Brazen, which is out now. On this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie finds out how Julia went from a communist Russian childhood, to married off at 19 and living under the strict rules of her Orthodox community, to jet-setting, designing shoes and dresses for celebrities and, up until a few months ago, being the head of Elite World Group, one of the largest global modeling agencies. It’s a journey you really have to hear for yourself.

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Mackenzie Fierceton: ‘Abuse can happen across all income levels and races and professions’ Apr 07, 2022

Show notes

This week, Katie shares an intimate conversation with Mackenzie Fierceton, the 24-year-old subject of a lengthy, riveting and much-shared profile in the New Yorker written by Rachel Aviv. Mackenzie grew up as a star student in a St. Louis suburb where she lived with her mother, a prominent local radiologist. Behind the facade of her seemingly privileged life though, Mackenzie was allegedly being abused by her mother and her mother’s boyfriend. After one particularly violent episode, she ended up in the hospital for 22 days and was placed in foster care. Mackenzie eventually won a full scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania and a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford…and that’s when her story took yet another turn. After facing accusations that her depiction of her past was inaccurate, Mackenzie lost her Rhodes scholarship and is now in the midst of a legal battle with Penn. Beyond the specifics of Mackenzie’s harrowing story though, her experience raises a lot of questions about the thorny politics of higher education, our assumptions about race and class regarding abuse, and so much more. A word of caution to our listeners – Katie’s conversation with Mackenzie touches on themes of physical and sexual abuse, which may be difficult for some listeners.

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Bonus: Digging deep on the war in Ukraine with The Daily co-host Sabrina Tavernise Apr 02, 2022

Show notes

For this bonus episode, I’m excited to share my conversation with New York Times journalist and The Daily co-host, Sabrina Tavernise. Sabrina recently spent three weeks in Ukraine and has delivered a series of dispatches offering a searing glimpse of what life is like there right now on the frontlines. Her time in the region actually extends all the way back to the 1990s when she first made her way to Russia as a freelance journalist and then as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times based in Moscow. So much of the coverage of the war in Ukraine concentrates on the day to day, but I really wanted to take advantage of Sabrina’s rich perspective and sophisticated understanding of the region. So, for this conversation, we dug deep and covered everything from what life was like in Russia just after the wall came down and Putin’s rise to power to how Russians today perceive this war and how things might play out in the months ahead. I hope you enjoy our talk as much as I did….(oh, and if you hear barking, Sabrina’s dog Clementine also made an appearance!)

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Adam Scott is as delightful as you think he is Mar 31, 2022

Show notes

Adam Scott is a familiar face, having starred in some truly bingeable TV, including “Parks and Rec,” the cult-fave “Party Down,” “Big Little Lies,” and now the psychological thriller, “Severance” from Apple TV. Adam is one of those actors you feel like you know. But going into this conversation, Katie realized she didn’t really know anything about him. On this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie and Adam talk about his cuss-loving hippie mom, his fondness for forts, and his youthful, almost delusional, drive to become an actor. They dive into the uncanny timeliness of “Severance” and also go back to Adam’s youth and his Harrison Ford ah ha moment. No doubt, you’ll come away loving Adam Scott just as much as you thought you did.

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Amanda Seyfried on becoming the unknowable Elizabeth Holmes Mar 24, 2022

Show notes

We may be in the golden age of true crime television. Our latest obsession? The Silicon scammer. The bad entrepreneur. The failing founder. From “Super Pumped” (about Uber founder Travis Kalanick), to “We Crashed” (about WeWork founder Adam Neumann), to “The Dropout” (about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes), it seems audiences can’t get enough of the heart-pounding rise and gut-punching fall of these brilliant, young, white, mostly male moguls. On this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie explores what it was like to become one of the more enigmatic tech billionaires, Elizabeth Holmes. “I got to go to work everyday and play this enigma and then go home to my family,” says Amanda Seyfried who stars as Holmes in the Hulu series, “The Dropout,” based on the podcast of the same name. Amanda and Katie talk about nailing the look, reaching the depths of Elizabeth’s voice, and how Amanda found ways to identify with the now-convicted, former Theranos founder.

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Reshma Saujani on why there’s no better time to redesign the workplace for women Mar 17, 2022

Show notes

When Reshma Saujani started Girls Who Code in 2012, she was on a mission to close the gender gap in technology. Now, she’s on a new mission: to bridge the support gap for women and bring more moms back to the workforce. “Women are in crisis. And I think we realized that no one is coming to save us,” Reshma says. On this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Reshma Soujani talks about her new book, “Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work and Why It’s Different Than You Think.” They talk about the origin story of the book, the state of women’s professional progress, the impact the pandemic has had on their careers, mental health, and lives, and why there’s no time like the present to redesign the workplace. “Never waste a good crisis,” Reshma says.

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Long COVID deep dive, Part 2: ‘I hope someone with the power to change something is listening’ Mar 11, 2022

Show notes

In part 2 of Next Question’s deep dive into long COVID, Katie tries to get some answers. Why is the healthcare system so routinely dismissing the experiences of long COVID sufferers? Why is it so difficult to get care? What does the long COVID community need? And what is the government doing about it? On this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric, Katie unpacks the systemic issues that are impeding patients’ care and conveys the urgent needs of the long COVID community to elected officials.

More about the groups and resources mentioned in this episode:

More about some of the guests mentioned in this episode:

Yale Prof. Dr. Akiko Iwasaki (Twitter)
Yale Prof. Dr. Harlan Krumholz (Twitter)
Chimére L. Smith
Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason, Aphro Chic
ABOUT - AphroChic | Modern Soulful Style
Diana Berrent, Survivor Corps

More information on long COVID:

The CARES for Long COVID Act
Yale researchers unlock secrets through study of long-term effects of COVID [Yale Daily News]
Is long COVID worsening the labor shortage [The Brookings Institute]
Science and tech spotlight: Long COVID [The Government Accountability Office]

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Long COVID deep dive, Part 1: ‘You need to grieve the life you thought you were going to live’ Mar 10, 2022

Show notes

Two years after COVID came to this country and shut it — and the world — down, Americans are eager to move on from this historic and devastating pandemic. The United States alone has lost close to one million people and nearly 80-million Americans have been infected with the virus. While we’re all understandably sick of COVID-19, some of us are still just sick. Experts say long COVID is an alarming “parallel pandemic” and one that is not getting the attention or urgency it needs. By some estimates, as many as half of people infected with COVID-19 will face lingering symptoms. And yet, long COVID is still so unknown. On this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric — part 1 of a two-part series — Katie attempts to understand long COVID — what it is, what it can do to the body, who is affected, and how it is upending lives.

More about the groups and resources mentioned in this episode

More about some of the guests mentioned in this episode

Yale Prof. Dr. Akiko Iwasaki [Twitter]
Yale Prof. Dr. Harlan Krumholz [Twitter]
Chimére L. Smith
Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason [Aphro Chic]
Diana Berrent, Survivor Corps

More information on long COVID

The CARE for Long COVID Act
The COVID-19 Long Haulers Act
Yale researchers unlock secrets through study of long-term effects of COVID [Yale Daily News]
Is long COVID worsening the labor shortage [The Brookings Institute]
Science and tech spotlight: Long COVID [The Government Accountability Office]

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Jessica Chastain is taking control of the story Mar 03, 2022

Show notes

The new season of Next Question with Katie Couric launches with a satisfying dive into the movie industry with the brilliant Jessica Chastain. Jessica is up for another Oscar for her transformative performance in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. And in this intimate conversation, the pair talk about how Jessica broke into an industry that had “no idea what to do with [her],” the “acting Godfather” who helped her, and how she spent decades getting Tammy Faye to screen (and how she perfected that signature look and sound). Katie and Jessica also discuss the pervasiveness of the movie industry’s boys club, Jessica’s personal fight for gender equality, and how the movie business is evolving — and the ways it still needs to.

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Sneak peek at an all new season! Feb 24, 2022

Show notes

After diving deep into Katie’s past last season, with the release of her memoir, “Going There,” Next Question with Katie Couric is taking its new season into the future. With her signature curiosity, Katie explores some of the biggest and most pressing questions of the moment, from what the future of women and work looks like, to how tech can help inspire sobriety, and what is the metaverse anyway? With the help of some of her favorite people, from actors and authors to scientists and activists, Katie investigates how our historic present can help us live — and be — better. New season starts March 3, 2022.

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