Stephen Battaglio - From Yesterday to TODAY: Six Decades of Americas Favorite Morning Show

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ISBN 978-0-7624-4462-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011939379

E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-4548-6

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Photo on page 209 courtesy of Katie Couric.

Photos on pages x, 180 (middle left), 180 (bottom left and bottom right), 215 (top left), 215 (top right), 232 (middle right and bottom middle), 241 (bottom two), and 268 courtesy of NBC News.

Photos on pages 236 (top right), 236 (middle two), 236 (bottom right), 237 (top left), 237 (top right), 237 (bottom right), 250 (top left) courtesy of Debra L. Rothenberg/rothenbergphoto.com.

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by Andrew Eccles/NBC.

We hope we can give you enough to stay with you for a long time.

Dave Garroway, January 15, 1952

by MATT LAUER

I REMEMBER WATCHING BILL CLINTON BEING interviewed as he traveled to Washington, D.C., to be sworn in as this nations 42nd president. When asked how he was feeling he replied, I feel like the dog thats been chasing the pick-up truck and all of the sudden I caught it! Now what?

I felt exactly the same way in 1996 when I got a phone call from the president of NBC telling me that he wanted me to become the next host of Today. Joy, excitement, shock, and fear all went through me at the same time. The dream of my professional life was coming true and a monumental challenge was about to begin.

Well here we are. Good morning to you. The very first good morning of what I hope and expect to be a great many good mornings between you and me. Here it is... January 14th, 1952, when NBC begins a new program called Today, and if it doesnt sound too revolutionary, I really believe this begins a new kind of television.

When Dave Garroway welcomed viewers to Today on that day in 1952, he ushered in a new era in broadcasting. And he changed the way Americans started their day.

The concept was simple yet dramatically different than anything that had appeared on the fledgling medium called television. It was a place where viewers could turn to each morning to satisfy their appetite for all things news and information. It was a destination for the curious to learn more about what had happened overnight and how the day ahead might shape up. And they would see and hear it all from the best storytellers in broadcasting.

I wasnt alive when Today debuted on that January morning, but five years later I would be born into what had already become a Today family. My parents raised me in a home where the likes of Garroway, Blair, Walters and Downs, Brokaw and Pauley, and Gumbel and Couric graced the screens.

Today become a part of my familys daily ritual. We sat mesmerized as the rich and powerful, the entertaining and the eccentric, the feared and the broken were questioned and held accountable. And yes, we were moved to tears by the suffering or simple kindness of total strangers.

And all before nine oclock in the morning!

Today shaped the way I viewed my surroundings. It put the news into context, and it did something else. It ignited a desire in me to find a way to become part of the shows unfolding history.

Like my own path to Today, the path the show has taken over these past sixty years has not always followed a straight line. There have been detours and bumps along the road, including missteps and mistakes. But those were always followed by times of reflection and correction. In this book television journalist and historian Stephen Battaglio has not spared us or you an examination of those episodes. This is not a story of broadcasting perfection. But I think youll agree that as Today reaches this milestone, it has managed to get more right than wrong. When we did fall, we got back up and in the game.

As you browse through these pages, I urge you to keep this in mind: In the past sixty years the world has changed in exciting, troubling, puzzling, and mind-blowing ways. We have all been witness to so much, perhaps even too much. There are very few things that remain the way they were when Today first went on the air. But despite all that change, the mission of the show has remained the sameto give you a window on the world, to bring you up to date and inform you, to prepare you for what the future may bring, and to offer a smile or two as a change of pace to what can be the stark realities of life.

We hope we have succeeded in delivering those promises.

Know too that we have had an absolute blast along the way. This job is a thrill ride that has opened doors for us all around the world. And we have gladly walked through them. Our bucket lists are left with very few unchecked items.

And one last thing. In the pages that follow you will see the faces and names of those of us who have been lucky enough to be the more visible employees of this formidable program. But make no mistake about it, we are not Today. We are just the high profile caretakers of this long-standing tradition. The handful of people like me, with classic good looks and thick luxurious heads of hair (sorry, the early hours have made me delirious), we are the television equivalent of the tip of the iceberg, the part you can see that gets too much of your attention.