Kate Couric to Esquire: 'Bite Me'

STICKS AND STONES Couric Katie Couric, thin-skinned? Maybe just a little. In the just-out January issue of Esquire, the first-ever female network anchor makes it clear that she reads her own press—and remembers it. "There are a lot of circling vultures that will eat you alive," she tells interviewer Tom Junod. "You guys even take a shot at me. You have something in the November issue, something about how since I've become an anchor, you don't know me anymore. You don't know me anymore? Bite me."

America's sweetheart is no fan of bloggers, either. "My younger daughter read something on some AOL blog, and it really bothered her," she says. "I said, 'When people say something like that, they're not talking about me as a person, they're talking about me as a commodity.'" (Perhaps—though it seems pretty certain it was Katie-the-person whom Alessandra Stanley called "downright scary" in the New York Times.)