Rough Draft: A Memoir

by Katy Tur

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

What makes Katy Tur tick and how does she write she such a cracking, great story? Indelible parental input? Determination and daring? A lot of heart, empathy and retrospection? These and certainly more make Rough Draft a riveting play-by-play of this journalist’s life, in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“It’s a hell of a story.” —The New York Times
“A stunning and revelatory memoir.” —Oprah Daily

From MSNBC anchor and instant New York Times bestselling author Katy Tur, a shocking and deeply personal memoir about a life spent chasing the news.

When a box from her mother showed up on Katy Tur’s doorstep, months into the pandemic and just as she learned she was pregnant with her second child, she didn’t know what to expect. The box contained thousands of hours of video—the work of her pioneering helicopter journalist parents. They grew rich and famous for their aerial coverage of Madonna and Sean Penn’s secret wedding, the Reginald Denny beating in the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and O.J. Simpson’s notorious run in the white Bronco. To Tur, these family videos were an inheritance of sorts, and a reminder of who she was before her own breakout success as a reporter.

In Rough Draft, Tur writes about her eccentric and volatile California childhood, punctuated by forest fires, earthquakes, and police chases—all seen from a thousand feet in the air. She recounts her complicated relationship with a father who was magnetic, ambitious, and, at times, frightening. And she charts her own survival from local reporter to globe-trotting foreign correspondent, running from her past. Tur also opens up for the first time about her struggles with burnout and impostor syndrome, her stumbles in the anchor chair, and her relationship with CBS Mornings anchor Tony Dokoupil (who quite possibly had a crazier childhood than she did).

Intimate and captivating, Rough Draft explores the gift and curse of family legacy, examines the roles and responsibilities of the news, and asks the question: To what extent do we each get to write our own story?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982118181
Publisher:	Atria/One Signal Publishers
Publication date:	06/14/2022
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	34,084
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Katy Tur is the anchor of Katy Tur Reports on MSNBC, a correspondent for NBC Nightly News, and the author of the New York Times bestseller Unbelievable. Tur is the recipient of a 2017 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism. She lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Prologue 1

Chapter 1 "I've Decided to Become a Woman" 7

Chapter 2 "Like an Angel" 15

Chapter 3 "How Dare You. I'm Your Daughter" 37

Chapter 4 "You're Bob Tur's Kid" 53

Chapter 5 "Princess" 65

Chapter 6 "Bob Tur Is Dead" 83

Chapter 7 "Send Me Now!" 95

Chapter 8 "Zis Ees Not What We Do en France" 107

Chapter 9 "I Hear You Have a Crazy Father Too" 125

Chapter 10 "Now the Fun Begins" 143

Chapter 11 "Thinks She Is Cronkite" 161

Chapter 12 "She Left? … She Left" 173

Chapter 13 "KatyTur, Go Home!" 179

Chapter 14 "Fake News Anchor" 185

Chapter 15 "We've Got to Get Him Out Now" 193

Chapter 16 "Can I See Your Nipples?" 203

Chapter 17 "It's Gonna Be Great" 215

Chapter 18 "Happy New Year!" 225

Chapter 19 "Are We Going to Keep Our Jobs?" 229

Chapter 20 "Congratulations! Today Is Your Day" 233

Epilogue 247

Acknowledgments 255

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/18/2022

MSNBC journalist Tur (Unbelievable) returns with a high-flying account of her unconventional, globe-trotting life in journalism. As the daughter of helicopter journalists Bob and Marika Tur, who famously captured both the O.J. chase and the Reginald Denny beating, Tur lived an extravagant youth in the 1990s. But it was far from stable; while her dashing dad was “always the hero,” she writes, he was also a threatening man known for his violent fits of rage and abuse—“It’s a miracle you can walk straight,” a news director later told Tur after realizing who she was. As her parents’ star fell in the aughts, Tur eclipsed them, rising from the Weather Channel in 2009 (“My prep work involved... watching the movie Twister”) to working as a foreign correspondent and eventually landing her own show on MSNBC. In writing that’s by turns introspective and bitingly funny (“Journalism is the world’s best career for avoiding your own problems”), she offers readers a candid look at her growth as both an anchor, learning to hold “power to account,” and as an individual finding her way through life’s vicissitudes—from supporting her father through their gender transition to parenting her own children with CBS Mornings coanchor Tony Dokoupil. Fans will find it a thrilling ride. (June)

Publishers Weekly

05/06/2022

MSNBC anchor Tur (Unbelievable) delivers a raw look inside her childhood and career in this deeply personal memoir. Raised by the creators of Los Angeles News Network, Tur's earliest memories are following her parents to cover breaking news in their helicopter. Despite the early success of the Turs, who pioneered capturing news from the air, including filming O.J. Simpson's car chase and Los Angeles riots, her childhood is filled with fits of domestic violence and the unpredictability of a life lived following the 24/7 news cycle. As an adult, Tur follows in her parents' footsteps, becoming a foreign correspondent and news anchor. Despite her professional success, Tur battles impostor syndrome and discusses her struggles with mental health and motherhood with candor. In addition, Tur provides her perspective on the fraught relationship she shares with her father. Readers will be drawn in by the exciting adventures of the Turs and will keep reading to cheer Tur on in her personal and professional journeys. VERDICT Memoir readers will be captivated by Tur's story.—Mattie Cook

Library Journal

2022-04-06
The award-winning MSNBC anchor reflects on her career and on the journalist parents who inspired her.

Tur spent her childhood watching her parents build the Los Angeles News Service, a “scrappy little company that covered big, breaking news stories.” While her mother, Marika, shot all the footage, her father, Bob, was “the brand.” A charismatic thrill-seeker, Bob piloted the LANS news helicopter to “scoop the competition” on news events like the 1992 Reginald Denny beating and the 1994 O.J. Simpson car chase. But behind the scenes, Tur also witnessed Bob physically abuse Marika. The adrenaline-fueled aggression her father used to build LANS led to its downfall and to a period of drug abuse, erratic behavior, divorce, and his eventual declaration that he was trans. Seeking to distance herself from the family business, Tur dismissed all thoughts of becoming a journalist until the events of 9/11 inspired her to be a witness to events unfolding in New York. After college, a temporary newsroom job led to a meeting with MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann and a move to New York, where their relationship became tabloid fodder. “I paid a price for that relationship,” she writes in her characteristically honest way. “When media reporters found out that Keith was living with a twenty-three-year-old, I became, in tabloid-speak, the bimbo.” A job at the Weather Channel brought her into unexpected contact with Brian Williams and marked the start of her own professional ascent. As her star rose, the problems with her father—now called Zoey—exploded. Unwilling to acknowledge the hurt she caused her family, Zoey instead made their relationship troubles public to extract “a public declaration of love and forgiveness” in the press and live once again in the public eye. As the author probes the pain behind a storied career, she offers unvarnished insights into the fast-moving, often unforgiving world of high-powered journalism.

A colorfully candid memoir from a dedicated journalist.

Kirkus Reviews

A stunning and revelatory memoir.”
—Oprah Daily

“Heart-wrenching...Deeply layered.”
– Daily Mail

From the Publisher