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Ann Curry Talks Best of Times and Worst of Times in Journalism

Former “Today” co-host Ann Curry departed NBC in 2015. As she prepares to return to television with her new PBS series “We’ll Meet Again,” she has a mixed view of the current state of television news.

“I rarely watch television broadcast, unless there’s something really breaking, something that’s happening that’s really happening,” Curry said Sunday at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills. When she does watch, she has no network preference. Of the state of TV journalism, she said, “I think we are in sort of the best of times and the worst of times. There has been some stunningly exemplary cases of journalism across the board, and there’s also been the opposite material that some may call journalism, but maybe we shouldn’t.”

Curry left NBC two years after her dramatic departure from “Today,” where she had bee a long-time fixture before being ousted shortly after a promotion to co-host. “We’ll Meet Again,” a six-part series that reunites people who have been affected by real-life events, is her first project since leaving the Peacock to start her own media company.

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Journalism is “heading towards a potential renaissance,” Curry said. But she warned against the conflation of news and opinion.

“It’s easy to talk about what you think about something, but it’s actually not what your job is,” Curry said. “Your job is to not tell people what to think. Your job is to tell people what they need to know so they can make their own decisions. And I think that as we are moving closer as we’re recognizing this, we are seeing examples of people reacting and doing amazing work. So I’m hopeful.”

Curry also contrasted her current work as an independent journalist with her time at NBC.

“I’m working on things that are meaningful more consistently,” she said. “I can do stories that matter more consistently. My projects are national, international. I’m working on things that I think the world needs. And to be honest with you, I hope I don’t sound too self important in saying that. But I’m trying, put it that way, to do stories that I think are needed now. And that’s actually been lovely. It’s been lovely to be inspired and to be able to direct my energies into things that matter.”

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