The News Sorority: Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, Christiane Amanpour—and the (Ongoing, Imperfect, Complicated) Triumph of Women in TV News

This unwieldy triple biography has an ambitious scope and ample shortcomings. The account of the ascents of three powerful women in the male-dominated realm of network news adds to the history of the waning era of conventional broadcasting, but the blend of insider gossip, lists of successful interviews, and often fawning, awkward prose makes it slow going. The Sawyer-Couric professional rivalry is at the heart of the book, and the smoothest narrative of this large work is the story of how Couric beat out Sawyer to become the first solo female anchor of a nightly newscast, CBS’s Evening News, in 2006. There’s glamour aplenty in Amanpour’s cross-cultural background, Couric’s rise to daytime stardom, and Sawyer’s striking presence in her early career and marriage to film director Mike Nichols. As a biographer, Weller (Girls Like Us) never really bridges her distance from her subjects, and she fails to explain the conventions of successful television news until halfway through the book. The best insights come from interviews with the legions of producers, writers and camera people who back up the on-camera talent. (Sept.)