Inside was a small, extremely heavy hunk of metal, about the size of an antique Bible: a hard drive containing a digital copy of the thousands of videotapes my mother had been dragging around for years, the output of her and my father’s entire careers in journalism. 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? Read moreīut in the middle of a terrible year in American history, as hundreds of thousands of Americans struggled with illness, and millions of others like me were shut into a kind of forced reflection-the mailman delivered an unusual package from my mother. 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). And she charts her own survival from local reporter to globe-trotting foreign correspondent, running from her past. She recounts her complicated relationship with a father who was magnetic, ambitious, and, at times, frightening. 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. 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. Simpson’s notorious run in the white Bronco.

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. The box contained thousands of hours of video-the work of her pioneering helicopter journalist parents. 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.

“A stunning and revelatory memoir.” - Oprah Dailyįrom MSNBC anchor and instant New York Times bestselling author Katy Tur, a shocking and deeply personal memoir about a life spent chasing the news.

“It’s a hell of a story.” - The New York Times

Katy tur book