Katie Couric sat down with the New Yorker for an in-depth interview and chatted about the difficulties she’s experienced in her transition from working on the Today show, to taking on the CBS Evening News. At the height of her frustration, she started slapping news editor Jerry Cipriano back in June when she found out that she’d have to use the word “sputum” on the air in a segment on tuberculosis. Katie’s strong distaste for the word caused her to react by slapping Cipriano’s arm “over and over and over again” reports a source, who witnessed the event.

“I sort of slapped him around,” Couric admits. “I got mad at him and said, ‘You can’t do this to me. You have to tell me when you’re going to use a word like that.’ I was aggravated, there’s no question about that.” (She adds that the pair made up, and the incident became a kind of running joke on the set.)

If I would have been there, I probably would have tried to get a chant of “News fight! News fight!” going. Cause you know, it’s especially sexy when news people go at it. It’s like hot, but dignified at the same time.

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