Katie Couric.(television journalist follows the presidential elections)

Byline: Photographed by Alex Majoli. By Eve MacSweeney.

And why we love her: A reminder.

Aweek after the election, Katie Couric is feeling good. Sitting in the all-white reception room adjoining her office at CBS, she looks (because discuss her looks we must) buffed to a high polish: shiny blonde bob, apple-cheeked smile, crisp white shirt, sharp black pencil skirt, and smooth, honey-colored legs. She's allowing herself a certain satisfaction as she reflects on her recent accomplishments. After a series of outstanding political interviews, she helmed her first Election Night, guiding viewers calmly through the emerging results, using her live-TV experience to cope with the hurry-up-and-wait pace, fielding her team of commentators with generosity and skill before waltzing them through a postmortem Webcast until 3:00 A.M. "I feel relieved and happy that I was in charge of a presidential election for a major network and actually did a good job," she says, laughing. "That's sort of a feather in my cap. I feel confident, and I sort of always did. But it does help when people recognize your work."

The "milestone for this country," as she described the outcome at the polls, has been a milestone for Couric, too.

THE McCAIN EFFECT

This time around we don't begrudge Couric her high spirits. At 51, she has, after all, only recently emerged from an extended period as an exgolden girl. She describes her tenure to date as the CBS Evening News anchor, a position she took up in September 2006, as "almost like being John McCain, running for office in a really tough environment."

Not only is evening news in itself a beleaguered genre whose audiences have been fragmented by cable, the Internet, and lifestyle changes, but Couric has also had ample time to review the missteps that led to a barrage of criticism and falling ratings CBS Evening News takes third place among the networks and under Couric has lost more viewerswhen she attempted to shake up the formula in her tone, approach, and body language. Essentially, she says, it was too much too soon. "If I could do it again, I would do a more traditional newscast to start, and then start pushing at the edges. . . . " She can laugh now about audiences' responses to her in her new job"People were like, 'What happened to her? Did she have a lobotomy?' "but she is still puzzled by the harshness with which she was judged. "Going in, we said, We're going to try some different things . . . not thinking that if some of them didn't work, we would be almost vilified for trying." Most of all, she says, she was "surprised that I had to really prove myself again." On morning TV, after all, she conducted numerous hard-hitting political interviews with, among others, Bill Clinton (who "wagged his finger at me"), Ross Perot, and David Duke. It was as if all those years of tenacious work were dismissed as so much fluff and cooking tips.