Katie Couric has interviewed foreign leaders and American presidents. She’s confronted former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke about his racism and the current Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman about Russia’s treatment of gays in Chechnya. She has had to ask ordinary citizens to describe their most traumatic, heartbreaking experiences, as she did when she interviewed the parents of a child killed during the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.

Now, she’s asking dudes about manscaping.

In a truly cringe-inducing video for InStyle.com, Couric approaches random strangers around New York City and asks them invasive, inappropriate questions, such as: “Do you watch porn?” “What’s the weirdest thing in your underwear drawer?” “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?”

This is humiliating. She’s an award-winning, world-famous journalist — and here she is, groveling for clicks.

The worst thing about this video is that it runs in conjunction with Couric’s excellent personal essay about the importance of asking questions.

Couric writes about how asking questions is the easiest way to engage the outside world. It allows us to connect with others and “explore the deepest part of the human condition.” She also writes that “in a toxic political environment rife with misinformation, it’s never been more important for all of us — reporters and citizens alike — to ask the tough questions at every turn.”

It bears noting that “Do you manscape?” is not a tough question.

There’s a difference between making people uncomfortable because you ask them a difficult, probing question and making them uncomfortable because you ask them an invasive, inappropriate one. Particularly in this “toxic political environment,” when people are told to view journalists — particularly mainstream journalists such as Couric — as the enemy.

Instead of having Couric go up to strangers and bothering them about their grooming or sex habits, perhaps InStyle should have implored her to ask people their thoughts about things that really matter: What do they want out of life? What scares them? How do they feel when someone attacks them online? Do they come from a family of immigrants? Do they know any trans people? Have they ever lost someone they loved?

What do they want out of life, our country, the world?

Instead, by having her ask these asinine questions, this video is a mockery of journalism and all of Couric’s accomplishments.