Katcher was born in Bayonne, New Jersey in 1911; he had two younger sisters and two younger brothers. He received his first newspaper job from the "Bayonne Evening News" at the age of ten; he was hired as an office boy in exchange for his promise to stop hitting handballs off the side of the paper's offices. After being educated at Pennsylvania and NYU, and working for the "Philadelphia Ledger" and "Philadelphia Record", he went to work for the "Post", rising to the position of city editor. While working for the "Post", he obtained an exclusive jailhouse interview with Bruno Hauptmann, who was executed for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby.