On July 15 at 6:30 p.m., Norah O’Donnell becomes the next anchor of the brand-defining CBS Evening News. It’s still a heady perch — one once occupied by Walter Cronkite during seminal moments in history (the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Vietnam). But it’s also one with many challenges in the always-on Trump-tweet fueled news cycle.
CBS News president Susan Zirinsky entered the top job at the news division with an unshakable belief that O’Donnell, an aggressive and insightful broadcaster who has an instinct for news-making interviews, was the right person for the job. And so it is the second big anchor shake-up at the division, with Gayle King now the linchpin of CBS This Morning alongside co-anchors Anthony Mason and Tony Dokoupil.
O’Donnell has recounted a congratulatory phone call from Oprah Winfrey who told her the Evening News is O’Donnell’s “supreme destiny.”
“There are so few women who get to speak about the world to the world,” Winfrey told her, according to O’Donnell. “And you are now one of those people.”
With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing on July 20, the timing of the premiere installment of the CBS Evening News With Norah O’Donnelloffers an opportunity to remind viewers of the division’s legacy. This week’s broadcast will included O’Donnell’s sit-down with Caroline Kennedy and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose company Blue Origin is working to send humans to the moon. And on Tuesday, O’Donnell will anchor the program live from the Kennedy Space Center, the same location where Cronkite broadcast 50 years ago. On that day, the show will also include O’Donnell’s interview with three female pioneers of Apollo 11; engineers Joann JoAnn Morgan and Poppy Northcutt and MIT scientist Margaret Hamilton, who helped program the Apollo 11 lunar module for landing anticipating some of the problems that would occur and did occur just before landing. At 10 p.m, O’Donnell will also anchor a one-hour primetime special Man on the Moon, which weaves together Cronkite’s coverage of the moon landing along with Neil Armstrong’s narrative in an experiential film.
Despite its storied history, the CBS Evening News has been mired in the third place in the nightly news race for more than 20 years. This season, the show is averaging 6 million viewers each night while ABC’s World News Tonight With David Muir is the most-watched newscast with 8.7 million, followed by NBC’s Nightly News With Lester Holt at 8.1 million. Clearly improving the show’s ratings is a goal, says Zirinsky, a four-decade veteran of CBS News. “But the most important part to me is the strength of the journalism.”
O’Donnell’s broadcast will have new music and graphics, while relying heavily on the network’s corps of correspondent. O’Donnell also will take the Profiles in Service franchise — which highlights the work of armed services members — that she originated on CBS This Morning to the Evening News. (Her father was a military doctor and her sister Mary also serves as a military physician.)
O’Donnell’s CBS Evening News will originate from the CBS News broadcast center in New York until late fall when it moves to its permanent home, Washington, D.C. O’Donnell, 45, will live in D.C. with her husband, chef Geoff Tracy, and their three children, 12-year-old twins and an 11-year-old. Kim Godwin, executive vp CBS News and Zirinksy’s number two, will serve as the show’s executive producer until the show moves to Washington. O’Donnell, who is also managing editor of the broadcast, will have a say in choosing her executive producer, says Zirinsky.
O’Donnell’s ascendency to the job may be significant on a gender level; she is only the third woman to have one of the nightly news broadcasts to herself after Katie Couric’s tenure at CBS and Diane Sawyer’s at ABC. But perhaps more important for CBS News, O’Donnell may offer the stability the broadcast has lacked in recent years. Scott Pelley, who seemed well-suited for the role at the outset, was ousted in May 2017 after the previous management regime soured on him. There was no anchor transition in place; Mason spent months filling in until Jeff Glor bowed in December 2017, with scant promotional and marketing efforts. Glor endured persistent rumors about his hold on the job and left last May, days after Zirinsky announced the sweeping anchors changes to the morning and evening newscasts.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter
