Norah O’Donnell will step down from the venerable “CBS Evening News” after the 2024 presidential election in favor of a new role as a senior correspondent who will seek out big interviews and opportunities for deeper reporting, the latest major shakeup at CBS News after its merger with parent company Paramount Global’s domestic television operations.
O’Donnell, who recently celebrated her fifth year as a news anchor, sees the opportunity to interview top newsmakers — something that has proven attractive to her after stints as a morning news co-anchor, an evening newscast host and her recent sit-down with Pope Francis earlier this year.
“Together, our team has won Emmys, Murrow and DuPont Awards. We’ve been able to deliver the show in the studio during the COVID pandemic; we’ve broadcast on the road from aircraft carriers to the Middle East and around the world. We’ve been fortunate to have a historic interview with Pope Francis,” O’Donnell said in a memo sent to staff Tuesday. “There’s a lot to be proud of! But I’ve spent 12 years as an anchor here at CBS News, tied to a daily broadcast and the rigors of a relentless news cycle. It’s time to do something different. This will be my seventh presidential election as a journalist, and for many of us in this business, we tend to look at our careers in terms of these important events.”
O’Donnell will continue to anchor all of CBS News’ coverage leading up to the 2024 elections, including the Democratic National Convention, Election Night and more. In her new role, O’Donnell will continue to contribute to “Evening News,” “60 Minutes” and other CBS News programs. The new arrangement is understood to be part of a long-term commitment between the anchor and CBS News to each other.
Still, the maneuver is part of a parade of transformations at CBS News in recent months. The national newsgathering operation was merged with CBS’s stations in 2021, and late last year was further consolidated under Wendy McMahon, who also oversees CBS’s syndicated business. In July, Ingrid Cibrian Matthews, a veteran journalism executive who was named president of Paramount Global’s news unit last August, told employees she was stepping down in favor of consulting duties; CBS has yet to name her replacement. Paramount Global, a troubled media company that agreed to sell to Skydance Media, is widely understood to be looking for ways to cut costs across the company.
Under McMahon’s leadership, CBS News has focused more seriously on leveraging national and local journalists for broader coverage, and recently unveiled a new live-streaming concept that relies on contributions from CBS News journalists and newsrooms at various CBS-owned local stations.
McMahon sees O’Donnell’s transformation as a potential help in her broader efforts. “Noura’s greatest strength is her ability to secure and deliver unparalleled interviews and stories that define the news cycle and capture the cultural zeitgeist,” McMahon said in a memo. “How many people can easily go from fieldwork on an aircraft carrier in the Red Sea to sitting down with Bono and Dolly Parton? Noura’s work here is legendary, and she has several key interviews in the pipeline that will be unforgettable and momentous.”
In some ways, the move mimics another one by ABC News, which groomed Diane Sawyer as a kind of roving reporter who could take on stories and interviews that were news in their own right, but weren’t necessarily tied to the straight news cycle.
O’Donnell’s work on “CBS Evening News” has been recognized by many arbiters of good journalism. She has long investigated how the military investigates allegations of sexual harassment and abuse; her father and sister both served in the U.S. military.
Meanwhile, the widely popular program associated with Walter Cronkite has been in third place behind ABC’s “World News Tonight” and NBC’s “NBC Nightly News” for decades. CBS News executives have considered alternatives to the program in the past. O’Donnell moved the program to Washington, D.C., from its longtime headquarters in New York City, in an effort to cover the country’s turbulent political cycle more closely.
While ABC News and CBS News have for years bolstered evening newscasts anchored by Sawyer and David Muir or Brian Williams and Lester Holt, CBS News is still working to improve its behind-the-desk talent. Since Dan Rather left in 2005, CBS has hired Bob Schieffer, Katie Couric, Harry Smith, Scott Pelley, Anthony Mason and Jeff Glor.
CBS News has not announced a replacement for O’Donnell — and it is widely believed that the network is not inclined to appoint a single heir. Among those considered as possible successors are Margaret Brennan, host of “Face the Nation,” or Major Jarrett, the Washington correspondent, both of whom occasionally fill in for O’Donnell when he is away or on assignment; James Brown, host of “NFL Today” and CBS News special correspondent, who also occasionally fills in for him; or Jerrica Duncan or Adriana Diaz, weekend anchors.