Norah O’Donnell, who has anchored CBS Evening News since 2019, signed off for the final time on Thursday. To mark the occasion, Oprah Winfrey narrated a highlights clip that praised her “incredible impact.”
The new two-man team of John Dickerson and Maurice Dubois will take over the evening slot beginning Monday. The broadcast, which had been based in Washington D.C., will return to New York, and Margaret Brennan will serve as lead correspondent from Washington, D.C.
O’Donnell will stay at the network as a senior correspondent, promising viewers that they’ll see her on CBS News programs including “60 Minutes” and “Sunday Morning.”
In July, O’Donnell shared a note with CBS staffers announcing her exit, “There’s so much work to be proud of! But I have spent 12 years in the anchor chair here at CBS News, tied to a daily broadcast and the rigors of a relentless news cycle. It’s time to do something different.”
“Norah will have the time and the support to deliver even more of the exceptional stories she is known for across our shows and streams, across CBS network and Paramount+,” president and CEO of CBS News Wendy McMahon added. “She will have the real estate and flexibility to leverage big bookings on numerous platforms.”
As she said her final good night Thursday, her CBS News colleagues gathered around her and applauded.
O’Donnell follows a short but powerful line of women who have helmed their own news broadcasts. In 1993, Connie Chung was the first woman to co-host a network news show: She was given second billing behind Dan Rather on “CBS Evening News With Dan Rather and Connie Chung,” which ran through 1995.
Over a decade later, in 2006, Katie Couric became the first woman to anchor a news program by herself. She hosted the CBS Evening News through 2011.
Over at ABC, Diane Sawyer served as the nightly news anchor for ABC World News Tonight from 2009 to 2014.
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