CBS News anchor Norah O’Donnell will step down for her role as head of CBS Evening News after the 2024 election, the network announced on Tuesday. She’ll transition to a new role focused on interview specials across CBS platforms.
“We have a lot of work to do covering the most important election of our lifetime,” O’Donnell wrote to staff. “My final nights on the Evening News broadcast are still a long way away, and we will have plenty of time to celebrate our accomplishments.”
O’Donnell joined the program in 2019 after years as a White House correspondent and co-host of CBS This Morning. O’Donnell said on Tuesday she will still be on hand to lead CBS’ coverage of top news events and the 2024 election—“and hopefully a debate!”—but that she wanted a change in her life.
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“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,” she wrote. “It’s time to do something different.”
CBS News President and CEO Wendy McMahon praised O’Donnell in her own note to staff, commending her for her historic interview with Pope Francis earlier this year.
“The fact is…Norah’s superpower is her ability to secure and then masterfully deliver unparalleled interviews and stories that set the news cycle and capture the cultural zeitgeist,” McMahon wrote. “From her global exclusive with Pope Francis to her interviews with every living president, Norah’s newsmaking interviews always deliver for the audience.”
McMahon said she would announce plans for CBS Evening News “soon,” though she noted that O’Donnell would still remain in the anchor chair through the election.
“We look forward to Norah’s ongoing coverage of this important political cycle,” McMahon wrote.
