Is this even POSSIBLE?
"There are very few people who are able to deliver a trustworthy broadcast without point of view," says CBS News president Susan Zirinsky. "That’s who we want to be.”
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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’Donnell offers 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.
"There are very few people who are able to deliver a trustworthy broadcast without point of view," says CBS News president Susan Zirinsky. "That’s who we want to be.”
news.jpg
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’Donnell offers 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.
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