CBS Evening News Confirms Norah O’Donnell’s Final Broadcast

Norah O’Donnell’s final broadcast at CBS Evening News has been announced. The longtime anchor announced in a statement in July that she’d be stepping down as anchor and editor after the 2024 presidential election “to take on a new position at the network.” At the time, it was unknown when exactly her exit would be, but according to Deadline, O’Donnell will be anchoring CBS Evening News for the final time on Jan. 23.

Her final date comes just three days after Donald Trump’s inauguration for his second term on Jan. 20. Her final day was initially set for Jan. 24, but CBS Sports will be covering the Farmers Insurance Open that day. While O’Donnell will no longer be anchoring CBS Evening News, her new role will see her as a senior correspondent and doing high-profile sit-down interviews. Following her exit, John Dickerson and Maurice DuBoi will become the lead anchors beginning Jan. 27 when CBS Evening News returns to New York after being in D.C. for five years.

After starting her career as a staff writer for Roll Call covering Congress, O’Donnell spent 12 years at NBC on Today, MSNBC, NBC News, MSNBC Live, and Weekend Today, among others. In 2011, she made the switch to CBS, becoming a co-anchor on CBS Mornings in 2012. In 2019, she became anchor and managing editor of CBS Evening News, and now she will once again be changing jobs.

In a statement at the time of her departure announcement, Norah O’Donnell said, “We just celebrated an amazing five years together. I love what I do, and I am so fortunate to work with the best journalists and people in the business. But I have spent 12 years in the anchor chair here at CBS News, connected to a daily broadcast and the rigors of a relentless news cycle. It’s time to do something different. This presidential election will be my seventh as a journalist, and for many of us in this business, we tend to look at our careers in terms of these milestone events.”

With O’Donnell departing in the new year, CBS Evening News will be entering a new era. At the very least, the longtime journalist will be sticking around on the network, just in a different capacity in a new role but it will surely be exciting to see what some of those “high-profile” interviews will be. She has certainly made an impact on CBS News and will continue to do so.