COVER STORY: Norah O'Donnell and Susan Zirinsky ready 'CBS Evening News' for the streaming wars
In late September, O’Donnell snared a much-coveted interview with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and immediately pressed him about the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashogghi, which the CIA concluded the crown prince ordered.
The move represents one of Zirinsky’s biggest bets. Since being named to the top role at the news division in January, the executive has shuffled anchors and top producers at both “Evening News” and “CBS This Morning,” and appointed just the third top executive at “60 Minutes” in the show’s half century on air. She inherited a news division with tenuous morale, due to allegations made about the behavior of “CBS This Morning” anchor Charlie Rose and “60 Minutes” chief Jeff Fager.
Washington is where David Brinkley held forth for NBC’s “Huntley-Brinkley Report.” But it has not been a home recently for any of the three broadcast news programs, and CBS is counting on O’Donnell to gain an access edge on rivals staying in New York. That hardly sounds like the gimmick to bring millions back to the 6:30 p.m.
Much of that will hinge on O’Donnell. Executives believe her years of experience covering the Pentagon, the White House and Capitol Hill will serve the broadcast well as it holds forth from the center of national action. “I felt that a changing of the guard on the evening news was necessary to really take the show in a harder direction. Jeff Glor was working his butt off. But I felt a sea change was necessary to change the dynamics.”Such tricks and switches are part of the Zirinsky mystique. She is a legendary producer who has been with CBS News since 1972, starting as a part-time desk assistant in the outlet’s Washington bureau just days after the Watergate scandal broke.
That has meant following an O’Donnell initiative: Never stop adding new details to stories. The anchor’s “Evening News” broadcast is peppered with phrases like “CBS News has learned,” and she has pressed the staff to find fresh elements they can unveil during the program. “Each of us gets the headlines on our phones, so how do we go beyond the headlines?” asks O’Donnell. “One of the things that has informed my own reporting is ‘Tell me something I don’t know.
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