Deborah Norville

Early life

Deborah Norville was born in Dalton, Georgia. Norville won her town’s local Junior Miss contest, a beauty contest for high school senior girls. Her talent was sewing. Norville went on to represent Georgia in the 1976 America’s Junior Miss pageant. She did not win but credits seeing the behind-the-scenes work of the CBS Television production team as inspiring her to switch her career goal from law to television journalism.

Education

Deborah Norville is a graduate of the University of Georgia. She graduated summa cum laude in three years with a perfect 4.0 grade point average and was named a First Honor Graduate and elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism degree. While at the University of Georgia, she served on the Main Court of the University’s Student Judiciary and was a member of Delta Delta Delta Sorority.

Early career

Deborah Norville began her television career while still a college student. She received an internship through Georgia Public Television, where she worked on The Lawmakers, a nightly program covering the Georgia General Assembly. She was spotted by an executive of WAGA-TV in Atlanta who offered her a summer internship. As Norville recalled, “The third day they were short on reporters and they asked me to cover a news story.” She reported that evening on the six o’clock news and was later offered a weekend reporting position during her senior year in college. In January 1979, she conducted a live interview with President Jimmy Carter.

Norville joined WAGA-TV as a full-time reporter after graduating and was named weekend anchor in October 1979. In 1982, she was hired as a reporter and later anchor by WMAQ-TV, the NBC owned station in Chicago. In 1986, when it was announced Norville would be joining NBC News in New York, Mayor Harold Washington declared “Deborah Norville Week” in Chicago.

NBC News

Deborah Norville joined NBC News in January 1987 as anchor of NBC News at Sunrise, becoming the only solo female anchor of a network newscast. Ratings on Sunrise jumped 40% when she joined the program, which led to her being asked to occasionally substitute on NBC’s Today Show. In August 1989, a documentary in which Norville was the primary host, Bad Girls, on violent teenaged girls, was the seventh most watched show the week it aired, according to Nielsen ratings.

In September 1989, Norville was named news anchor on Today. Soon after, Today co-host Jane Pauley announced her desire to leave the Today Show, and Norville was named her successor. Pauley went on to host a primetime show, Real Life with Jane Pauley. Norville became co-host of Today in January 1990. During her tenure on Today, she won an Emmy award for her role in NBC’s coverage of the democratic uprising in Romania. Ratings on Today declined after Norville’s arrival. NBC management was accused of mishandling the transition. One insider told People magazine, “NBC handled the whole situation in a very poor manner. I don’t think she (Deborah) blames anyone in particular. I just think she feels the situation was handled unprofessionally – in an undignified manner for both her and Jane.” After Norville took maternity leave on the birth of her first child, she did not return to the program.

ABC Network Radio

In May 1991, ABC TalkRadio Networks announced Deborah Norville would be hosting a prime time program, broadcast from her homes in New York and Long Island. The Deborah Norville Show: From Her Home to Yours featured newsmaker interviews and listener calls. It ran from September 1991 to October 1992, when Norville joined CBS News to resume her television career.

Return to television

Deborah Norville returned to television in October 1992, when she joined CBS News as a correspondent. She reported for Street Stories and 48 Hours, for which she won her second Emmy award for coverage of the Mississippi floods of 1994. She was later assigned to the CBS Evening News and named co-anchor with Dana King of America Tonight, a primetime news magazine. From 1993-1995, Norville was a semiregular anchor of the CBS Sunday Evening News, which had been vacant since Connie Chung was elevated to co-anchor of the CBS Evening News.

In 1995, Norville was named anchor of Inside Edition, a syndicated newsmagazine, a position she continues to hold. In March 2015, the show celebrated her 20th anniversary on the program, noting that she was now the longest serving female anchor on national television. Among Norville’s reports were her reports from the Davidson County, North Carolina jail, billed as the "toughest in America"; her interview with Paula Jones, whose accusation of sexual harassment by then-President Bill Clinton led to the Monica Lewinsky scandal and impeachment proceedings; and her series of "jobs", notably the song she wrote and performed, “Keep On Movin.” Set to music written by noted producer Junior Vasquez, Norville wrote the lyrics, a challenge she described in O, The Oprah Magazine. “The strength from meeting that challenge”, she said, “is still with me. It’s the boost you get from accomplishing something you never dreamed you could do”.

In 2003, MSNBC announced Deborah Norville was joining its primetime line up to host a 9pm program. She left Deborah Norville Tonight in 2005, citing the challenge of juggling her Inside Edition and MSNBC duties along with family responsibilities.

In 2015, Knit and Crochet Now!, a craft show seen on public television, announced the appointment of Deborah Norville as host of its upcoming season.

Publishing

Alongside her television career, Norville has frequently moonlighted as a writer. She served as a contributing editor to Inside Sports magazine in the 1980s and as a contributing editor to McCall’s magazine from 1991 to 1993. She published the New York Times best-seller Thank You Power: Making the Science of Gratitude Work for You (Thomas Nelson, 2007), featuring the benefits found by research on gratitude. This was preceded by Back on Track: How To Straighten Out Your Life When It Throws You a Curve (Simon and Schuster, 1997), which drew on her earlier experiences on the Today Show.

The Power of Respect: Benefit from the Most Forgotten Element of Success (Thomas Nelson, 2009) explains—through scientific evidence—how respect is power in business, at home, and in your personal life. Her history of Inside Edition, The Way We Are: Heroes, Scoundrels, and Oddballs from 25 Years of Inside Edition, written with Charlie Carillo and a foreword by Donald Trump (Inside Edition Books, 2013), details all 8,150 episodes of the show, celebrating its 25th anniversary.

Additionally, she has written several knit and crochet pattern books, most notably Knit With Deborah Norville - 18 Classic Designs For The Whole Family (Leisure Arts, Inc., 2009). She has also written two children's books—I Don't Want to Sleep Tonight (Golden Books, 1999) and I Can Fly (Golden Books, 2001)—and contributed to several editions of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Other activities

In 2008, Norville began performing in infomercials. In addition to commercials for anti-aging cream and lotions, she launched the Deborah Norville Collection of knit and crochet yarns in partnership with Premier Yarns, a North Carolina-based yarn manufacturer. Norville debuted the line at the 2009 Craft Hobby Show, the craft industry’s premier convention, where she also served as the Keynote Speaker. The Norville yarn line and other knit and crochet accessories are available in retail craft stores and online.

Deborah Norville was elected to the Board of Directors of the Viacom Corporation in March 2013. She serves on the company’s compensation committee.

Personal life

Norville married Swedish businessman Karl Wellner in 1987; the couple have three children, Niki, Kyle, and Mikaela.