Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 30, 1995 TAG: 9502020008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TOM JICHA FORT LAUDERDALE SUN-SENTINEL
DATELINE: LAS VEGAS LENGTH: Medium
``Six months ago, I would have said the same thing,'' Norville acknowledged with a smile. Six months ago, her career was again thriving, this time at CBS.
She had been a network comer for almost a decade with an apparently ceilingless future. In 1990, Washington Journalism Review labeled her ``the Anchor of the Year 2000.''
All of this, of course, was before the Jane Pauley/``Today Show'' fiasco. Norville did nothing but her job, arguably better than anyone else had. When she anchored NBC's ``News at Sunrise'' from 1987-89, ratings jumped 40 percent. This earned her the news reader's job on ``Today,'' where she was universally praised.
She was the natural choice to eventually succeed Pauley. The only problem was that eventually came sooner than anticipated, as NBC's brass hoped Norville's youthful, glamorous persona would lure back viewers who had strayed to ``Good Morning, America.''
The popular misconception when the change was made was that Norville had done an ``All About Eve'' number on Pauley. ``Nobody seems to remember that Jane was telling people she wanted to leave `Today,' '' Norville said. ``All they cared about was that I was younger and blonder.''
Dick Ebersol, the NBC executive in charge of ``Today'' at the time, said recently, ``What happened to Deborah was a real sad story. There was a lot more than meets the eye that went into that decision. It was terribly unfair that Jane became a hero and Deborah the villain.''
Norville declined to reveal what the behind-the-scenes machinations referred to by Ebersol might have been. ``Enough already,'' she said, politely but firmly.
The Las Vegas setting for Norville's latest re-emergence is appropriate. A lot of influential TV people think Norville is recklessly gambling with a still promising career by leaving CBS for a tabloid magazine.
Andrew Lack, the president of NBC News and a CBS news executive when Norville was there, said, ``I'm sorry Deborah's not at a network anymore. It is where she belongs. I'm not a fan of those shows, and I'm sorry to see her do it. I would hope she'll come back to the networks.''
To which Norville says: Why? ``I love Andy. I worked for him [at CBS' `Street Stories'] for an all-too-short time. He's great. Look at what he's done at NBC News. They were in disarray when he got there. But I disagree with what he says about our show.''
Norville contends that the only difference between ``Inside Edition'' - which tends to take a higher road than ``A Current Affair'' and ``Hard Copy'' - and the networks is a matter of public perception. She hopes to change this when she begins work in about a month. ``Maybe people will watch because they know Deborah Norville and they'll discover the program isn't what they thought it was.''
At least she knows she has a job when this maternity leave ends. NBC used the hiatus she took giving birth to her first son, Nicky, to get rid of her.
It was an eye-opening experience and one that influenced her decision when ``Inside Edition'' came calling. ``When your career blows up in your face, you take the blinders off,'' she said.
A network job might be glamorous - but with no security, you might as well grab for the gold when it becomes available. Besides a hefty contract, Norville said, ``Inside Edition'' offers an anchor job based in New York, where she and her husband and their two children live.
She said she realized that being a globe-hopping network correspondent had lost its luster when she had to go to South America for 10 days just before Christmas last year. ``I talked to Nicky on the phone and he pleaded, `Mommy, when are you coming home? I miss you.' My heart was broken.''
Besides, she reiterated, she really doesn't think there is that much difference between where she has been and where she is going.
``The business is changing. Material that once was considered not suitable for network newscasts is now headline stories. When I was at CBS, we were competing with the tabloids for a lot of the same stories, and we weren't always getting them.''
``Inside Edition,'' she noted, did an expose of potential exploding gas tanks on certain GM trucks months before ``Dateline NBC'' got around to the story. ``The only differences were `Inside Edition' didn't blow up the truck and it didn't get sued for millions,'' Norville said, relishing the comparison.
``Some people say I'm throwing away my credibility,'' Norville said. ``But my credibility doesn't come from being on NBC or CBS. It comes from the work I do. If I continue to do honest, fair work, which is not prejudicial, where's the risk?''
by CNB