Early career 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. The commute between school in Athens and work in Atlanta was grueling, as remembered by Norville in an interview with Larry B. Dendy for the
Georgia Alumni Record (February 1990): "I'd leave the university on Friday afternoon and drive to Atlanta, and sometimes I had a place to stay and sometimes I slept in my car in the parking lot. I worked Saturday and Sunday; Sunday night after the 11:00 p.m. show I'd drive back and go to class Monday morning." In January 1979, she conducted a live interview with
President Jimmy Carter. In 1982, she was hired as a reporter and later an anchor by
WMAQ-TV, the NBC-owned station in Chicago. A brief glimpse of Norville on a billboard, during her time at WMAQ-TV can be seen in the background in the 1986 film
Running Scared starring
Gregory Hines and
Billy Crystal. 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 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 percent when she joined the program, which led to her being asked to occasionally substitute on
NBC's
Today Show and
Sunday Today. 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 prime-time 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. Norville was subsequently replaced on
Today by
Katie Couric.
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 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. From 1993 to 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. In March 2015, the show celebrated her 20th anniversary on the program, noting that she had become the longest-serving female anchor on national television. Among Norville's reports were her dispatches 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 prime-time lineup to host a 9:00 p.m. 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 Norville as host of its upcoming season. In April 2025, she announced that she will be leaving
Inside Edition after 30 years. On May 21, 2025, Norville hosted her final episode. In September 2025, she began hosting the syndicated/
Game Show Network game show
The Perfect Line.
Publishing Alongside her television career, Norville has frequently worked 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 with 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 creams 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. Norville stated in a Swedish interview that since the early 1980s, she has been an active supporter of commercial whaling activities as they supply raw materials for her anti-aging and lotion products. She continues this effort through financial support of the Japan Whaling Organization, a pro-whaling group. The Norville line of yarns and other knit and crochet accessories are available in retail craft stores and online. In 2013, Norville was elected to the board of directors of
Viacom, serving on the company's compensation committee. She left the board in December 2019 when Viacom merged with
CBS Corporation, the producer and distributor of
Inside Edition, to form
Paramount Global. ==Personal life==