NEW YORK – For a television news industry in a constant state of motion, Deborah Norville has been a model of stability. She began hosting the syndicated newsmagazine “Inside Edition” in 1995 and has remained there ever since.
Now that 30-year run is coming to a close.
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Norville, 66, signs off on May 20. She's planning to celebrate with a long vacation through Europe with her husband, and try something new when she gets back. She will host “The Perfect Line,” a trivia show that begins airing this fall. No successor has been named at “Inside Edition.”
“I'm very excited about the game show,” she said. “It's fun, and who doesn't want to give away somebody else's money to people who are happy to take it?”
Three decades ago, Norville left CBS News for a genre largely dismissed as tabloid television. She's proud of telling stories that add value to the audience's lives: A company that makes a device to aid choking victims says it has traced a thousand uses to people who say they learned about it through an “Inside Edition” story.
During COVID, the show began broadcasting from her kitchen almost immediately and never stopped, as she built a makeshift studio in her New York-area home.
“We were a familiar presence during a time when everything else was topsy-turvy," she said, “and I think the bond with our audience was made even stronger then.”
As she prepares to adjust to a life no longer governed by news cycles, Norville paused to reflect on her time with The Associated Press.
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Q&A
ASSOCIATED PRESS: You made the decision a while ago to leave “Inside Edition.” Now that it's happening, how does it feel?
NORVILLE: It really hit me today. It's the same day my daughter and husband came over (to the studio) for an in-person interview for a piece they're doing — a farewell Deb thing. My daughter was on “Inside Edition” the day she was born. Nine hours after I gave birth, the crew was in my hospital room taping “Inside Edition” because they couldn't find anyone else to do the show, which was ridiculous. To see her, this beautiful, 27-year-old grown woman, so statuesque and wonderful and lovely and perfect, to do an interview about what it's like having her mom work at this place for literally her entire life, it was like, oh my gosh, there's something major about to happen.
AP: When you first joined, tabloid shows were considered less respectable than networks. How do you think that’s changed?
NORVILLE: Remember Tom Shales of the Washington Post? Tom Shales actually put in the paper that I was selling my credibility. The old Deborah would have just gone into a fetal position and cried. The new me said, “Oh, I don’t think so.” I never knew my credibility had anything to do with the peacock or eyeball on my paycheck, because I had worked at NBC and CBS. My credibility had to do with the show that I stood in front of, the stories that I personally produced and reported on and what we put on television every day. All I was asking was that people watch.
AP: When you look back on it, what is the work you'll remember the most?
NORVILLE: “Inside Edition” has evolved a lot in the 30 years that I've been here. When I got here, it was still the hard-core, tabloid, beach blanket bingo — a lot of girls on sandy beaches in tiny bikinis. We don't do that anymore. ... It has evolved in such a way that we as a program have become a companion to people — not just on television, but we're a companion on the internet, on social media, on YouTube. The content that we do is watchable, but also very relatable and meaningful.
AP: It's unusual these days to stay at the same job for a long time. Why did that appeal to you?
NORVILLE: I came to “Inside Edition” because I was expecting my second child. I knew it was going to be a boy (Norville and her husband, Karl Wellner, have two boys and a girl). I turned down an offer from CBS News to be “Eye on America” correspondent four days a week and anchor the weekend news one night. I would have been teed up for the job that Katie Couric ultimately got. But those four nights a week were going to be on the road all over the country and I didn't think I could be the kind of mother I aspired to be, and certainly the kind of wife that I wanted to be, if I was on the road. I just didn't know how I could do it.
AP: Any regrets about paths not taken?
NORVILLE: Oh, probably. But here's the antidote to that. You take a look at where the road has taken you and you take stock at what you see at that spot in the road where you find yourself. ... The biggest thing is that I look at my family, which is the most important thing to me. My husband and I have been married for 37 and a half years. I have three amazing children who actually enjoy being with us, who are solid citizens, who are kind and giving and industrious and entrepreneurial. I didn't mess up my kids. Coming to “Inside Edition” for the right reasons, turned out to be the right reason for me.
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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social