Norah O'Donnell Behind the Camera
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CBS's Norah O'Donnell had a story on last night's 60 Minutes profiling
Sheryl Sandberg, the Facebook executive whose new book Lean In has captivated the attention of the media and of women across the country.
Sandberg ruffles some feathers by saying that women are unintentionally holding themselves back in the workplace. In the "60 Minutes" profile, Sandberg pushes back at her critics. “My message is not one of blaming women. There is an awful lot we don’t control,” she says. “There is an awful lot we can control and we can do for ourselves to sit at more tables, raise more hands.”
But what about the woman that performed the interview?
The Huffington Post writes that when asked where the glass ceiling exists in her own industry, O’Donnell pointed to the executive suite and roles behind the camera. “I still think we’re waiting for a women president of a news organization, so there’s a glass ceiling there. And I think there can be more parity in terms of women in executive positions, whether that's in management or in production,” she said. NBC, where O'Donnell previously worked for 12 years, happens to have an opening. Longtime NBC News president Steve Capus announced his departure earlier this year and the network has not yet named his replacement.
There's a certain sense of irony about this moment for O'Donnell. Her story on Sandberg about factors preventing women from excelling in the workplace is the very interview that will introduce her to audiences on what many industry professionals consider the most coveted of all broadcast news programs. “It was one of the things that when I was making a decision about my next career move, I really wanted to do ‘60 Minutes,’” O’Donnell said. “So that has long been a dream, that was part of my decision to come to [CBS] two years ago.”
CBS News chairman Jeff Fager “promises” that audiences will see O’Donnell on “60 Minutes” again. “She has all the right skills to be successful with us, and mostly because she’s a real reporter who knows how to do interviews," he said. "That’s why you will see her again on 60 Minutes, and why she’s such an important part of 'CBS This Morning' every single day.”
After spending a year as the network’s White House correspondent, O’Donnell was named co-host of “CBS This Morning” alongside Charlie Rose and Gayle King. Though the show has far fewer hosts than its direct competitors, the program boasts the best gender ratio of all the morning shows—2:1. Ratings for the 14-month-old show are also up double digits in both total viewers and the 25-54 age demographic compared to last year’s February sweeps, just one month after the show launched with Rose, King and O'Donnell's predecessor, Erica Hill.
