Norah O’Donnell Is Stepping Down from CBS Evening News After 2024 Presidential Election

Norah O’Donnell is stepping down as anchor and managing editor of CBS Evening News following the 2024 presidential election.

O’Donnell, who anchored the primetime program for five years, will remain at CBS and transition to a new role as a CBS News senior correspondent, PEOPLE has learned, conducting high-profile interviews that will air across the network’s platforms, including broadcast, streaming, digital and Paramount+.

The seasoned journalist will also contribute to CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes and CBS News Sunday Morning.

“I love what I do, and I am so fortunate to work with the best journalists and people in the business,” O’Donnell, 50, wrote in a staff memo on July 30. “Together, our team has won Emmy, Murrow, and DuPont awards. We managed to anchor in-studio through COVID; we took the broadcast on the road from aircraft carriers to the Middle East, and around the world. We were privileged to conduct a historic interview with Pope Francis. There’s so much work to be proud of!”

“But I have spent 12 years in the anchor chair here at CBS News, tied to a daily broadcast and the rigors of a relentless news cycle,” she continued. “It’s time to do something different."

Wendy McMahon, president and CEO of CBS News, addressed O’Donnell’s internal move in her own memo to staff on July 30. The executive promised the Emmy-winning veteran journalist would “do more of the storytelling and big interviews that are a hallmark of CBS News.”

“Norah’s superpower is her ability to secure and then masterfully deliver unparalleled interviews and stories that set the news cycle and capture the cultural zeitgeist,” she wrote, citing the seasoned journalist's interviews with Pope Francis and “every living president.” “Norah’s newsmaking interviews always deliver for the audience. How many people can effortlessly shift from field-anchoring on an aircraft carrier in the Red Sea to sitting down with Bono and Dolly Parton? Norah's work here is legendary, and she has several major interviews in the works that will be equally memorable and momentous.”

McMahon also acknowledged that O’Donnell’s move raises questions around CBS Evening News and its strategy moving forward, promising to “share more about our plans soon.”

Since joining CBS News in 2011, O’Donnell has held several high-profile positions, starting as Chief White House correspondent covering President Barack Obama’s administration, before serving as co-anchor of CBS This Morning and becoming anchor and managing editor of CBS Evening News in 2019. She has received two Emmys during her decades-long career: one in 2009 as part of NBC News’ 2008 Election Night coverage team and a second Emmy in 2018 for outstanding investigative report in a newscast for her six-month investigation into sexual assault cases at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

“Sexual abuse and harassment is systematic and pervasive. It is across our culture and our workplaces,” O’Donnell told PEOPLE in 2018. “In the exposing of these individual stories, we give weigh to their powerful voices and egregious experiences.”

CBS Evening News is nominated for an Emmy this year for outstanding live news program, which O’Donnell also highlighted in her staff memo on July 30, praising the news program’s producers, correspondents, crews and technical teams.

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“Thank you for all that you do for our broadcast and our audience every single day," she added. "There’s nothing more important to me than making sure we cover this election with the excellence and humanity that defines our work together. I’m so fortunate to share those values with so many hard-working journalists who believe how important the work of journalism is to a healthy democracy. Onward!"