Deborah Anne Norville has been host of the syndicated television program Inside Edition since 1995. She had earlier stints at both NBC (Today host, NBC Nightly News substitute anchor, NBC News at Sunrise anchor) and CBS (CBS Evening News weekend anchor and host of various magazine programs). We have had the good fortune to carry Inside Edition on some of our company’s television stations over the years. However, it is her role as a member of the Broadcasters Foundation of America (BFoA) board of directors that has led me to knowing Deborah much better. That board’s chairman emeritus is Philip Lombardo, also chairman and CEO of our company. I was honored to be elected to serve on the BFoA board in 2015. Deborah and our fellow BFoA board member, George Stephanopoulos (see his WINNER profile), do an outstanding job of communicating the organization’s important mission to the broadcasting industry. She has also hosted countless “Golden Mike” awards dinners for the BFoA over the years.
Deborah has found much success with her business career in addition to that she’s experienced as a journalist. In 2008, she launched the Deborah Norville Collection of knit and crochet yarns. Deborah was elected to the board of directors of the Viacom Corporation in 2013. She is also a best-selling author (including Thank You Power: Making the Science of Gratitude Work For You) and sought-after public speaker.
Deborah was recognized by the BFoA in 2014 with a Ward L. Quall Leadership Award during the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show in Las Vegas. These awards are presented annually by the BFoA in recognition of career contributions to the broadcast industry and the community at large; they are named in honor of iconic broadcaster Ward L. Quall. Deborah has taken the time on numerous occasions to serve as master of ceremonies at the NAB Education Foundation annual “Celebration of Service to America” awards which recognizes broadcasters for outstanding service to their local communities. She is, in short, incredibly generous with her time on behalf the broadcasting industry and a number of charities.
In October of 2016, Deborah received an even bigger honor when she was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame. She joined a long list of distinguished broadcast journalists on this special honor roll, including Tom Brokaw, Walter Cronkite, Sam Donaldson, Charles Gibson, Peter Jennings (see his WINNER profile), Ted Koppel (see his WINNER profile), Edward R. Murrow, Charles Osgood, Robin Roberts (see her WINNER profile), Diane Sawyer (see her WINNER profile), Bob Schieffer, Lesley Stahl, Mike Wallace, and Barbara Walters (see her WINNER profile). It was a joy to attend Deborah’s induction dinner with other members of the BFoA board. In her gracious acceptance speech, Deborah talked about the “amazing time of disruption” the broadcasting industry is facing as “our audience has more choices but less time than ever before” to consume its content. Her response to such a challenge was compelling: “Now some in our business would lament the fact that our audience has no time, but I am excited about it. It’s more ways to tell our story…more ways to communicate vital news and information…There is, I believe, no better time to be audaciously optimistic.” Anyone who knows Deborah has experienced that warm and incredible optimism. She concluded her remarks by making reference to “…one of the greatest privileges any of us can be given, and that is the privilege of being a broadcaster.”
Deborah is a passionate, optimistic WINNER who has always conveyed a deep understanding of the privilege of being a broadcaster during a distinguished career that now spans three decades, including serving 20+ successful years as anchor of the nation’s top-rated syndicated news magazine: Inside Edition.
