Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 16, 1994 TAG: 9402180020
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JANE TURNIS COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE TELEGRAPH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``What are you taking? Theraflu?'' she asks.
She's at home in New York recuperating from laryngitis, talking on the phone with a Colorado reporter who's at home recuperating from the flu.
Her casual, friendly demeanor is a far cry from the mean-glamour-queen image she got after replacing ``Today'' show co-host Jane Pauley in January 1990. Pauley fans were outraged, and Norville was skewered by TV critics. One even coined the word ``Norvilled,'' meaning to be rudely pushed aside.
Although Norville left the show a year later while on maternity leave, she's been doing damage control ever since.
She did an ABC Radio talk show from her home for a year, then joined CBS' ``Street Stories,'' where she could roll up her sleeves and show her reporting skills, and regain the respect she'd earned years earlier as a reporter in Atlanta, anchor in Chicago and rising star at CBS News.
She's feeling confident again, and she wants people to know it.
``I've stopped focusing on the `Today' nonsense,'' she says. ``That was three years ago. Now I have a message of empowerment: You take from the bad experiences in life something positive.''
She hints at what she went through: ``There are days - depression is a part of it - when if all you do is get dressed, take a shower and put on your makeup, then it's a good day. Your goals have to be much lower. But if you take one tiny little step, then you can take another, and another. Then you have walked that city block.''
Norville is working on an as-yet unnamed CBS news show slated to debut in April. She says the beating she took from the press during the ``Today'' show has changed how she does her job. `I'm certainly more empathetic in interviewing and more careful about facts.
``I know celebrities who have agreed to be interviewed by me because they know what I've been through,'' she says.
She's surprised how accepting others have been. ``Just a couple of weeks ago I was at a Seventh Avenue designer, and a woman said, `I want you to know I went through something like you, and you were my role model.'
``There was a reason for that nonsense,'' Norville says. ``Yeah, my career took a real header, and I'm not anchoring the `Today' show, but I am enjoying my job, thank you very much.''
She's choosier about the topics she covers - ``I told them no more sex-abused-children stories, or stories about victims who are just sad sacks, who aren't trying any more'' - and is proud of the eight stories she's already finished for the new series.
It's difficult being away from her husband, New York business executive Karl Wellner, and son Niki, almost 3, for work-related travel. ``I was in Brazil for nine days before Christmas. He [Niki] called one night, 9 p.m. Sao Paulo time, and said, `Mommy, come home!' I cried until 2 a.m. and thought, `Why am I doing this?'''
by CNB