O'Donnell was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Francis O'Donnell, a doctor and US Army officer. Her parents are both of Irish descent. When Norah was three, her family moved to San Antonio, Texas. When she was 10, the family spent two years in Seoul, living in Yongsan Garrison as her father was assigned to work there. While an elementary student, she started her career in broadcasting giving videotaped English lessons for the Korean Educational Development Institute. The family moved back to San Antonio, where she graduated from Douglas MacArthur High School. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and a master's degree in liberal studies from Georgetown University. O'Donnell worked as a staff writer for Roll Call, where she covered Congress. She spent twelve years of her career at the NBC networks. A commentator for the Today Show, Chief Washington Correspondent for MSNBC, and a White House correspondent for NBC News, O'Donnell was also a contributing anchor for MSNBC Live and an anchor on Weekend Today. O'Donnell reported for various NBC News broadcasts, including NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, Dateline NBC, and MSNBC. O'Donnell filled in for Chris Matthews as host of Hardball with Chris Matthews and was a regular pundit for The Chris Matthews Show. Since joining CBS, she has served as anchor in several of its highest-rated shows, filling in for Scott Pelley on the CBS Evening News multiple times, the first being October 10, 2011. She was chief White House correspondent in 2011 and 2012, and became a co-anchor on CBS This Morning in fall of 2012. On May 6, 2019, Susan Zirinsky, president of CBS News, announced that O'Donnell had been named anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News beginning on July 15, 2019, will also be the lead anchor of political events for the network and continue as a contributing correspondent for 60 Minutes. She becomes the third woman after Connie Chung and Katie Couric to serve as the program's weeknight anchor. Her last broadcast of CBS This Morning was on May 16, 2019.
* 2005–2011: MSNBC Chief White House correspondent
2011–present: CBS News
* 2011–2012: Chief White House correspondent
* 2011– May 2019: CBS Evening News fill-in anchor
* 2012– May 2019: CBS This Morning co-anchor
* 2011–present: Face the Nation fill-in host and correspondent
*2013–present: 60 Minutes correspondent
*2019–present: CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor
Personal life
O'Donnell lives in Washington, D.C. and New York City's Upper West Side neighborhood with her husband, restaurateur Geoff Tracy, whom she married in June 2001. They met while attending Georgetown together. On May 20, 2007, O'Donnell and Tracy became the parents of twins, whom they named Grace and Henry. Their third child, daughter Riley Norah Tracy, was born on July 5, 2008; O'Donnell noted that her daughter's first name had been suggested by Tim Russert, who died three weeks prior to Riley's birth. O'Donnell and Tracy made a cookbook for parents titled Baby Love: Healthy, Easy, Delicious Meals for Your Baby and Toddler, released on August 31, 2010. O'Donnell is a Roman Catholic.
Awards and recognition
Washingtonian Magazine has named O'Donnell as one of Washington's 100 most powerful women. O'Donnell has also been named to Irish American Magazine's 2000 "Top 100 Irish Americans" list. O'Donnell won the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Breaking News Coverage for the Dateline NBC story "DC In Crisis," which aired on the night of September 11, 2001. She won an Emmy as part of NBC News' Election Night coverage team in 2008 for the category Outstanding Live Coverage of a Breaking News Story – Long Form. She was also awarded an Emmy in 2018 for her six-month investigation and report on "Sexual Assault in the Air Force Academy" for CBS This Morning in the category Outstanding Investigative Report in a Newscast. That same year, this story was given an honorable mention from the White House Correspondents' Association for the Edgar Allan Poe Award.
