Today” Meredith Vieira announced she is leaving NBC’s leading morning broadcast. Vieira, who will depart in June, says she hopes “to stay in the NBC family, that is my goal, it just won’t be sitting at the couch every day.”
The announcement of Ann Curry, who’s been with the show with 14 years, got a round of applause from the ‘Today’ crew. “I think this day is really Meredith’s,” said Curry. “I just want you to know you’ve been a gift to this broadcast. You have been generous, and you have been a great girlfriend.” Here is the announcement, which was delayed by about a week after last week’s news of the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
Transitions are unusual for “Today,” as Vieira was still the newbie among the show’s core four that included Lauer, Curry and Al Roker.
Curry has been with the show since 1997 as the news anchor. Passed over for the top job five years ago when Vieira was chosen, she stuck with the show and carved out a new reputation as a globe-trotting reporter. She was in Pakistan last week following the killing of Osama bin Laden.
“I feel like the high school computer nerd who has just been asked to the prom by the quarterback of the football team,” Curry
During her tenure, Vieira conducted numerous exclusive news-making interviews. She spoke with former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson in her first-ever live television interview after her identity was revealed, she sat down with author J.K. Rowling in her only television interview about her final Harry Potter volume, she spoke with chimp attack victim Charla Nash in her first interview after leaving the Cleveland Clinic, and she talked to former Gov. of Illinois Rod Blagojevich in his first interview after receiving the verdict that convicted him on one count of lying to the FBI.
Vieira has also told the extraordinary and emotional stories of David Goldman, the New Jersey man who fought a five-year custody battle to recover his son Sean from his ex-wife’s family in Brazil, Carolyn and Sean Savage, the Ohio couple implanted with the wrong embryo, and John Michael and Ellen Keyes, parents of Emily Keyes, the only victim in the Bailey, Colorado school shooting. Vieira’s memorable exclusive celebrity interviews include Janet Jackson, Barbara Streisand, Bette Midler, Susan Boyle and Madonna, to name a few.
Savannah Guthrie currently serves as NBC News White House correspondent as well as the co-host of “The Daily Rundown” on MSNBC. She contributes to all NBC News properties including “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.
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