Who Is CBS' Jane Pauley And What Happened To Her?

These days, Jane Pauley is perhaps best known as one of the faces of CBS, but that network wasn't always her home. Depending on which morning show your family watched each day, you may know Pauley as one of the news anchors who famously left the "Today" show." If you didn't watch morning television, you may have come to trust her as one of the people behind the desk on "Dateline NBC."

Pauley grew up in Indiana, and she first found herself on television at the young age of 22. She's been a lifelong devotee of broadcast journalism ever since, quickly working her way up to the very top of the field and carving out a space for herself — and for women like her — everywhere she went. She's seen it all, from morning television to nightly news to hosting talk shows to writing multiple books, and her career has been defined by exactly that willingness to follow a story — in this case, her own life — wherever it may lead.

She's been all over the television landscape, so we should listen as Pauley looks toward the future. "I have some questions about where journalism is heading. And I don't know what the industry will look like," she mused to Adweek in 2024. "But there is a very deep bench of talent out there ... It's an amazing world." Here's how she's spent the past few decades of her career, always chasing reinvention.

Jane Pauley made history when she was hired at the "Today" show. She'd been tapped to replace Barbara Walters, even though at only 25, she was much younger than the average newscaster. "I was the youngest by five years, or four decades," she joked to The Archive of American Television. "My goal [in the job interview] was not to embarrass myself, but I wasn't in the running."

Not only was she in the running, but she got the job. Pauley anchored "Today" throughout the rest of the 1970s and 1980s, until finally she, too, found herself iced out. Anyone who was around for the Conan O'Brien versus Jay Leno "Tonight Show" debacle in 2010 knows just how much the media loves a "long-running host getting replaced" story, and a similar media firestorm surrounded Pauley when "Today" tapped Deborah Norville to replace her in 1989. At the time, it was one of the biggest scandals to ever hit morning television.

"[Washington Post TV critic Tom] Shales saw three people on the sofa saying, 'Good morning,' and immediately sees 'All About Eve,'" Pauley told Adweek, referencing the classic film in which an established actor fears a starlet is about to steal her career. "After that, we were off and running." Though she still insists that she didn't resign just because they'd hired someone younger, Pauley's last show would ultimately be December 29, 1989; she's bounced around television ever since.

Though Jane Pauley was ready to leave morning television at the end of 1989, she wasn't ready to leave NBC altogether. Instead, she jumped to "Dateline," now anchoring one of the network's most storied nighttime news broadcasts. She conducted several of the most-watched interviews to ever air on "Dateline," including one that attempted to find out what happened to Nancy Kerrigan after her famous Olympics drama. "I was happy to give Kerrigan a chance to defend herself. Our second interview was the then-highest rated 'Dateline' interview ever," Pauley later reflected to NBC, noting that it aired alongside an interview with Jeffrey Dahmer. "I have no doubt that some of my colleagues still thought Nancy Kerrigan was the greater villain."

Pauley stuck with "Dateline" up through 2003, at which point she finally decided to step away from the network that gave her a start on national television. She told The New York Times, "I think women think a lot about cycles, biological and personal. This year, another cycle came around: My contract was up. It seemed an opportunity to take a life audit.” She told the paper that she'd seen numerous books in stores about women finding their second act. "[W]hat's next," she wondered, "or even, what is it I really want to do?"

Seeing books about second acts helped Jane Pauley decide to leave her long-running position at NBC, and it turned out that her own second act would involve writing a book of her own. In her 2005 memoir "Skywriting: A Life Out of the Blue," Pauley opened up about her bipolar diagnosis, revealing to fans that she'd been on quite the mental health journey while anchoring "Today" and "Dateline."

She'd initially encountered the condition while trying to treat recurrent hives that she'd experienced since she was a child. "The hives came and went, but that was incidental to the depression I could feel gathering around me," she wrote in the book (via NBC). "I sank lower and lower. I knew the difference between an afternoon nap and three hours in bed, two hours of which weren't even spent sleeping, but just sinking into a state of captivity." Ultimately, in 2001, doctors told her that the steroids she'd been taking for the hives had triggered her bipolar disorder.

In 2014, Pauley told Time that she had decided on a very specific way of talking about bipolar disorder. "Part of my advocacy is not talking about the stigma. It's real, but it doesn't help move us forward," she reasoned, adding, "My other message is, I take my meds every day. No holidays." Thankfully, it all seems to be working. She told the outlet, "I've not had a recurrence."

Though Jane Pauley initially left "Dateline" to finally move away from NBC after almost three decades at the network, they lured her back. In 2004, she launched "The Jane Pauley Show," a daytime talk show. Speaking with Ability Magazine, Pauley said that she loved the work, as hard as it was. "It was the first time in my career I worked regularly in front of a live audience, and I liked that part a lot," she said, having felt especially happy to have met audience members who were touched by her memoir. "Hardly a day went by without someone from the audience finding a way to take me aside and share a personal story and say what a difference my book was making," she said.

The show lasted less than a year, but Pauley told Ability Magazine that she doesn't regret the effort. "I would rather it had been more of a success, but it wasn't," she said simply. "Oddly, I'm kind of proud I got through that, and my life, as it turns out, was not charmed."

In 2007, Jane Pauley was awarded the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism, an award that's only given out once a year by Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The legendary newsman was still alive in 2007, so he was on hand to present Pauley with the award in person. He had spent decades on television himself and had become an indispensable part of American culture after the John F. Kennedy assassination through the insight he gave into the tragedy surrounding the Kennedy family.

As she accepted the award, Pauley had a word of advice for the journalism students in attendance. Looking back over her long career of going wherever her opportunities took her, Pauley reflected on the fact that she never could have imagined how her life would turn out. When she was hired at the "Today" show, she said, she still considered herself an "aspiring" reporter. Pauley told the audience, "All of you will be making it up as you go along, because the past no longer applies and the future hasn't been invented yet."

By 2008, Jane Pauley was a free agent. Her time at NBC had finally ended for good, and she hadn't yet found a new home at CBS. Perhaps that's why she felt confident enough to campaign on behalf of Barack Obama in that year's presidential election; after all, there's no need to worry about compromising your journalistic integrity if you are not, in fact, employed as a journalist.

That election pitted Obama against Senator John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, two self-styled "mavericks" who wanted to storm Washington with the power of their commitment to the cause. Campaigning at a rally in her home state of Indiana, Pauley pushed back against the idea that these two would be good for the country. "The original 'Maverick' was a gambler," Pauley pointed out (via The Herald Bulletin), a reference to the show by that name. "In these uncertain times, can we afford to gamble on a pair of mavericks?"

She also theorized that Indiana would potentially flip for the Democrats, especially with someone as charismatic as Obama at the top of the ticket. On election night, she guessed, "The 21st century will have begun, and Indiana will have started it." Time would prove Pauley correct; that year, Indiana did indeed go blue.

Jane Pauley once told The New York Times that she was inspired to leave her job at NBC because she'd seen self-help books about entering your life's second act. As Pauley closed out the aughts, she found herself back on the "Today" show once again. "I created an opportunity, with AARP as a sponsor, and, yes, returned to the 'Today' show with a monthly segment called 'Your Life Calling: Reimagining the Rest of Your Life,'" she told AARP. In the recurring segment, Pauley interviewed people who have changed their career paths in the latter half of their lives, striking out in new directions, much as she already had several times over.

That segment led to a second book — a self-help book all her own — under the same title. The research took her around the country, and it took four years, ultimately allowing Pauley to write about many people who had found new paths for themselves. Noting that people are now living longer than they used to, Pauley wrote (via USA Today), "[Retirees have] been given a second chance — to do the thing we'd always wanted to do, or never had a chance before to do, or never imagined we could. I think of these as 'trying times,' a time to try new things, and maybe even a time to try big things."

Beginning when she was 25 up through the cancellation of "The Jane Pauley Show," Jane Pauley had been a more or less consistent presence on television. That means she'd developed quite the devoted fan base, and legions of viewers around the country who were sad to see her go. When CBS profiled her in early 2014 for a "Sunday Morning" segment about her newest book, the network heard from viewers who were delighted to see her back on television once more.

They decided to offer her a job. Later that year, at a journalism-themed symposium, "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer told the surprised audience that Pauley would be joining CBS News as a contributor. "Jane is taking her own advice. She's reinventing herself and is coming to work at CBS News," he said, "and we couldn't be happier."

For her part, Pauley told the audience that she'd always admired CBS and had in fact worked at a CBS affiliate in Indiana early in her career. "[I]f it weren't for that CBS Saturday night lineup that I followed, I would never have had a career in network television," she said. "So I've kind of come back home."

After two years of contributing to CBS News, frequently as a "Sunday Morning" host who interviewed high-profile people like Hillary Clinton, Jane Pauley announced that she would once again be back on morning television. Pauley's new gig was as the regular host of "Sunday Morning," appearing each weekend to walk viewers through interesting stories and interviews with interesting people. Pauley, who made history with pretty much every other gig she'd ever taken, told her "CBS This Morning" colleagues that this new job was no different. Pauley was inheriting the show from longtime newsman Charles Osgood, and she joked, "This is history! I'm the first non-Charles to host 'Sunday Morning.'"

Noting that she'd literally written a book about starting over later in life, Pauley went on to evangelize about her favorite topic. "Our generation is getting a heads-up that there can be more! And it doesn't have to be a big whiz-bang more, but ... this certainly is."

She also noted that a Sunday morning show would present unique challenges not applicable to a daily weekday show, and she was excited about that. "[E]very episode in my career has required me to learn new things, and so I hope there's gonna be a little growth curve!"

Now that Jane Pauley was back on television as a journalist, her second act had well and truly begun. She'd spent years out of the game, though, and she felt she could offer some advice not just about finding what's next, but specifically about re-entering the workforce after years away. In 2017, at a summit called "Know Your Value" in New York City (via MSNBC), Pauley shared what she'd learned with the crowd.

Mostly, she told people not to wait for opportunities to find them. "Get out there and do something. Don't stay home making notes. Don't stay home watching TV waiting for inspiration to strike. Don't look for some epiphany," she said.

The former "Dateline" anchor also suggested accepting and even welcoming the idea that not every second-act career is going to work out. "If you don't get that job or can't find an on-ramp to the perfect thing — don't be deterred by failure," she said. "Start again. And, in failing, you've learned something about yourself."

Throughout her career, Jane Pauley has conducted interviews with some of the most famous people in the world. In 2018, however, she profiled someone a little closer to home: her husband, Garry Trudeau. If that name seems familiar, it's not because he's related to former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau ... because he's not, as far as we know. Instead, it might be because Trudeau is a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, the artist behind the long-running political comic strip "Doonesbury."

On "Sunday Morning," Trudeau told his wife that he was surprised by just how long "Doonesbury" has lasted. "It was more or less an accidental career. It didn't seem to me that I was going to be bound to this thing for any, you know, extensive period of my life," he said. "And now here it is, 50 years later." We have to imagine that Pauley can relate to her husband's career surprise, given that she is once again working at CBS after decades at their competitor.

Pauley revealed that they had been set up on a date by her "Today" show co-host, Tom Brokaw. She confessed that when they met, she had no idea who he was, even though he'd already won the Pulitzer. "I never saw 'Doonesbury' till after I met you," she admitted. Trudeau asked what sort of man she'd always imagined she'd marry, and ever the joker, Pauley replied, "I was holding out for a cartoonist, Garry."

Many awards have been given throughout the history of the Emmys, but relatively few have been Lifetime Achievement Awards. Jane Pauley can count herself among that exclusive group because in 2024, she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the News & Documentary Emmys. At first, the attention made her a little uncomfortable. She confessed to Adweek, "I think my husband was a little concerned that I might try to talk them out of it." Thankfully, she's now proud of what she's achieved across her decades in journalism. "Frankly, at this stage of life, I do seem to have grown out of that somewhat," she said. "I can look back on the younger me and give her more credit than I would have given her before."

The ceremony, it seems, was a family affair; her husband, Garry Trudeau, was of course also in attendance. "I'll be thinking about my three children," Pauley anticipated, "even though one of them did ask to go to the Yankees game instead." Pauley also told Adweek that she'd have someone else in mind when she took the stage, referring to herself by an old nickname from when she first started out in television journalism. "I'll be thinking of Janie. She's long gone now," she reflected, "but I dunno — maybe she's not that far gone."