Deborah Norville

Television personality Deborah Norville and Cristiana Falcone Sorrell, wife of one of the advertising industry's most influential executives, have joined the board of media company Viacom Inc. Norville, who rose to fame as co-host of NBC's "Today" show in 1990, has been the anchor of the syndicated newsmagazine show "Inside Edition" for more than 15 years.  Falcone Sorrell serves as an adviser to the chairman of the World Economic Forum....

Television personality Deborah Norville and Cristiana Falcone Sorrell, wife of one of the advertising industry's most influential executives, have joined the board of media company Viacom Inc. Norville, who rose to fame as co-host of NBC's "Today" show in 1990, has been the anchor of the syndicated newsmagazine show "Inside Edition" for more than 15 years.  Falcone Sorrell serves as an adviser to the chairman of the World Economic Forum....

Stop the presses! Deborah Norville, onetime host of NBC's "Today" show and most recently a correspondent for CBS News, hasn't gone tabloid. Her new job as host of the syndicated "Inside Edition" hasn't compromised her journalistic credentials, as some TV critics and former colleagues have chided. She hasn't turned sleazy, hasn't become part of a "12-fanged monster" determined to do nothing but titillate and trash up the airwaves with its tawdry yarns. Or so she says.

Departing: Deborah Norville is leaving MSNBC, where she has anchored a nightly interview show for the last year, in mid-January. There was no immediate announcement of who will replace her. She'll continue anchoring the syndicated newsmagazine "Inside Edition." Retiring: Tom Fenton, 74, CBS News' veteran foreign correspondent and one of the last remaining reporters from the network's news division's glory days, is retiring, the network said.

It's a few minutes before 7 a.m., showtime on the "Today" show. The white clouds have been freshly spray-painted on the weather map, as they are every day on the sunnyside-up "Today" set in NBC's Rockefeller Center. But the real-life weather on the venerable NBC News show is more honest than this morning's forecast: "delightfully mild."

Jane Pauley, upset with recent changes at the "Today" show, is planning to leave the early-morning program but will stay at NBC, sources at the network said Wednesday. Pauley, who celebrated her 13th anniversary as a "Today" co-anchor Wednesday, is expected to leave in early 1990 to begin work on other projects, possibly including a prime-time news program. Deborah Norville, who joined the show last August as news anchor, is the most likely replacement as co-anchor with Bryant Gumbel.

The NBC News "special" (that musty word documentary is now passe at NBC, it seems) is "Sex, Buys & Advertising." It's available at 10 tonight on Channels 4, 36 and 39. The anchor is Deborah Norville. She's available weekday mornings on NBC's "Today" program. Along with the mundane, there is some very interesting material here relating to the nation's $126-billion advertising industry: behind-the-scenes looks at the making of Michael J.

Deborah Norville comes sweeping into the small offices at "America Tonight," her new CBS newsmagazine, apologizing for being late. Dressed in a coat-dress and brown pumps, her blond hair short and tousled, Norville looks looser and much happier than her days as anchor on "NBC News at Sunrise," where she regularly looked perfect at 4 a.m.

At least NBC provided Deborah Norville with a graceful exit from the "Today" show. It was the only decent thing for the network to do following her highly scrutinized, sometimes humiliating and generally uncomfortable tenure of more than a year on the series. In the 14 months after she replaced Jane Pauley on "Today," the venerable and once-proud morning flagship of NBC never once finished first in the weekly ratings.

There was never any problem with Deborah Norville. The real national hardship is Bryant Gumbel, whose legendary arrogance and transparent political bias are enough to ruin anybody's morning. We want Willard Scott, we want Willard Scott. Robert Curlender, Pasadena

Struggling MSNBC, which only a few months ago was touting opinionated talk shows as its strategy for drawing viewers in the evening, now appears to be planning a different tack for at least one hour per night, with the launch of an interview program with Deborah Norville as host. The new show, people familiar with the situation said, will go head to head with CNN's interview program "Larry King Live" and Fox News Channel's political talk show, "Hannity & Colmes," seen at 3 p.m. weekdays in Los Angeles.

Stop the presses! Deborah Norville, onetime host of NBC's "Today" show and most recently a correspondent for CBS News, hasn't gone tabloid. Her new job as host of the syndicated "Inside Edition" hasn't compromised her journalistic credentials, as some TV critics and former colleagues have chided. She hasn't turned sleazy, hasn't become part of a "12-fanged monster" determined to do nothing but titillate and trash up the airwaves with its tawdry yarns. Or so she says.

Deborah Norville comes sweeping into the small offices at "America Tonight," her new CBS newsmagazine, apologizing for being late. Dressed in a coat-dress and brown pumps, her blond hair short and tousled, Norville looks looser and much happier than her days as anchor on "NBC News at Sunrise," where she regularly looked perfect at 4 a.m.

Changing Networks: Deborah Norville, formerly a co-host of NBC's "Today," has been hired as a correspondent on the CBS News series "Street Stories." CBS said that she will be doing a variety of reports.

There was never any problem with Deborah Norville. The real national hardship is Bryant Gumbel, whose legendary arrogance and transparent political bias are enough to ruin anybody's morning. We want Willard Scott, we want Willard Scott. Robert Curlender, Pasadena

Hooray to Times columnist Robert A. Jones ("On California," April 3) for suggesting that a possible solution to the state budget crisis is reducing the state prison population. He's absolutely right that a lot of money could be saved by not incarcerating simple parole violators. Such a change would not seriously endanger the public, because serious cases could still be prosecuted as new crimes.

Changing Networks: Deborah Norville, formerly a co-host of NBC's "Today," has been hired as a correspondent on the CBS News series "Street Stories." CBS said that she will be doing a variety of reports.