CBS News Will Try to Reinvent Itself, Again

In an interview as she prepares to step down as news division head, Susan Zirinsky said, “I feel I have given my entire soul into rebuilding this organization.”

In May 2020, a few months after “CBS Evening News” relocated from its longtime Manhattan home to Washington — a move that perplexed some producers and cost millions — the third-ranked newscast finally seemed to be finding a groove. Susan Zirinsky, a CBS News legend who became its president in 2019 after nearly a half-century at the network, had picked Norah O’Donnell to lead the “Evening News,” and the anchor had landed a big interview with Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg. At 6:30 p.m., viewers on the East Coast tuned in — but Ms. O’Donnell was nowhere in sight. A technical glitch had knocked out CBS’s transmission feed. With homebound staff hobbled by the pandemic, the network tried, and failed, to restore its flagship newscast; instead, viewers saw an awkward ad break and content from the CBSN streaming channel. On Instagram, Ms. O’Donnell posted a video apologizing.