Norah O'Donnell couldnt shake hand with Ahmadinejad

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Norah O'Donnell couldnt shake hand with Ahmadinejad

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Norah O'Donnell did not sit cross-legged understanding the cultural differences.

01 October,2012 05:59 pm

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad requested not to shake her hand before their CBS This Morning interview last week, and to that she not cross her legs.But his references to her as the lady were almost too much.I had to repeatedly bite my tongue and not say, You know, my name is actually Norah ODonnell, she said. I thought the questions were more important.It would not have resulted in the kind of publicity a rookie morning-show host needed during her first month on the job. ODonnell, who jumped to CBS last year after more than a decade at NBC News, replaced Erica Hill within the trio of CBS This Morning hosts that also include Charlie Rose and Gayle King.ODonnell has the chance to learn her trade and build a following in the relative obscurity of a perpetual underdog program.Competitors Robin Roberts at ABC and Savannah Guthrie at NBC have more viewers but also more pressing problems: Roberts trying to recover from a rare blood disease and Guthrie facing a wide-scale audience defection following the messy dismissal of Ann Curry.The 38-year-old ODonnell grew up in Washington journalism. As an ABC News intern, she grabbed a notebook and stood in the back of the room at a White House news conference with President Bill Clinton. She worked at Hotline, then as a reporter for Roll Call.Her job at Roll Call led to frequent cable television appearances and eventually the job at NBC. She was a White House correspondent during President George W. Bushs administration and hosted a daytime show on MSNBC.Leaving NBC was a tough decision but ODonnell saw more opportunity at CBS, where she would be White House correspondent, chief substitute for Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation and eventually, perhaps, Schieffers replacement.That was until getting a call this summer from CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager and President David Rhodes, asking to see her.I figured I must be in trouble if they both wanted to see me, she recalled. Instead, they offered her the job on CBS This Morning.The new gig required some personal juggling. ODonnell and her husband have 5-year-old twins and a 4-year-old daughter.She flies to New York Sunday nights and leaves after the show Thursdays to have three days with her family. Friday she works from a Washington studio.Still, ODonnell said, Its not the kind of a job you turn down. Her family is expected to move north this winter.Morning TV is the crown jewel of broadcast journalism, she said. Where else can you do two hours of live television with the audience that we have?That audience isnt nearly as big as it is for Good Morning America and Today.Sometimes, its about half the size. But there have been positive signs lately; viewership was up 3 percent over last year and ratings up 13 percent among the key audience of women age 25-to-54 during the week that ended on Sept. 21. CBS hopes to take advantage of a tumultuous time at its rivals.