In September 2011, Meredith Vieira was named to a new role as special correspondent for “Rock Center with Brian Williams.” She will contribute her signature reporting for the broadcast, as well as report for “Today,” “NBC Nightly News” and other NBC News programs. Vieira will additionally contribute to special network programming including the 2012 London Olympic Games.
Vieira joined TODAY in September 2006 as co-anchor, and was immediately accepted into the ranks of America’s first television family. During her five years at “Today,” Vieira covered some of the biggest news stories of our time, including the 2008 presidential election, , the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech, the devastating earthquakes in, Haiti, Japan, and the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. She sat down with some of the most notable newsmakers of our time, including President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and First Lady Laura Bush. She also contributed to “Dateline NBC” as well as many NBC News specials.
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 Illinois Gov. 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, Colo., school shooting. In 2008, Vieira traveled to Sichuan, China to cover the devastating earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people in that region.
Vieira played a key role in covering the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver with exclusive interviews with the athletes and medalists. Vieira’s memorable exclusive celebrity interviews include Janet Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Susan Boyle, Kate Gosselin and Madonna, to name a few.
Vieira also currently serves as host of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” a position she’s held since 2002. Prior to joining NBC News, Vieira had been moderator of ABC’s “The View” since the show’s inception in 1997. She started at ABC in 1993 when she joined their news division as chief correspondent of “Turning Point,” which debuted in March 1994. Vieira has been honored with nine Emmys, including two Daytime Emmys for best morning newscast for her work on “Today.”
Prior to her work at ABC, Vieira spent more than a decade at CBS News, where she garnered five Emmy Awards for her work as a correspondent on the news magazines “60 Minutes” and “West 57th.” From 1989 to 1991, she was a co-editor of “60 Minutes.”
Vieira also frequently anchored the “CBS Morning News” and was contributing national correspondent on the “CBS Evening News With Dan Rather.” After two successful seasons, and pregnant with her second child, Vieira left “60 Minutes.”
Vieira joined CBS News as a reporter in its Chicago bureau in January 1982. Prior to that, she was a reporter for local WCBS-TV in New York for three years. She began her career as a news announcer for WORC-Radio in Worcester, Mass., in 1975.
A native of Providence, R.I., Vieira received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tufts University in Medford, Mass. She has three children, Ben, Gabe and Lily with her husband, Richard Cohen.