Jane Pauley - Career

Career

From 1976 to 1989 Pauley was the co-host, with Tom Brokaw and later Bryant Gumbel, of NBC's The Today Show. Following in the footsteps, both in career and in style, of the first female anchor of the show, Barbara Walters, she became a symbol for professional women, more specifically, female journalists. In her autobiography, "And So It Goes", Pauley's colleague Linda Ellerbee wrote, "She (Pauley) is what I want to be when I grow up"). NBC briefly experimented with a trio of anchors, Pauley, Gumbel, and Chris Wallace, before returning to a co-anchor format with Gumbel and with Pauley serving in a deferential co-host capacity.

In 1989, following months of conjecture about Pauley's publicly reported dislike of the grueling morning assignment and ambition to work in prime-time television, she announced her resignation from Today. Speculation in the media seemed to imply that NBC executives had eased her out to advance younger NBC newscaster Deborah Norville, who had begun to play a larger role in the two-hour morning program.

After leaving The Today Show, Pauley hosted Real Life with Jane Pauley and served as deputy anchor for NBC Nightly News.

From 1992 to 2003, Pauley co-hosted NBC's Dateline NBC. On February 9, 1993, at the end of a regularly scheduled edition of Dateline, Pauley, along with co-host Stone Phillips, delivered a public apology to General Motors on behalf of NBC. While Pauley had no connection to the story, the apology was apparently part of a settlement of a lawsuit resulting from the now debunked 1993 report which aired on Dateline on November 17, 1992.

In 2004, she returned to television as host of The Jane Pauley Show, a syndicated daytime talk show lasted for one season. On the show, she discussed her bipolar disorder at length.

Much like her earlier attempt at solo hosting following her Today tenure, The Jane Pauley Show never gained traction in the ratings, and was canceled after one season. Since her talk show's cancellation, Pauley has made few appearances on television programs. She led a half-hour discussion on PBS' Depression: Out of the Shadows, which aired in May 2008. She also campaigned publicly for President Obama in her home state of Indiana and participates in the Smart Talk Lecture Series.

In September 2009, Pauley lent her name to the Jane Pauley Community Health Center, a facility in collaboration between the Community Health Network and the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township, Indiana. The center serves the local community, including students and their families, regardless of insurance or income, with an emphasis on integrating medical, dental and behaviorial health. Pauley, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2001, insisted that the center address all aspects of wellness.

In 2009, Pauley joined the Board of Directors of The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis-based non-profit organization that supports education innovation and reform. She is also AARP's Ambassador of "Your Life Calling." In this role Pauley reports on how people age 50+ are reinventing the way they live and work. Your Life Calling Episodes are featured each month on the Today show.

Pauley is also affiliated with the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, where she serves on the institute’s leadership board. She spoke publicly about her experience with bipolar disorder at the institute’s opening ceremony in 2005, and she also appears in a 2009 video about the research mission of the institute. She also serves on the board of directors and chairs the Advisory Council for the Children's Health Fund in NYC.

Pauley is known for revealing very little, if anything, of her private life, which made the disclosure of her bipolar disorder all the more unexpected. The timing of her announcement coincided with the release of her autobiography, Skywriting: A Life Out of the Blue (2004) and the launch of her daytime talk show.

In October 2006, Pauley and her lawyers filed a lawsuit against The New York Times for allegedly duping her into lending her name and likeness to an advertising supplement popular with drug companies. Pauley maintains she believed she was being interviewed by a Times reporter.

Pauley is married to Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau, and they have three children: twins Ross and Rachel, born in 1983, and Thomas, born in 1986.