No Plans--Yet--for Pauley as Co-Anchor

There are no plans for Jane Pauley to co-anchor the “NBC Nightly News” with Tom Brokaw, NBC News President Michael Gartner says. But he’s not ruling out the possibility.

“He specifically said, ‘We never say never,’ ” network spokeswoman Betty Hudson told reporters in a briefing on Gartner’s closed-door presentation at the NBC affiliates’ convention Wednesday.

NBC Television President Pier Mapes emphasized that Pauley’s first priority is a series of prime-time specials. She also will do special reports for “Nightly” and fill in for Brokaw.

Pauley left NBC’s troubled “Today” show in December after the network brought in Deborah Norville.

In an interview in July’s issue of Ladies’ Home Journal, Pauley insisted that NBC was not trying to force her out. But she said her husband, “Doonesbury” cartoonist Garry Trudeau, was skeptical.

“His initial reaction to NBC’s handling of the whole thing was ‘slash and burn,’ ” Pauley said in an interview “I remember him telling someone that most people in my position would have left tire tracks on Deborah’s back.”

But Pauley said she admires the way Norville has handled the controversy.

“If it had been me getting all that criticism, I would not have been functioning professionally.”