Getting Used To “Her Morning Shift”

Meredith Vieira‘s press tour is shifting into gear. In a long New York Times Magazine profile titled “Her Morning Shift,” the soon-to-be Today co-host talks about waking up with Matt Lauer:

“Good morning, good morning, good morning,” she parrots. “That’s the first thing you learn about this show. Everyone is constantly wishing everyone else a good morning.” When she first accepted her new job, she vowed to get out of bed at 4 every morning so she would be fully acclimated by her first show on Sept. 13. And for a little while she did. But by the time I caught up with her, she had taken to setting the alarm for 4 a.m., yelling “Shut the hell up” at the clock when it rang (O.K., she used slightly different language, but we can’t print it here) and going back to sleep for two more hours. She had become religious about watching “Today,” however. After all, she had barely ever seen the show. “I was getting my kids out and taking them to school and driving in to ‘The View,'” she explains. “Now I’d better pay attention.”

Lisa Belkin says Vieira’s challenge is “to balance the zaniness unleashed by years on ‘The View’ with the seriousness that will be required, at least during certain interviews, on the ‘Today’ show. More than that, the challenge is to leave the less structured, less demanding, very comfortable life she has created for herself and jump back into the much less flexible place where she was so badly burned years ago.” Look for the full piece online soon…