For more than seven years, Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson anchored the weekend edition of CBS’s morning lineup, first under the banner CBS This Morning Saturday and later CBS Saturday Morning. Their final broadcast aired on November 22, 2025, when both women delivered emotional sign‑offs in front of the familiar round table.
In October 2025, CBS News announced a major wave of layoffs tied to cost‑cutting measures under parent company Paramount, now restructured under new leadership from Paramount Skydance.
Miller, Jacobson, and longtime executive producer Brian Applegate were all removed from the Saturday program, part of nearly 100 CBS News employees affected in that first round of cuts.
Reports from outlets such as the Los Angeles Times and Deadline framed the move as a bid to streamline operations and align the weekend show more closely with the weekday CBS Mornings brand.
CBS did not publicly brand their exit as a firing over performance; instead, executives described the changes as structural and financial. Still, longtime viewers interpreted the shift as the end of a trusted era, especially given Miller’s deep history with the network and Jacobson’s long track record in broadcast news and sports.
Who Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson Are
Michelle Miller joined CBS News in 2004 and built a reputation as a serious, socially conscious correspondent before stepping into the co‑anchor role in 2018.
Over the years, she covered major stories on race, policing, and social justice, including the killings of George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown, and she frequently contributed to CBS Sunday Morning, 48 Hours, and the CBS News streaming network.
Dana Jacobson arrived at CBS News in 2015 after a decade at ESPN, where she appeared on SportsCenter and First Take. Her background in sports and live television gave the Saturday show a different energy, blending lighter features with hard news.
Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson (Credit: CBS)
Both women were widely praised for their chemistry, with colleagues and viewers often noting how their banter and mutual respect made the weekend hour feel more conversational and grounded.
Their removal sparked concern among industry watchers about the broader impact of media consolidation and budget cuts on diverse, experienced voices.
Miller, in particular, was one of the network’s prominent Black correspondents, and her departure amplified conversations about representation in newsrooms during an era of shrinking staffs.
What’s Next for the Show and the Anchors
After Miller and Jacobson’s final episode, CBS quickly pivoted to a new lineup. By November 29, 2025, correspondents Lindsey Reiser and Vladimir Duthiers began anchoring the revamped CBS Saturday Morning, signaling a shift in tone and style.
Some longtime viewers took to social media to express disappointment, saying the new pairing lacked the warmth and familiarity they had grown to expect from Miller and Jacobson.
As for the anchors themselves, neither has announced a single, definitive next step yet, but both are widely expected to remain active in media.
Miller’s long history in national reporting, combined with her work on social justice and her 2023 book on race and policing, positions her for continued roles in documentaries, commentary, and possibly streaming projects.
Jacobson’s sports and general‑news background gives her options in both network and digital outlets, especially as networks continue to blend sports and news coverage.
For now, their abrupt exit stands as a reminder of how quickly even well‑established on‑air teams can be reshaped by corporate decisions.
Viewers who tuned in for years to Miller and Jacobson’s weekend sign‑off are left with a sense of loss, while the anchors themselves appear poised to write the next chapter outside the CBS studio.
For anyone who grew up with Julie Andrews spinning on an Austrian hill, it is jarring to learn that the real von Trapp escape looked very different.
Instead of hiking over misty peaks with suitcases, the family walked to a nearby railway line and boarded a train to Italy, posing as ordinary travelers heading off on holiday. Austria’s borders closed soon after, which meant their low-key departure happened just in time.
Their route to Italy was tied to a practical legal detail, not a dramatic dash to Switzerland. Captain Georg von Trapp had been born in what later became Italian territory, which meant he held Italian citizenship and could legally take his family there.
By the time they left, the family had already toured the United States and secured an American booking agent willing to help fund passage across the Atlantic.
Once in the United States, the von Trapps slowly rebuilt their lives through their voices. Drawing on the choral traditions they had cultivated in Austria, they performed as the Trapp Family Singers across North America through the 1940s and early 1950s.
Maria later recounted those years in her memoir, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, which became the foundation for the stage musical and then the film that turned their name into pop culture shorthand.
From Touring Choir To Mountain Resort: The Vermont Years
The question most fans ask is simple: where did they actually end up living once the spotlight dimmed? In 1942, the family bought a farm in Stowe, Vermont, a quiet patch of countryside that reminded them of the Austrian Alps they had left behind.
They called the property Cor Unum, Latin for “one heart,” signaling their intention to stay together even as their lives changed.
That farm evolved into the Trapp Family Lodge, a guesthouse that blended Austrian influences with New England scenery. Captain von Trapp oversaw early construction, and over time, the property grew from a modest lodge into a full resort, with additional rooms, dining spaces, and outdoor activities.
Trapp Family Singers (Credit: BBC)
After a major fire destroyed the original lodge in 1980, the family rebuilt and reopened in 1983, turning the business into a multigenerational enterprise.
Today, the lodge still operates under von Trapp family leadership, with descendants serving as directors and executives. The resort markets cross-country skiing, hiking, and a kind of alpine nostalgia that directly trades on the story that Hollywood amplified.
For many visitors, it offers a rare chance to connect the familiar film myth with an actual family-run place that grew out of real displacement and reinvention.
Separate Lives, Shared Legacy: What Happened To The Children
Behind the big-picture story, each of the von Trapp children built a life that rarely fits the movie’s neat closing notes. Historical records compiled by the U.S. National Archives describe a range of careers: Rupert became a physician, Agathe taught kindergarten in Maryland, and Hedwig taught music.
Maria (the second-eldest daughter in real life) spent about three decades doing missionary work in New Guinea, showing how the family’s religious commitments carried on well beyond the convent scenes audiences remember.
Johanna eventually married and returned to Austria, while Werner farmed, reflecting a shift from touring stages to quieter, rooted work.
Another daughter, Martina, married but tragically died in childbirth, a loss that never appears in the screen version of their story. Two of Maria and Georg’s later daughters, Rosmarie and Eleonore, settled in Vermont, helping tie the family permanently to the region around the lodge.
Maria herself remained a central figure, not just as the woman whose life inspired the musical but as an active leader in the family’s projects. She helped run the lodge and even returned to missionary work in New Guinea in the mid-1950s with some of her children.
Meanwhile, the youngest child, Johannes, focused on managing and expanding the lodge, and his own children now sit in executive roles within the resort.
The musical thread never fully disappeared, either. A younger generation, the grandchildren of Werner, performed as a group called The von Trapps in the 2000s, releasing albums that nodded to the famous film songs while also carving out their own style.
Their careers underscore how the family has continually balanced pop culture expectations with a more grounded family history recorded by historians, archivists, and biographers.
For fans who only know the sweeping final shot of the movie, the real story offers something quieter but in many ways more affecting.
The von Trapps did not simply escape and fade into legend; they worked, grieved, argued, rebuilt, and kept finding new ways to live with a story that Hollywood turned into myth. That ongoing, slightly messy afterlife might be the most human part of their saga.
