‘Good to be home’: TV host Savannah Guthrie returns to Today program

Savannah Guthrie returned to Today on Monday morning (US time), more than two months after she took a leave from the morning newscast to dedicate herself to the search for her abducted mother.

“It is good to be home,” Guthrie said at the top of the show, as her co-anchor, Craig Melvin, greeted her with a pat on the hand. “Ready or not, let’s do the news.”

What followed seemed very much like a typical episode of Today, with Guthrie ticking through headlines on everything from the war in Iran to soaring gas prices to Monday’s college basketball championship game. “Shout out to my Arizona Wildcats,” Guthrie said, referring to her alma mater, University of Arizona, which lost in Saturday’s semifinals.

But the heavy emotions underlying Guthrie’s return were not far from the surface.

The anchor wore a yellow dress and a small yellow heart necklace, a visual nod to the yellow ribbons and yellow flowers that fans have worn in support of the Guthrie family’s wrenching search for Nancy Guthrie, 84, who went missing in February.

Supporters gathered Monday outside Rockefeller Plaza, where Todayis taped, holding signs with Nancy Guthrie’s photograph. At 8.30 am, Guthrie emerged to greet them, clasping the hand of Jenna Bush Hager, her Today colleague.

“These signs are so beautiful; you guys have been so beautiful,” Guthrie said. “I received so many letters, so much kindness, to me and my whole family, and we feel it. We feel your prayers.”

It was the only moment of Monday’s telecast when Guthrie became visibly emotional. Weather forecaster Al Roker, standing nearby on the plaza, plucked the pocket square out of his jacket and handed it to his co-anchor, who smiled as she blinked back tears.

“This is such a nice pocket square,” Guthrie said. “I don’t want to slobber on it.”

Guthrie’s return on Monday made for one of the most anticipated episodes of a morning news telecast in years.

For much of February, the excruciating investigation into her mother’s disappearance riveted the nation but confounded the authorities. By late February, the number of detectives assigned to the case started to decrease. And by early March, Guthrie started to send signals that she was considering a return to the show.

First, she swung by the Today studios to thank her colleagues for keeping viewers up-to-date on the investigation. Her remarks made it clear that she was intending a return to her post as anchor. That all but silenced industry speculation that Guthrie was going to quit the show.

Then she sat down for a two-part interview with her friend and former co-anchor, Hoda Kotb, which aired on “Today” in late March. The interview was emotional and raw; at one point, Guthrie said she believed her mother was kidnapped for ransom, and expressed regret at the possibility that her celebrity status could have made her mother a target.

“To think that I brought this to her bedside, that it’s because of me,” Guthrie said, dabbing at tears. “I’d just say: ‘I’m so sorry, Mommy. I’m so sorry.’”

Guthrie also spoke about how difficult it would be to return to the morning newscast.

“It’s hard to imagine doing it because it’s such a place of joy and lightness,” she said. “I can’t come back and try to be something that I’m not. But I can’t not come back because it’s my family.”

She continued: “I think it’s part of my purpose right now. I want to smile. And when I do, it will be real. My joy will be my protest.”

Morning newscasters generally try to emphasise that joy and “lightness,” but real-life events have a way of intruding on set. Robin Roberts, for instance, told Good Morning America viewers in 2012 that she had a rare blood and bone marrow disorder. More recently, Sheinelle Jones made an emotional return to “Today” after her husband died of brain cancer.