Maria Shriver to Return to NBC News

Nearly a decade after she left NBC, Maria Shriver is returning to the network as a “special anchor,” covering women’s issues for television and the Web.

Ms. Shriver in September.

The announcement, made on the “Today” show on Tuesday morning, is a significant moment in her move away from political life. Ms. Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family, was the first lady of California while her husband Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor from 2003 to 2011. She and Mr. Schwarzenegger separated in 2011 after he admitted that he had fathered a child with a member of their household staff a decade earlier.

Until Mr. Schwarzenegger ran for governor, Ms. Shriver was a familiar face on NBC as a correspondent on the network newsmagazine “Dateline.” Her formal homecoming was foreshadowed last month when she contributed to the network’s coverage of the new pope.

“Through her reports, her books, her events, her activism and the powerful social community that she has built, Maria Shriver has become a leading voice for empowering women and inspiring all of us to be architects of change in our lives,” said Pat Fili-Krushel, the NBCUniversal News Group chairwoman, in a statement on Tuesday. “We are delighted that Maria will play such a key role in our efforts to examine this important topic, and all of us at the NBC family are excited to welcome her home.”

Ms. Shriver is the latest example of NBC hiring â€" in this case rehiring â€" a reporter with political connections and star power. Chelsea Clinton and Jenna Bush Hager are also correspondents for the network.

In Ms. Shriver’s new role, she will not appear regularly on any one NBC program, but she will produce and anchor prime-time special reports and make appearances on various programs. Her appearances won’t be limited to NBC’s network news programs; they may also come on the cable channels MSNBC and CNBC and on the company’s sports shows. Her other title will be editor at large for women’s issues for the Web sites owned by NBC News, indicating that she will contribute to those, as well.

In a blog post on her own Web site, she said that through her books, conferences and other media outlets, she had come to appreciate “even more how television journalism, paired with digital, can engage and elevate humanity in incredible ways â€" educating, edifying, impacting people’s minds and hearts.”

NBC briefly partnered with Ms. Shriver in 2009 when she published a study titled “The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything.” When the next such report is released next year, NBC will have “exclusive broadcast access” to it, the network said in a news release.

Ms. Shriver will remain in Los Angeles, and she said that she will not give up any of her outside work.