Neverending Television
60 Minutes, 1968
In this age of twitter, blogs and always-breaking cable news, it's easy to forget that the pressures on long-form journalism are actually old problems. When legendary CBS producer Don
Hewitt launched 60 Minutes four decades ago, he was on a mission to
give more attention to stories that had previously been crunched and dumbed down to fit into the networks'
evening news. But from the first seconds of its signature ticking stopwatch to the last ramblings of Andy Rooney, 60 Minutes consistently sets the standard for enterprising, in-depth TV journalism. And whether they're showing off hidden camera footage or brandishing
documentary evidence of government malfeasance, no segment would be complete
without the well-lit in-depth interviews that have made correspondents like
Morley Safer and Lesley Stahl as famous as the news stories they've covered.