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In strained efforts at sophistication, both 60 Minutes and First Tuesday often take what one producer calls "lightly satirical" potshots at easy targets. Though irony sometimes amplifies a story—as in the case of NBC's report on religious bigotry in Northern Ireland and CBS's caustic look at Palm Beach millionaires—it can just as easily be gratuitous. Last week the First Tuesday segments dealt with a weight-reducing "fat farm" and a Christian anti-Communist crusade. Both fell into the void between irony and farce. Harry Reason-er's 60 Minutes visit with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor was stretched for 20 minutes— and then its mood was shattered by one of the show's sophomoric "Digressions," involving inane wisecracks from a pair of silhouettes. Like many TV news shows, the magazines resort to seemingly significant film clips—slum dwellers lounging on doorsteps, bearded students on motorcyles—that are becoming visual clichés.
Still, the TV magazines have brought a welcome sense of whimsy to the unblinking big eye. In a piece on Joe Namath, CBS rang a cash register every time he passed the football. To spice up an interview with Karl Hess, Barry Goldwater's onetime speechwriter, First Tuesday flashed on stills of Robert Taft and Henry David Thoreau every time their names were mentioned. The NBC sound men played Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart during an interview with Philip Blaiberg and spun off Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture while a French count's hunting party slaughtered hundreds of pheasant.
An innovative style, coupled with rising popularity (both shows have in the past topped ABC's That's Life in the ratings), promises to make the TV newsmagazines network fixtures. If the trend continues, TV news may finally find its place as a marketable commodity, turning out jokes as well as Laugh-In, making satiric thrusts as well as Gomer Pyle.