2. • Every other Tuesday at 10 pm starting Tuesday, September
24, 1968
• Introduced by Harry Reasoner
and Mike Wallace
• “It’s a kind of a magazine for
television which means it has the
flexibility and diversity of a
magazine adapted to broadcast
journalism”
• Before 60 Minutes there was no line
between news and entertainment
• First segment was behind the scenes of both Nixon running
against Humphrey for president

3. • Aristo stopwatch was the credits
• Low ratings for 7 years
• Critics loved 60 Minutes
• Awards were given
• 1975: Moved to Sunday night at 7
pm
• Audience grew
• 1977: In the Top 20 programs
• 1978: Reached the Top 10
• 1980: Number one program
• 23 seasons on the Top 10 list

4. • Executive producer until age 81
in 2004 when Jeffrey Fager took
over
• Fired from the CBS Evening News
• First person to have the idea of a
news magazine for television
• Attention span was 15 minutes
• Arranged news by the words
“tell me a story”

5. • Had a “short-fuse”
– Fired everyone at least once
• Legacy was the most
watched and most
profitable news broadcast
in the history of television
• Won eight Emmy Awards and many others
• Died of Pancreatic cancer at age 86

6. • Journalism or
Broadway?
• Hewitt saw behind the
scenes of early
television broadcasting
and loved it
• 60 Minutes changed
relationships with
producers

7. Clockwise from left: Morley Safer, Ed Bradley, Steve
Kroft, Lesley Stahl, Andy Rooney, Mike Wallace and Don
Hewitt.

8. • May 9, 1918: Born Myron Leon
Wallace in
Brookline, Massachusetts
• 1962: Son Peter died in a hiking
accident in Greece
– Devoted his career to journalism in
Peter’s honor
• Driven by the truth
• Pit-bull reporter
• Stock phrases
– “Come on” to goad on whoever he
was interviewing
– “Forgive me” before a really
offensive question

9. • “Ambush” interview
– Used footage obtained by hidden cameras to confront
scam artists
• Interrogation instead of interview
• Meticulous research
• Won 21 Emmy Awards
• Stepped down in 2009 but
stayed on as “correspondent
emeritus”
• Last interview was with Roger
Clemens on January 6, 2008
• Died April 7, 2012 age 93

10. • Facts and figures of the war
• Did not really get to hear what actual soldiers had
to say
• Mike Wallace interviewed soldiers going to and
coming back from Vietnam
• Talked to draftees asked their opinion on the war
– “Either go over there or go to jail”
– Some straight out of college, some had been there 2
or 3 times already
• Some wouldn’t shoot a gun unless in self defense

11. • Took a poll asking “Are you in favor or are you
against U. S. participation in the War?”
• Showed that going to Vietnam 120 in favor; 78
against; a few asleep or undecided
• Many soldiers’ opinions changed once they saw
the Vietnamese needed help
• Some soldiers still did not want to go back to
Vietnam
• Coming back from Vietnam 148 in favor;
46 against; 14 sleeping or didn’t answer

12. • 12 years after John F. Kennedy’s assassination
• Clint Hill jumped on the back of the presidential
limousine within two seconds of JFK being shot
• Pushed Jacqueline Kennedy back to protect her life
• Secret service agent 17 years
• Chief of the Whitehouse detail
• Assistant director of the service
• Retired four months previous to
the interview age 43
• http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7235749n&tag=mncol;lst;1

13. • U.S. supported Shah Reza Pahlavi ruler of Iran from 1941-
1979
• Islamic fundamentalists overthrew the Shah and accused
him of being corrupt
• January 1979: the Shah left Iran and fled to
Egypt, Mexico, and elsewhere
• New leader of Iran: Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini
• October 1979: Ayatollah called for anti-American street
demonstrations in his country.
• November 4: Students took over the
U.S. Embassy in Tehran
• 66 Americans taken hostage

14. • November 18: Mike Wallace interviewed the Ayatollah
– No questions about Iran’s internal politics, lack of freedom
under the Ayatollah, no questions the interpreter didn’t
want to translate
– Established that the only way hostages would be released
was to give Iran the Shah so they could locate money that
he took from their people and to know the extent of his
treason
– Thought U.S. Embassy was a spy center
• Later women and African Americans were released due
to Islamic beliefs
• 52 hostages were released once Reagan was sworn into
office

15. • 3 minute debate
• Gave both liberal and conservative
views at one time
• Was anyone paying attention??
• “When something is so well-known that you can take
comedy and use it, because comedy is only funny if
everybody knows the truth behind the comedy. If
nobody watched 60 Minutes none of that would have
been funny. Everybody watched it and it was huge, and
to this day it’s still huge.”
• http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ms4s_saturday-night-live-point-counterpo_fun

16. • Grouch who had some interesting opinions
• Eyebrows matched his personality
• Wrote and presented essays about everyday
things we take for granted
• First essay “An Essay on Doors”
• “You know what I hate?”
– Made us realize that we
hated whatever it was too
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=73
46799n&tag=mncol;lst;5

17. • Less journalism and more sensationalism
• Sensationalism:
1. Sensational stories
2. Emotional way in which they are presented
3. Emphasis on entertainment value
• 20/20
• Dateline
• Entertainment Tonight
• The Insider
• Extra
• Inside Edition
• Access Hollywood

18. I interviewed my
mom. She is the
morning anchor for
WKBN 27 First News
in Youngstown, OH.

19. I remember segments on 3 mile island because it
was close to us and I didn’t understand what was going
on there and that was the first time that they explained it
at length where I understood what was going on. I
remember a lot of the celebrity ones that they did too.
You know to have a Barbara Streisand on or to have
some of the big celebrities that you didn’t see talk to
other media outlets at the time because it wasn’t so E
News oriented, entertainment news wasn’t really the
thing, and there were some celebrities that
didn’t talk to anybody but they might go on
60 Minutes, like Johnny Carson.

20. So in those instances I remember those. I remember some of
the ones too where the people were swindlers. They used
to always catch the swindlers someone who was always
trying to cheat and steal and get away with it and they had
all the evidence put together in a nice tight package, while
nobody else could seem to nail these people they found a
way to do it in 15 minutes. They used hidden cameras, and
that’s what was unique too at the time
nobody did the type of journalism that
they were doing and they brought you
through it with them to help you know
what was going on.

21. I remember that it was on Sunday nights and I
would be frustrated because everybody was
watching , all the adults were watching, and I
was young and bored to tears because it seemed like
everything was over my head. I was waiting for Gun
Smoke and Lucille Ball to come on, I was waiting for the
shows that would come on on Sunday nights and we
were stuck watching that every Sunday and I had to get
through it. Then as I got older and more interested in the
news I started watching it myself and I kind
of got hooked and it wasn’t until I was in my
twenties that I truly appreciated what they
were doing.

22. No, it had its heyday in the middle so to
speak. It’s probably less popular now
than it was at its height. It’s still a strong
news show but it was the pioneer of
what it does. It has been copied, its style
and its depth has been copied because
up until that point nobody tried to do
what they were doing.

23. In a regular news show at the most you would get three
minutes for a story. Usually the average is about a minute
thirty for a news story on some crime that’s happening or
some tax situation that’s going on in the community. They
don’t really give you the background- what led up to it or
what might happen after-they kind of just tell you this is
what’s going on and they don’t give you much frame of
reference. That’s the difference, 60 Minutes had enough
time to give you the feeling all around the news story
besides the who, what, where, when, and how.
They give you more of a context, you feel like
you understand it from start to finish.

24. On some of the major stories like the Vietnam War you saw a lot of
the pictures of blood and gore and the facts but 60 Minutes gave
you more context. They talked to soldiers, or talked to people
around the soldiers and you got a feeling like they were the first
ones who kind of brought you there. It gave you even more of a
context from the human point of view. I think it had a lot to do
with swaying people’s opinions about the Vietnam War they
wanted it to end, they wanted soldiers to come home. It did the
same thing for Operation Desert Storm, both of the wars in the
Middle East in the early ‘90s. It gave people more of a context. I
think before most Americans didn’t even
understand where the Middle eastern countries
were or how they affected each other and I think
60 Minutes filled in a lot of the gaps.

25. Sometimes correspondents spent more time with their
producer than their husband or wife. There were always
producers. You know Edward R. Murrow had people he
worked with? He worked with a team, but I think that 60
Minutes, their producers took on almost an equal role with
the reporters to where they were side by side. When they
would travel they were together, they collaborated,
bounced things off of each other, got mad at each other, I
mean you’ll hear the stories that they tell. There were two
passionate people working on a story
besides the photographer who captured
the video part and it all comes together
to give you a more balanced approach.

26. Today news agencies are cutting back and having a video
journalist go out, where it used to be two or three or four
people working on a story like 60 Minutes does, but now they
want one person to go out with a camera, get the sound, get
the video, ask all the questions, think about it from every
angle, and then try to put something together for the public
and they are not getting a well thought out and well-rounded
summary. They are getting a little snippet of what people
come up with who have not thought about it deeply and that
is not usually enough. You’ll find that it’s falling short in a lot
of instances. For a basic fire story, it’s probably going to be
ok, but for something that has any consequence one person
will never be able to do what two or three people's minds
working together and bouncing off each other can do. So 60
Minutes started that idea of good collaboration and real
forethought of fighting it out until they really came up with as
well-rounded an approach as they could.

27. They were the first ones to go in there and
bombard somebody and do the ambush
interview. I think it really did set up some
reporting today, I mean if you look at
Channel 11 they’re still trying to do that but it’s more
for effect than for what they’re actually getting at. But
it did give the fourth estate, which is the media, extra
clout to come in and to ask what questions they
want, to kind of bombard, and push their way to get
what they were trying to get and it gave them a little
bit more leverage, because they could make people
look foolish.

28. They were very careful, they could find every piece of
document. Most reporters when they start out know
that they can be looking for documents but maybe don’t
know how. 60 Minutes probably had a team of
historians that knew how to dig into court records and
files and whatever they could find to get the background
to show 2+2=4 , they could show it black and white they
had back up, they knew what they wanted to prove and
they knew how to go backwards to prove it. Sometimes
a reporter knows what’s happening but they don’t have
the black and white and they manage to find,
and their teams knew how to find it.

29. They have been copied, which is the biggest form of
flattery. Some of the best things of 60 Minutes have
been copied for other reasons. Dateline and
newsmagazines tried to take the best out of 60
Minutes and use it, but nobody has really been able to
imitate it. As soon as a person becomes a 60 Minutes
correspondent they are put in higher esteem than any
of these other newsmagazines. You couldn’t really tell
me who’s on Dateline but you could tell me who’s on
60 Minutes. I mean Andy Rooney, some of the things
they did couldn’t be duplicated. They became
their own entities, they almost became
parodies of themselves.

30. Well, every week you just waited to see what
he was going to say. I loved the ones he did
on him at the end about retiring and not
retiring and he wanted people to leave him
alone and let him eat his dinner. It’s the truth
though, he really just wanted people to leave
him alone so he could eat his dinner in public
and it made me laugh. He really
was a curmudgeon, he was
tough stuff.

31. 60 Minutes was the first newsmagazine that had
three segments that were each about 15
minutes long. At the time 60 Minutes was
created, documentaries were the main way
people got their news. These documentaries
were always an hour long so 60 Minutes was
very innovative. How did 60 Minutes change
the news business and help it to get to where
it is today?

32. I guess from the documentary perspective where it would be
an hour down to fifteen minutes they did a lot of the
thought part for you. They were the ones who took a big
idea, the Vietnam War or whatever, they condensed
it, synthesized it, thought about it, figured out what the
true crux of the matter was and presented it in fifteen
minutes. So maybe you could do it in less time but get a
nice full view and they did it in a way that was compelling.
Sometimes documentaries weren’t the most compelling
things in the world so perhaps people were spending an
hour watching something but were only spending 10
minutes listening to it. So 60 Minutes took that 15 minutes
where they were engrossed.

33. When it gets to a point where people are actually waiting
for Sunday night to turn that on or won’t miss it because
it comes on Sunday night “What time is it?” ‘7 o’clock’
“Put 60 Minutes on”. That says a lot. I mean for a news
program? When would that happen? I mean for a Big
Bang Theory, yeah, but for a news program that says
something. Even to this day there might be a Dateline
that comes through or another one of those news shows
where you think to yourself I’ll catch it whenever or I’ll
look it up later, but for 60 Minutes some
people still set aside 7 o’clock on Sunday
nights when they put 60 Minutes on.

34. • "A Look Back at Some Memorable Mike Wallace Moments."
60 Minutes Rewind. CBS News Interactive Inc., 8 Apr. 2012.
Web. 18 May 2012.
• Day, Nancy. Sensational TV: Trash or Journalism? Berkeley
Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 1996. Print.
• "Face to Face with the Ayatollah." 60 Minutes Overtime.
CBS News Interactive Inc., 21 Jan. 2011. Web. 19 May 2012.
• 60 Minutes. CBS News Interactive Inc., 2012. Web. 6 May
2012.
• ""60 Minutes" icon Mike Wallace dies at 93." CBS News.
CBS Interactive Inc., 8 Apr. 2012. Web. 19 May 2012.
• 60 Minutes Overtime. CBS News Interactive Inc., 2012.
Web. 21 Apr. 2012.