Let's Talk about 60 Minutes

OP more like Pablum

I used to watch 60 Minutes religiously - a habit from my parents. But their long form stories & no bullshit reporting were good for explaining more complex stories and for highlighting grievous wrongs that would otherwise get no attention. Somewhere along the line, however, they lost good reporters like Mike Wallace (who was good, even if he was an asshole) and failed to replace them with other good reporters and instead hired "television personalities" like the horrid Lara Logan and the not so horrid, but not really a serious journalist, Anderson Cooper. Add to that Oprah & you may as well just add Gayle King to the gang for good measure

I think the got bogged down in personnel issues & had some serious misses (like the whole GWB/National Guard story) and just lost their edge.

I think Anderson is great on the show, a good fit. I did not respect how little Lesley challenged trump during that interview after he was elected,

R2 I agree. I think Lesley Stahl, Scott Pelley, and Bill Whitaker are top-notch reporters. Sometimes I feel they do boring stories. Other times they do in-depth analysis (like the Georgia elections problems).

I could be wrong, but I thought the Trump interview was a strategy on Stahl's/60M part; they pitched him softballs and he *still* stomped off like a little whiney little bitch, which they knew he'd do. What's her name - Stone Face - came hard at Joe & he just shrugged it off. It said as much about the characters of the two of them as anything they did or didn't say

I used to hold 60 Minutes up as the gold standard. But as with all news and journalism, they ignore objective facts and put spin on their stories. I'm not going to go into detail because I can't, but I know for sure in one story they did a hit job on a company and got so many objective facts wrong or deliberately shaded them as negative with absolutely no context. It shocked me they would do something like this given how revered 60 Minutes was. Then the stuff about Lara Logan came out, and it's even now come out that Mike Wallace would "tweak" stories to make them more sensational.

Journalism now is often a joke. A journalist called me about something I was working on. Of course we never talk to them anymore because you simply cannot trust them. Sure enough, that journalist went for a sensationalistic headline on the story that was absolutely not true based on the objective facts. These were known objective facts that the journalist didn't need me to corroborate. The article was so off-base it made me laugh. We usually just ignore the stories and within a day or two no one is paying attention anymore.

It's very concerning that the quality of journalism has gone so far downhill. It does seem to explain at least partially, though, how Republicans seem to be getting away with murder these days.

It was pretty boring last night.

I used to believe in 60 minutes until a relative who is a Dr. had a good friend, who is also a Dr. interviewed. The Dr. interviewed was horrified when he saw the segment because they had removed relevant parts of the interview which took he whole thing out of context. I have never been able to watch since, wondering what parts were removed and what the whole story really is.

They have always put spin on their stories. In the Mike Wallace days, you could have sworn the show was just there to block the advance of Socialist ideology. I think 60 Minutes was the first "news as entertainment" show on TV. Today, it's been surpassed by all other news shows and channels so their content seems only mildly entertainment bound compared to everyone else.

Lesley is my favorite, so easy to watch. Anderson is just there for the numbers. Lara Logan was a travesti. Bill Whitaker commands respect. Norah O'Donnell is a vapid bitch.

I always loathed Mike Wallace and his equally appalling son Chris Wallace (now a Fox news asshole). The apple never falls far does it.

The way Dan Rather was treated over an isolated mistake was absurd.

R10 I agree.

R9 I am super excited for Bill Whitaker to host Jeopardy. Sight unseen, but I am willing to say he would be a great long-term host.

Lesley Stahl mostly softball interviews people (see her interview with Trump). Plus she's 100 years old. Time to retire, gurl.

Lara Logan should have been shit-canned after her erroneous Benghazi report.

Yet she is still on the air.

For that reason alone, I have stopped watching.

R13 I haven't seen Lara Logan on in a long time.

I love Bill Whitaker as a reporter but I don't think he makes a good Jeopardy host. His gentle voice that works so well on 60 Minutes is not up to the task for a fast show like J.

Hasn't been the same. I miss Mike Wallace and so many others!

This show is hysterical trash.

It's gone from journalism to entertainment. That's what the viewers want and the advertisers crave.

R18 Strongly disagree.... does it try to present information in an attractive, accessible way? Yep. But compared to Fox, CNN, MSNBC, cable news in general, network news, partisan social media, it is one of the few neutral sources of "news" reported with some depth, focus, with the expectation that humans with normal attention spans and non-tribal mentalities are watching. It's an endangered species, much to our peril. Only some things on increasingly cluttered PBS can match it.

All the stars appear on that show with a pound and a half of make-up on their face.

It was always a stupid show. Not once did they ask anyone what kind of tree they would like to be. And where in the fuck are Rosie O'Donnell and Harry Reasoner? I heard they were a couple and I invited them to dinner.

R15 I strongly disagree. I think he is doing an excellent job on Jeopardy.

He's doing fine, not spectacular or worth of the Alex replacement.

I miss Andy Rooney!

Ugh, I forgot about Andy Rooney; even as a kid I remember hating his segments, which were just rants about random bullshit. Andy must have naked pictures of Don Hewitt or some such thing to hold onto that gig as long as he did.

I remember when the old weekly "TV Guide" used to have its Top Whatever of rated primetime programs, and I think through most of the 1970s and '80s (at least), "60 Minutes" was always the #1 show. But then so was "The Lucy Show" for 2 seasons in the late '60s, too..