’60 Minutes’ Keeps on the News and Is Rewarded by Viewers | Entertainment News

By DAVID BAUDER, AP Media Author

NEW YORK (AP) — One among tv’s hottest exhibits can also be amongst its oldest.

It is not the primary time that is been stated about “60 Minutes” since its 1968 debut. Within the frenzied information yr of 2020, nonetheless, the success is a tribute to each sturdiness and flexibility.

CBS’ pioneering newsmagazine is constantly one of many most-watched packages on tv and its viewership is up 9% over final yr, the Nielsen firm stated. That is greater than some other prime-time program on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, and likewise certainly one of solely 4 to indicate a year-to-year enhance.

All that, and a well-publicized dust-up with President Donald Trump, too.

After govt producer Invoice Owens turned the present primarily over to COVID-19 protection final spring, “60 Minutes” has returned to its conventional format whereas being centered on being well timed.

“We’re being inspired, and we do, to search for tales that relate to the week,” stated veteran correspondent Lesley Stahl. “Definitely for the previous few years, each week has been unpredictable. It’s important to be ready to leap.

“It is a part of the rationale that we’ve got continued to achieve success, and proceed to get a brand new stream of younger folks to come back in and watch,” she stated. “I additionally assume that individuals discover a sure sort of consolation in the truth that we do it in the identical method we have all the time executed it. It seems to be the identical, the sensibility is similar, the DNA is similar.”

Anderson Cooper’s report on lingering COVID-19 signs obtained a robust response this fall, and there have been different pandemic-related tales about vaccine growth and issues producing protecting gear. Reporters nearly all the time return from coronavirus tales with concepts for others, Owens stated.

“The factor about this story is that it actually does contact each a part of our lives,” he stated. “It is not that we’re seeking to simply do tales concerning the pandemic. We need to do related tales concerning the pandemic. However I additionally assume folks want a break.”

That has inspired profiles of Jerry Seinfeld, Viola Davis, David Attenborough and Ken Burns to be combined in with tales on autism, a rising grizzly bear inhabitants and a hanging Scott Pelley piece on church buildings hewn into rock in Ethiopia.

“60 Minutes” this fall has featured interviews with fired authorities cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs, former President Barack Obama and poisoned Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny.

“On this newsiest of years, it is becoming that ‘60 Minutes’ grew to become much more aware of the headlines,” stated Andrew Heyward, former CBS Information president and now analysis professor at Arizona State’s Walter Cronkite Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Unique govt producer Don Hewitt usually ran “60 Minutes” as an island unto itself. His substitute, Jeff Fager, pushed the printed to be extra aware of the information and Owens has emphasised it much more over the previous 9 months.

The present’s ticking stopwatch has by no means modified, and Stahl is a dwelling hyperlink to late reporters Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Ed Bradley and Bob Simon. But it is noteworthy how “60 Minutes” has maintained momentum whereas turning to a brand new technology of reporters like Pelley, Cooper, Invoice Whitaker and Jon Wertheim, Heyward stated.

“The important thing to this system’s success is absolutely good story choice, actually deep analysis and actually good reporters and producers on the market doing the work,” he stated.

Whereas Trump’s ongoing effort to remain in workplace was addressed within the Krebs interview, Owens stated he is chosen to not give extra oxygen to the story.

Stahl’s off-the-rails interview with the president will seemingly be the season’s most-remembered second. Trump grew to become disgusted with Stahl’s questioning and lower issues brief.

“I’ve had folks say to me, ‘He set you up. He deliberate that,’” Stahl stated. “I’m completely constructive that that is not the case. It occurred organically within the room.”

Owens stated “60 Minutes” has had a good skilled relationship with Trump, who gave Stahl his first interview as president-elect in 2016. However this time, “there was a unique feeling within the room from the second we walked in.”

He stated he confronted a press consultant when he noticed Trump’s workforce was making ready to videotape the interview, reminding them of an settlement to not use the fabric. When Trump threatened to launch the unedited tapes, Owens protested and tried to cease it.

The White Home went forward anyway, permitting outsiders a uncommon alternative to see how the present crafted uncooked materials right into a completed, edited piece. Just like the interview itself, that in the end proved unremarkable.

“I used to be heartened — not shocked, however heartened — that we had nearly no criticism over our enhancing, which individuals thought was truthful,” Stahl stated. “That was pleasing. However I knew it might be truthful. We’re all the time truthful.”

Owens stated that “we did not really feel good that we had been unable to ship a extra fulsome interview. But it surely additionally wasn’t of our personal selecting.”

How about going again, and providing Trump the primary TV interview of his post-presidency?

“I have never provided that a lot thought,” Owens stated. “I’ve a sense we would not be his first shot.”

Stahl, too, has moved on. She’s making ready for an interview with Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Stahl stated she’s fully healed from her personal tough bout with COVID-19 final spring. That contrasts together with her husband, who had a comparatively delicate case, however nonetheless feels lingering signs, she stated.

Her expertise hasn’t had a lot affect on her work, each bodily and in influencing the kinds of tales she desires to do, she stated. She does really feel a connection to tales about well being care employees, as a result of she’s seen how onerous they work.

“One one who took care of me stated — after I acquired higher — that I used to be the primary particular person she had taken care of who hadn’t died,” she stated.

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