justin-fencsak 50 seasons ago, CBS News came up with a newsmagazine that aired on Sunday nights for an hour called 60 minutes; the show's trademark was and remains a stopwatch with a ticking noise that would signal the timing of each segment and ended the show with the dial reaching the end of the hour. The most watched news program on broadcast TV, 60 Minutes is to Sunday night what CBS Sunday Morning is to Sunday morning, in which it differs in stories. There are great interviews with celebrities and news figures interspersed with footage and there's hardly any music themes.

DKosty123 We have had 50 years of this and we still can not get enough. Almost all the original crew is gone, but the show keeps rolling in huge ratings. It is an amazing story and consider this show predates The Price Is Right by about 5 Years. In fact, this Video magazines copies by the other networks have never risen to the level of excellence this one has achieved.I bet that when Don Hewitt and CBS created this, none of them ever imagined it would be here, 50 years later, and long ago take away the crown for media excellence that the publication TIME Magazine used to represent. I remember the Mike Wallace era, fondly. In fact some cable outlets are running "Best of 60 Minutes" series quite successfully. This magazine is more often right than wrong, and never shy's away from controversy. It has covered conflicts across the globe in a way no one else ever did. I remember first hearing about the Shah of Iran on this series before he was overthrown. Without this show, I would not have.No news source is ever perfect, but this is the best format that does exist. They go out to the people, the locations, and the stories, and report the facts, giving those facts a face, and voice, and their real opinion. That is why this is so successful.The regular news still too often report the results of Opinion Polls as news. They rely on talking heads who very often do not really know what they are talking about. These 60 Minute Segments are truly reporting facts, not Pew Research. While they can be subject to the agenda of their subjects, their subjects are an expert on what the story is. Polls are simply slanted to get a response not based upon anything except numbers fed into a computer. Humans are the source so it is important to remember, "Garbage In, Garbage Out" when a poll is cited.I will take the names, faces, and their words over a media opinion or poll anytime. I always question and even ignore any news article or person who cites polls all the time. It might shock people who have not been exposed to this to realize that Pew Research Polls are the main source of material for Rush Limbaugh.

Tim SF 60 Minutes has some occasional moments of juice, but it lost its edge. 60 Minutes years ago was a lot more interesting, had harder-hitting stories, more "raw" interviews, capturing priceless moments on camera of innocence, guilt, glory, fame, whatever.However, the show today is tired and boring. There is no gusto. Is it a coincidence that once Lowell Bergman left, the show started to suck? Anyone who saw The Insider knows the story here. 60 Minutes "sold its soul" in the 1990's due to the tobacco scandal. Stock-owning executives from 60 Minutes falsified dangers that 60 Minutes would be the target of billion-dollar lawsuits from tobacco companies that would fell CBS if they aired a controversial public news piece from a former tobacco executive.A partial result of the fallout was that Lowell Bergman, the main producer of the 60 Minutes tobacco segment, left the show and now works for Frontline, a brilliant PBS documentary news show. Frontline is FAR more interesting and hard-hitting than 60 Minutes has been in years.Back to 60 Minutes...they seems to "go easy" these days and have one easy to medium news story. They mix that with some other "profile" type story, and throw in a non-threatening interview with some easygoing person. Something a teenager with a camcorder could do (follow around some singer and throw in some good writing).All very boring for the most part. Too easy, no more edge.60 Minutes used to the finest show around. Frontline years ago supplanted it as the best investigative journalism show around.

Syl 60 Minutes does something that the other shows like Primetime Live and Dateline try to capture. 60 Minutes is the top show if you're a serious journalist. If you're not, go elsewhere. On this show, ratings are always high and it was higher during the years before it led to Murder, She Wrote on Sunday nights. 60 Minutes has the best journalists around. They take their jobs seriously and treat every story as if it was the most important around. Some stories like Iraq, Afghanistan, Washington D.C., etc. deserve the attention and most of them do the best job around with research and they get the job done. They also do lighter stories like real estate, celebrity profiles, and other light-hearted stories like Netflix and Starbucks. Of course, you can't forget Andy Rooney who always gives us what he's thinking as it is. They don't talk down to the audience but they treat us with respect and intellect. They enlighten, inform, and educate us about certain issues. Lesley Stahl, the late Ed Bradley, Morley Safer, Peter Simon, and others are top notch journalists at the top of their peak. Don't forget the occasional story by Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric, and Christiane Amanpour. Once you made 60 Minutes as a journalist, you're on top of the world.