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60 Minutes is the name of an American magazine-format television news program produced by CBS News. The program, which since 1968 has aired at 7 P.M. on Sundays, has often been a leader in the ratings, both because of its provocative content and because it occupies the time slot immediately following CBS broadcasts of NFL football. The executive producer of 60 Minutes is Don Hewitt. CBS has announced that Hewitt will retire in 2004 and will be replaced by Jeff Fager, who now produces the spin-off program 60 Minutes II which began airing on weeknights in 1999.
The name is also used by Australian and New Zealand television current affairs programs, which are based on the American show.
The BBC also used the name for a short-lived hour-long early-evening news programme in the 1980s.
The American version is also broadcast on some foreign television networks and stations, and some segments are shown on American Airlines.
The American 60 Minutes is noted for its unique style and ability to generate news and controversy. As of 2004, the program (together with its contributors) has won a total of 75 Emmy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award presented in 2003 to creator Don Hewitt and past and present correspondents. 60 Minutes has also won many other prestigious journalism and television industry awards over the 36 years it has aired.
Many conservatives feel that 60 Minutes has a record of shoddy journalistic integrity, particularly regarding political stories attacking conservative politicians.
The format consists of three long-form news stories, without superimposed graphics. The stories are introduced from a set which has a backdrop resembling a magazine story on the same topic. The stories, often investigative, usually address topics which were previously the subject of stories in national newspapers such as The New York Times.
One common theme to the stories involves some allegedly cheating corporate executive or other high-placed alleged wrongdoer who is asked to comment on a story adverse to him or her. Invariably, the alleged wrongdoer does not want to comment and is shown running away from the pursuing 60 Minutes reporter and camera crew.
Other themes which have been associated with the show include its "Point-Counterpoint" debate segments, which originally featured James J. Kilpatrick on the conservative side of the debate and Shana Alexander for the liberals. This format was lampooned during the early years of the NBC comedy series Saturday Night Live, with Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd as the debaters; Aykroyd would begin his remarks with, "Jane, you ignorant slut." The "Point-Counterpoint" segments were recently revived for a few months featuring Bob Dole and Bill Clinton.
The show usually ends with a commentary by Andy Rooney expounding on topics from the war in Iraq to why they don't make paper clips the way they used to. One recurring topic is in coffee-cans. Rooney's pieces, particularly one in which he referred to actor Mel Gibson as a "wacko," have often led to a rash of complaints from viewers.
The show begins and ends with the image and sound of a Heuer stopwatch.
The program's correspondents and commentators have included:
Many news organizations suffer from errors in reporting or judgement. Several episodes in particular stand out in the history of 60 Minutes.
In 1986, Don Hewitt greenlighted a story concerning the Audi 5000 automobile, a popular German luxury car. The story concerned a number of incidents where the car purportedly accelerated without warning while parked, injuring or killing people. 60 Minutes was unable to duplicate this behavior, and so hired an outside consultant to modify the transmission to behave in this manner, and aired a story about it. The incident devastated Audi sales in the United States, which did not reach the same level of sales for another 15 years. The initial incidents which prompted the report were found by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Transport Canada to have been attributable to Dateline NBC, would be found guilty of similar tactics years later regarding fuel tank integrity on General Motors pickup trucks.
In 1996, former Brown & Williamson Vice President for Research & Development Jeffrey Wigand provided information to 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman that B&W had systematically hidden the health risks of their cigarettes. Bergman began to produce a piece based upon the information, but ran into opposition from Don Hewitt. Because of the hesitation from Hewitt, the Wall Street Journal instead broke Wigand's story. The 60 Minutes piece was eventually aired with substantially altered content, and was missing some of the most damning evidence against B&W. The exposé of incident was published in an article in Vanity Fair by Marie Brenner, entitled New York Times wrote that 60 Minutes and CBS had "betrayed the legacy of Edward R. Murrow." The incident was turned into a feature film, starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino, entitled The Insider.
60 Minutes in 1997 that agents for the U.S. Customs Service ignored drug trafficking across the U.S.-Mexican border at San Diego. The only evidence was a memorandum apparently written by Rudy Camacho, who was the head of the San Diego branch office. In this memo, CBS alleged that Camacho had allowed trucks belonging to a particular firm to cross unimpeded. Mike Horner, a former Customs Service employee, had passed the memos on to 60 Minutes, and even provided a copy with an official stamp. Camacho was not consulted about the article, and his career was devastated in the immediate term as his own department placed suspicion on him. In the end, it turned out that Horner had forged the documents in an act of revenge over his treatment within the Customs Service. Camacho successfully sued CBS for an unknown settlement, and Don Hewitt was forced to issue an on-air retraction. (The Washington Post, April 13, 1999)
60 Minutes received a set of documents which alleged that, while in the service of the Texas Air National Guard, President George W. Bush was declared unfit for duty, and suspended from service. Mary Mapes passed the information on to CBS anchor Dan Rather, who aired the information on September 8, 2004. These documents were the source of a considerably controversy when their authenticity was questioned by Internet bloggers, which then spilled over into the February 11, 1979. It airs on Sunday nights on the Nine Network.
The prograrm's correspondents and commentators have included:
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