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GUEST BLOG #63: Diane Holloway Loves "60 Minutes" -- Give Or Take a Few
[Bianculli here: Contributing critic Diane Holloway, a "seasoned veteran" herself, takes a look at one of TV's most tenured institutions, and finds it still relevant and excellent. Well, almost all of it, anyway...]
"60 Minutes" Is Still Ticking... And Not Only Surviving, But Thriving
By Diane Holloway
In its 42nd season, 60 Minutes, which airs Sunday nights at 7 ET on CBS, is old (ancient by prime-time standards), and the more famous correspondents are, politely put, "seasoned veterans."
But this granddaddy-of-all-newsmagazines remains not only relevant but, against all odds, strong. According to A.C. Nielsen, 60 Minutes is still an unqualified hit, finishing last season ranked 13th among all programs, first among news programs, and the proud owner of a 10 percent growth in an era of audience shrinkage.
Depending on the lineup on any given week, even young people watch what my now-23-year-old son used to call "the tick-tick show." I'm amazed that after all these years, I'm still watching it.
What's the deal? Is this CBS phenomenon nothing more than a post-football habit on Sundays at 7? I don't think so. Nor do I think people watch just to see what the star correspondents are doing. That may have been true when Mike Wallace, Morley Safer and Harry Reasoner ruled the broadcast -- especially when Wallace was leaping out from behind potted palms and grilling corrupt corporate and government executives.
People tune in for the content, for the big "get" interview or the news-breaking investigation. It's not smarmy fake news; it's real news. Excerpts from the broadcast often make their way into newspapers and other TV news broadcasts.
The genius of 60 Minutes is its dedication to investigative journalism (thanks to Don Hewitt, the late-great creator) and its clever ability, perhaps grudgingly at first, to sprinkle in celebrity features in a way that makes them seem both entertaining and newsworthy.
Hewitt set the serious, sophisticated tone, and it continues under Hewitt's successor, Jeff Fager. Even in interviews with noted dog abuser (and football star) Michael Vick and child-star-turned-movie-mogul Drew Barrymore, the tone is revelatory and tasteful.
Among its fellow newsmagazines, 60 Minutes alone has steered clear of the murder-mayhem-freak-show bent prevalent on ABC's 20/20 and CBS's Dateline.
During the presidential campaign last year, reporter Steve Kroft spent quality time with unknown candidate Barack Obama. Recognizing a big story before it becomes one is an important quality in a journalist, and Kroft was all over Obama. It was no surprise that he had unprecedented access to Obama at the nominating convention, after the election and after the inauguration.
More recently, General Stanley McChrystal, in a lengthy feature on 60 Minutes, made headlines when he practically demanded that President Obama fork over 40,000 troops for the war in Afghanistan.
And Lesley Stahl's sit-down with Senator Ted Kennedy before publication of his memoirs turned out to be one of the best and most-repeated pieces to air after Kennedy died.
Major investigations over the years include the horrors at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, the Wall Street scandals, global warming and the Mexican drug wars. The pieces reported the news and they made news.
Entertainment segments -- featuring interviews that range from Bob Dylan to Larry the Cable Guy, from Vogue's Anna Wintour to actor/producer Tyler Pitts -- always focus on people who matter and who have intriguing stories to tell. No Octomom or Balloon Boy on 60 Minutes, thank heavens.
I will conclude my love letter to 60 Minutes with one thought, one that just might get me in trouble with the show's viewers: I think it's time for Andy Rooney to quit. Sometimes his commentaries are still sharp and funny, but too often they ramble and have no impact. Why not give someone like Jon Stewart a shot at that spot? Or David Letterman? I appreciate Rooney's years of service, but enough is enough.
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Diane Holloway was the TV critic for the Austin American Statesman for 30 years, until the downturn in the newspaper business prompted her to take a buyout. She's now sniffing out other possibilities. Before newspapers, she worked in Washington for the Library of Congress, the American Film Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts. Maybe something entirely different is next. Or not.
I'm in my early 30s and love to watch 60 Minutes--it's still groundbreaking work with solid reporting, and that's rare. I could not agree with you more that Andy Rooney has to go. He really does. Rooney is the one piece of the show that no longer provides any kind of value, and makes the show feel Jurassic.
I think it was time for Rooney to quit about, oh, a decade ago. Remember -- many, many years ago, when he was an occasional contributor, and then he got popular to the point where they made sure to say, "those stories, PLUS Andy Rooney," and your reaction would be, Oh good! Now, it's, Oh no.
He used to be funny dealing with the minutiae of life; now it just seems like trivial fluff. But let's face it -- he's been that way for quite a while.
In this day of Comedy Central being a source of what some consider "real news", there will always be a 60 Minutes. It's smart, funny, informative and never panders to its audience.
With reality shows and celebrities all over the lot, 60 Minutes is like an old friend, a comfort zone we can retreat to for learning and enlightenment. I've watched it for years, and will continue to do so as long as we're both here. The only annoying aspect is during football season when I switch back & forth waiting for it to start.
Earlier on Sunday, CBS has the wonderful Sunday Morning, sort of 60 Minutes Lite. Again, there are wonderful interviews and bits of Americana that never insult the viewer.
For those two shows alone, CBS has done itself proud for many, many years. CBS really still is the Tiffany Network.
You have a typo in the 8th graph, wherein you refer to "CBS's Dateline". Of course, that should've been "NBC's Dateline". Or should it have been "CBS's 48 Hours"? And that's my real point ... both shows have fallen into that "murder-mayhem-freak-show" rut to which you allude.
Another characteristic that makes me appreciate 60 Minutes, and for which I despise the other newsmagazines (and maybe I should include CNN here too), is the background music that ABC uses (along with the slo-mo video clips) to jerk your emotions towards sadness, or the (different) music that NBC uses to whip you into anger. When 60 Minutes has music in a piece, the music is integral to the story they're telling, not some subliminal trigger to generate the emotions that their story wants to leave you with.
One more thing, about Andy Rooney. It is sad to say, but the only times I find him compelling these days is when he's delivering a eulogy to a fallen comrade, such as Walter Cronkite or Don Hewitt or his fellow World War II veterans. When he does that, he seems to synthesize the emotions of the program staff in a way they maybe can't themselves without "breaking format" as objective journalists. But those opportunities are -- hopefully -- few and far between, and that by itself isn't enough reason for him to have a regular weekly spot. Better to be on call for when the occasion is right.
About Andy Rooney, I agree that it's time for him to retire, but sometimes I wonder, what will happen in that last bit of the show.
Putting another commentator will seem forced, and in some ways, Rooney's bit is a constant. That space would seem empty, or long-time viewers may be expecting that last moment of randomness.
But watching Rooney is hard. In one episode he expressed outrage at a papaya for being a strange fruit. I didn't really think of Rooney as being a xenophobe before.
It may seem like I've given this topic a lot of thought because I have. ^_^