60 Minutes

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.

In their 5/21/23 episode, 60 minutes painted black the best industry in the world that made the USA strong and powerful for decades. They claimed that the DoD contractors are charging the US government thousands and millions of dollars without regard to the real cost, or in other words cheating. This is so unfair to blame an industry that made the US military to be the best in the world without understanding how expensive it is to buy parts and components due to inflation running out of control and decline in manufacturing that provide competitive parts. A lot to blame for cost of chain supply, manufacturing, and materials that went up so much that your grocery shopping will look cheap.

I began watching 60 Minutes around 1979. I was in high school and I have never stopped. As someone mentioned before me, it is definitely formula, but the formula definitely works. 20/20 and the multitude of other news shows that have attempted to imitate it have never come close. Watch this show and you will definitely learn something!

"60 Minutes" is definitely the originator of all the great television news magazines. Every Sunday night for several years I have either watched the show or listened to it on the local CBS radio affiliate here in Los Angeles. To me "60 Minutes" works in two different ways. The first is as an investigative program that looks hard at very controversial issues that the public should be made aware of. The show also is great at doing wonderful celebrity profiles. It really allows the general public to look at the lives of various celebrities and show what they are like once the spotlight is off. Of course, the show has its detractors who say that it has become very self important, but this will always be to me one of the most influential shows in the history of television.

60 Minutes is one, if not the, classic show that tries to convey topics and contexts to viewers with investigative journalism and a longer airtime. One of the few programs still running that really journalistically deals with the world and what is happening in and on it, but does not always hit the nail on the head and has unfortunately become more and more sensational. Nevertheless, a show that is still worth paying attention to.