Media

Excuse me? So "60 Minutes" is a modified peep show now, too? MAN how far they fall. Remember when CBS used to be called "The Tiffany Network"? The news division was above reproach, its integrity without question. As a matter of fact, the early CBS News titans wrote the book, as it were, on broadcast journalism. "Gotcha" journalism originated, officially, with Mike Wallace and what was then called "ambush journalism." Back when grizzled male reporters sat in a harshly-lit studio, often with a live cigarette in their fingers. "60 Minutes" was the gold standard. The brass ring. If you were hired as a "60 Minutes" correspondent, you were a giant in your own right, a heavyweight, an A-lister, a star. You had credibility oozing out of your pores. Your integrity was beyond question but then again, you were held to the highest of high standards. The revered and feared executive producer Don Hewitt was a task master and a stern and driven leader, and he managed some mighty egos. But then again, you were on Mount Olympus. I was a news reporter for a number of years and at one point or other we all fantasized about being a "60 Minutes" correspondent, the same way most of the women I met or worked with when I was still working - at one point or other aspired to be the next Barbara Walters. A position like that was where you wanted to be. Among the greats. It meant you just might be one of them. And the pay and perks were fabulous too!

But sheesh, "60 Minutes" was an amazingly ground-breaking show, with heavyweights like Morley Safer who'd earned distinction and awards galore covering the Vietnam War. His and other coverage played a role in starting to turn the American public against the war - and I think it was Nixon who lamented that when he lost Walter Cronkite he'd lost the war. Dan Rather - who was not just there in Dallas on that day and that moment and phoned it into the newsroom first, covered that war and more, jousted with several presidents live on TV and was in Afghanistan before anybody. Harry Reasoner, elder statesman-type correspondent who jumped ship to become evening news anchor on ABC. (It used to make me chuckle that almost everybody on "60 Minutes" had to have the letters "er" at the end of their last names.) The aforementioned Mike Wallace. That his son went to Pox Noise - preplexing to say the least. It was like a news version of Murderers Row. "60 Minutes" had the original "Crossfire"-type program with Shana Alexander and James J. Kilpatrick. They shared a segment called "Point/Counterpoint," she the liberal, he the conservative, that was famously spoofed by Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd on "Saturday Night Live" (the bit wherein Aykroyd would open with "Jane, you ignorant slut,...&quot Several more distinguished correspondents would follow, including Ed Bradley and Andy Rooney. After that, though, it felt to me as though it started to run out of steam. But for YEARS, "60 Minutes" wasn't just the number-one news show in the Nielsens, it was the number-one prime time show PERIOD. It was Olympus. Now, it's WAAAAAAYYY down in the gully below.

I never thought I'd see the day when people's opinions of "60 Minutes" turned into rolled eyeballs and comments of "I don't trust them anymore." Now, on every one of these articles, I see it again and again. Amazing. Cronkite, Reasoner, Wallace, and Edward R. Murrow whom they all idolized, would all be spinning in their graves. The House Murrow Built has now been completely torn down. Most lately by a pretty little blonde with a wrecking ball. And I'm not talking Miley Cyrus, either.