To mark the 15th anniversary of TVNewser this month, Adweek honored the 30 Most Impactful TV Newsers of the Past 15 Years, spotlighting the personalities and execs who were instrumental in the industry’s incredible decade-and-a-half evolution. TVNewser is presenting expanded versions of each honoree’s interview.
Lesley Stahl
- Job now: Correspondent, 60 Minutes, CBS
- Job 15 years ago: Correspondent, 60 Minutes
Adweek: What were you doing 15 years ago (January 2004)?
Stahl: It’s hard to remember one month 15 years ago, so I went back through my files and now recall that 2004 was a Presidential election year. I love covering politics and got a bite of the apple when I interviewed John Edwards for a 60 Minutes piece. He was a real contender at that point. I asked about concerns that he was too young and inexperienced to be Commander-in-Chief. I probably should’ve asked more about his private life.
What’s your favorite professional moment of the past 15 years, and why?
That’s too big a question. I’ve had a hundred favorite moments. Every time I work on a story, I think “This is my favorite moment.” But, going back 15 years, I got to do one of the very rare live interviews on 60 Minutes with then Defense Scretary Donald Rumsfeld about the capture of Saddam Hussein, who was pulled out of a spider hole… where he’d been hiding.
I recall asking Rumsfeld: Would we (the U.S.) — if the Iraqi dictator was not cooperative – apply “torture…Would we deprive him of sleep?” I asked. “Make it very cold where he is, or very hot?”
He answered with great distain: “To suggest that anyone would be engaged in torture or conduct inconsistent with the Geneva Conventions it seems to me is not on the mark at all.”
I felt at the time that he shot me down, suggesting that I’d crossed a line, that I’d attacked his honor by asking the most outrageously insulting question ever.
The reason this exchange is so vivid to me is because just a few months later in April 2004 CBS News broke the Abu Graib torture chamber story. I felt vindicated in asking the question.
Biggest change in TV news since 2004:
I say this gratefully: that 60 Minutes has hardly changed at all. We still have as much time as we need to report our stories. We still choose our own stories (so we’re committed to each and every one), and our pieces are vetted for accuracy and scrutinized through a vigorous review process. I think one of the reasons the broadcast is still so popular is because we do it the old fashioned way. People appreciate that and trust us.
For most of TV news, however, the changes have been monumental and granular. Technology has facilitated instant, on-the-spot reporting where there’s no time to reflect, or make a phone call for insights. Opinion “journalism” (is it even journalism?) is rife, blogs where there’s no fact checking have sprouted like Kudzu, social media is the vehicle.
The public does not trust our profession. One reason is that all the above are tossed in the same salad bowl called “media.” The blogs, the extreme, biased websites, cable shows and Tweets, of course, are in the bowl along with 60 Minutes correspondents and the PBS NewsHour. It’s a tragedy.
Lesley, who have you learned the most from?
I was hired by CBS News in 1972 because of Affirmative Action. I was hired along with Connie Chung and Bernie Shaw. We were not thrown on the air to sink-or-swim, as so many are today. We were apprentices, brought along – mainly by observation — by the senior correspondents and producers. We spent our days following them, watching and listening as they developed sources, and put their stories together. We did a lot of radio at first, then the Morning News… and eventually we got to play on the big field. This was an excellent system. All three of us went on to have lasting careers.
Which of your competitors do you admire?
There are fewer and fewer shows like 60 Minutes, which is unfortunate. Over the years I’ve admired Diane Sawyer, Ted Koppel, Sam Donaldson, Barbara Walters, Mike Wallace (though he wasn’t a competitor. He was my colleague). So many greats. I remember Mike calling me into his office when I first got to 60 Minutes. “If you’re ever going to make it, kid,” he said, “You’re going to have to learn to ask embarrassing questions without being embarrassed. Like me!”
What do you know now about the business that you didn’t know 15 years ago?
I now know that “this too shall pass,” though that’s probably more about simply growing up rather than learning a specific lesson. I know that in journalism, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Which is true of any profession. I know that holding our elected officials accountable, no matter how much they might duck or obfuscate or hide, is essential to our system. So we can’t give up. I know that no matter how much we’re attacked, we have to take the blows, grow a thick outer coating and hang in there.
What has been your toughest professional challenge during the past 15 years?
Surviving.