Longtime “60 Minutes” producer Michael Radutzky is taking on new responsibilities at The Eye. Radutzky will become executive producer of creative development at CBS News, while remaining as a senior producer on the CBS newsmagazine.
The creative development unit is a new unit at CBS News, and is “dedicated to finding innovative ways to create and distribute CBS News content.” In other words, looking beyond the traditional newscasts, and even traditional news websites.
“Michael is an extraordinary reporter and producer. So many of his stories during his years at 60 MINUTES stand out as some of our very best,” said CBS News chairman and “60 Minutes” EP Jeff Fager in a statement. “In his new position, the rest of CBS News will benefit from his talents and abilities.”
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“60 MINUTES” SENIOR PRODUCER MICHAEL RADUTZKY
NAMED EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT AT CBS NEWS
Veteran 60 MINUTES Producer Michael Radutzky has been named Executive Producer of Creative Development, a new CBS News unit dedicated to finding innovative ways to create and distribute CBS News content. The announcement was made today by CBS News Chairman and 60 MINUTES Executive Producer Jeff Fager and CBS News President David Rhodes.
Radutzky retains his Senior Producer role on 60 MINUTES’ important stories and investigations while assuming his new title as Executive Producer of Creative Development, CBS News. For the past few years, he has worked to find opportunities to harness 60 MINUTES content and talent for projects with CBS Films. In his new responsibilities, he will examine all of CBS News and broaden his aim to develop projects for cable, broadcast and other distribution.
“Michael is an extraordinary reporter and producer. So many of his stories during his years at 60 MINUTES stand out as some of our very best,” said Fager. “In his new position, the rest of CBS News will benefit from his talents and abilities.”
“Michael’s always in constant motion, whether chasing a story or telling one. I’m excited that now he’ll be working even harder finding new outlets for original reporting from CBS News,” said Rhodes.
Michael Radutzky was named Senior Producer for 60 MINUTES in November 2006, a supervisory management role in the selection, pursuit and production of critical 60 MINUTES stories.
The 12-time national Emmy winner has been producing 60 MINUTES segments since 1995, including many of the news magazine’s biggest headline-making exclusives. He obtained and produced the first interview with “Miracle on the Hudson” pilot Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, and led the broadcast’s coverage of Barack Obama’s ascent to the White House, producing 10 segments with Obama as both candidate and commander-in-chief.
In 2011, Michael led an eight-month investigation into allegations that Lance Armstrong and many of his former cycling teammates used performance enhancing drugs during the Tours de France.
Radutzky’s reports on the Duke rape case, which brought to light the flaws in the evidence against the three Duke University Lacrosse players, were awarded the Peabody, Murrow and Emmy Awards. These reports are the subject of a current HBO film project, which Radutzky is executive producing. He won another Emmy for producing the only television interview of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. He also secured and produced the only interview with Michael Jackson after his arrest on child molestation charges in 2003.
Other standout 60 MINUTES segments include his 1998 interview with Kathleen Willey about unwanted sexual advances from President Bill Clinton; a 1999 report that revealed rampant abuse of the U.S. Military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy; and a 2001-2002 series on the impact of 9/11 on an American town.
Radutzky has especially distinguished himself on medical and science stories. He produced a series of undercover reports in 2010 and 2012 on the shadowy network of stem cell clinics which falsely promise cures for deadly diseases. He led 60 MINUTES coverage of the 2009 H1N1 flu epidemic. Radutzky won an Emmy for a 2002 profile of a promising new treatment for terminal cancer patients.
Over the years, Radutzky has profiled some of the cultural icons of our time, including interviews with musical genius Bob Dylan, embattled football player Michael Vick, controversial baseball star Alex Rodriguez and legendary actor Al Pacino.
Radutzky won his first national Emmy for his breaking news coverage on the CBS EVENING NEWS of the explosion of TWA Flight 800 in July1996.
He came to 60 MINUTES from the CBS EVENING NEWS in late 1995, where he was producing medical, investigative, feature and hard news stories since 1988. He had been a producer for the “CBS Morning News” since 1987. He joined CBS in 1981 as an investigative news researcher for the CBS owned-and-operated television station in Chicago, WBBM, where he rose to Executive Producer and won two local Emmys. Before that, Radutzky was a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times for two years. He began his career as a reporter for a Chicago weekly newspaper.
Radutzky was born in New York City. He was graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison with a bachelor’s degree in American History in 1978. He lives in Summit, N.J., with his wife, Kathryn; they have three children.