Morley Safer Retiring as Longest-Serving ‘60 Minutes’ Reporter
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Version 0 of 1. Morley Safer, the longest-serving correspondent on “60 Minutes” who was known as much for his hard-hitting reporting as the quirky stories he covered, will formally retire this week after a career in broadcast news that lasted more than 50 years, CBS said on Wednesday. Mr. Safer, 84, served on “60 Minutes” for all but two of its 48 seasons. He started scaling back his appearances on the show after he turned 80; his last segment, a profile of the Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, aired in March. His first season as a regular correspondent on “60 Minutes” began in 1970 with a report on the training of federal sky marshals. In total, he did 919 reports for “60 Minutes.” “If you look at any one of them, you will find they are all beautifully written,” Jeffrey Fager, executive producer of the show, said in an interview on Wednesday. “I think he’s a model and always has been about what a reporter should be,” said Mr. Fager, who described Mr. Safer as a gifted storyteller. “It’s about curiosity and the sense of adventure. That really came across in his work.” Mr. Safer’s report in 1965 about American soldiers torching the homes of villagers in Cam Ne, Vietnam, was among the top 100 works in journalism of the 20th century in the United States chosen by New York University’s journalism department. An hourlong program on Sunday, “Morley Safer: A Reporter’s Life,” will, among other highlights, recall an investigation by Mr. Safer that resulted in the freedom of Lenell Geter, a black man who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to life in prison in Texas. In an appearance on the special, Mr. Geter credited Mr. Safer with saving his life. While he tackled serious topics, Mr. Safer was also known as a “quirkologist” for his offbeat stories, such as “Tango Finlandia,” about the affection Finns had for the sensuous dance, and about Marfa, Tex., a community that enjoyed a renaissance by blending artists and cowboys. He also interviewed entertainment luminaries, such as Jackie Gleason, Katharine Hepburn and Dolly Parton. The program on Sunday will feature a retired United States brigadier general, Joe Stringham, who commanded a Green Beret unit that Mr. Safer accompanied into battle in Vietnam. The general recalled Mr. Safer as being all business, “We looked at eternity right in the face a couple of times and he was as cool as a hog on ice.” Mr. Safer was not doing interviews with the news media on Wednesday, and in the coming special on Sunday he reveals that he did not really like being on television, according to CBS. “It makes me uneasy,” he says. “It is not natural to be talking to a piece of machinery. But the money is very good.” |