♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: jeff fager is here, the executive producer of "60 minutes." this year marks the 50th anniversary of the broadcast. the show was created in 1968. jeff has written a new book about the history of the legendary program. it is called "50 years of 60 minutes, the inside story of television's most influential broadcast." here is a look at 60 minutes over the past 50 years. [clock ticking] ♪ >> good evening. this is 60 minutes.

>> where did it come from? >> it is a magazine for television. >> what? i don't want to do 60 minutes. >> get right over here. >> stop the interview for a minute. >> i am scott pelley with 60 minutes. >> i want to ask you about the tweeting. >> you are not popular in the country. >> i don't care what they say. >> i should probably not say it on tv. >> mr. president, they are not happy with the way you are doing your job. why is it taking so long? ♪ >> right here across the bridge you can see the black flag of isis. >> this is what you can expect? >> yes. >> i'm going to jail for that? >> only the bad ones go to jail.

>> only the stupid ones go to jail. >> i trusted him. >> you must have known. ♪ >> hamilton certainly changed my life. ♪ [laughter] >> oh. >> want to talk about sex? >> it is not 60 swinging minutes. >> whoa. ♪ >> how did you get around that? >> that is a good question. >> you have no problem asking that question. >> i am asking because i am seeking an answer. >> come on. >> come on. >> come on. >> how do do that?

>> that is an actually question. >> i know. what is the answer? >> 60 minutes. >> i am mike wallace. >> i am diane sawyer. >> i am steve kroft. >> i am leslie stahl. >> i am katie couric. >> i am charlie rose. >> i am anderson cooper. >> i am david martin. >> i am oprah winfrey. >> i am bill whitaker. tonight, 50 years of 60 minutes. [clock ticking] charlie: i am pleased to have jeff fager back at this table. welcome. 50 years. it is a chronicle of our times. >> how did you go about writing the book? jeff: the most important was a list of the stories. you could give it to any loyal viewer and they would recognize stories. there are 5000 of them.

i had amazing help from a fabulous producer, daughter of bob simon, knows the broadcast well, and work closely with me on a chronology. it was about memories, the thoughts that i hope this can be a book for journalism students. all the different things we do, all of the practices and values that we adhere to for all these years, i tried to get that in there, so it is a blueprint for part of our success. charlie: talk about the birth of "60 minutes." jeff: it was hard to get it off the ground. it took several years to sell it. charlie: the idea was? jeff: life magazine for television, a magazine that covered high and low. an interview in the same

broadcast with the president as an interview with a movie star. charlie: the way edward r murrow would do migrant workers and movie stars. jeff: that incredible mix and variety that makes it so special. everybody is a generalist. charlie: steve does it. jeff: you have to have the ability to do every kind of story. everybody does it in a slightly different way with different strengths they bring to the table, but he could not sell it. he got into this position because he was fired. i don't think a lot of people realize that. he had been at cbs news for 15 years, the best job in the place, the executive producer of cbs evening news with walter cronkite. you're talking about 17 million viewers a night. it was huge. charlie: that was where you wanted to become a correspondent

for the cbs evening news. jeff: that was the highest place you could be. he was fired. fred was president, one of the founders of our great organization. they were partners. they were the founding fathers really. don watched them and learn from them, but he was a creature of this new thing, television and there were not that interested in it until they had to become. charlie: they came out of radio, rhodes scholars. jeff: edward r murrow had a -- had assembled all of these people during the war. that is how the organization was born. it was born and given these values. the practices, storytelling, how we will tell our stories, in narrow ways, all the things i write about in the book that don taught us.

by the time fred friendly became president, the big job, walter cronkite, he said i don't want him there. he is too much of a showman. charlie: he admired him. jeff: he looked up to them like news gods. he really did. charlie: he was a broadway producer. jeff: he was, but he called them gentlemen correspondents. he looked up to them so much. it was a shock because he had been the director of the nixon-kennedy debate. charlie: when he was 37 years old. jeff: he had been a pioneer of television. the idea that he rose to that level at cbs news and got fired, it was a shock. charlie: it is said that fred friendly called him and and said, we are going to promote you to your own documentary unit. he called his wife and said, i just got promoted.

she said, you just got fired. jeff: he didn't like documentaries. he called them hour-long snoozers because he was bored by them. he had a short attention span. i think he was right. that is how he came up with this idea. he could do shorter stories, three documentaries, cut them down to 15 minutes and put them into one hour. after fred friendly left the organization, dick came in, great president for 17 years, and was reluctant. he had said no to it in a previous iteration as president before, but word has it that someone said to him, friendly did not like this idea. you might want to do it. he said, ok and gave it the go-ahead. charlie: harry reasoner was signed on.

>> harry reasoner, and all of them thought just one anchor, but a couple of people suggested mike wallace should join. i describe it in the book. i describe as linen meet mccartney. meeting mccartney. charlie: how did they differ? jeff: in terms of their personalities as journalists, mike, it was all about the interview, as you know, charlie. he had been in a prominent place on a new york talk show where he perfected that. charlie: night beat. jeff: tough questions, the famous parody is someone sweating. i think sid caesar did it. that sort of direct approach. don who had a vision for the broadcast and was a great editor and writer, people don't realize this about him.

he would fix our copy and help us with lines. he had an amazing eye for a story. that mix of the two of them i think, it just had an imprint on that broadcast that lasted, and i think it's a huge part of the success but it did not take off until seven years in. charlie: morley safer came in after harry reasoner. jeff: harry decided to go to abc. don thought kuralt, charlie kuralt, would be the right person. he was a consummate storyteller. don knew he needed stature from veteran from cbs news who could tell the story and be a counter, the white hat to mike's black hat. charlie kuralt said no. he had it made. he could do was -- he can do

whatever he wanted. charlie: he worked with walter cronkite. jeff: he had famously covered the war in vietnam brilliantly and got in trouble for it with the white house. the line lyndon johnston used because morley safer had captured soldiers lighting huts on fire. charlie: they burned the village to save it. jeff: the line that johnson used, what is he some kind of communist? get him fired. they wanted to fire him. charlie: what makes mike wallace's interview so compelling. >> you don't trust the media. you don't trust whites. you don't trust jews. you have said so. here i am. jeff: he said it best here on your program -- charlie: i think i have it here somewhere. jeff: it is so instructional in

terms of how do you get the truth out of people. charlie: with good research, you can embarrass anybody. >> you can do it. if you are really after illumination of an interviewee's character, qualities, substance, if you are really after that, you can ask very pointed questions, sensible questions, to get them to talk. you can establish what you do so well, a chemistry of confidentiality. that is what comes across at the table which you, you dirty dog, have done with me in the past. why?

you get people who know a little bit about the same subject. if the interviewee has respect for the interviewer and feels the interviewer is well-prepared, you can ask anything and you will find the interviewee will be a co-conspirator with you. charlie: and that is what wallace does. jeff: he said that that night. charlie: at this table. i treasure it. and because he was a hero of mine. when i came to "60 minutes," he wrote me a handwritten note. jeff: he was so happy when you joined. this is the mature mike wallace. this is the mike wallace out there doing it who was ambushing people in the 1970's and early 1980's and became ashamed of that. he really perfected it and became the best interviewer that broadcast journalism had known. he recognized that.

i think he grew from all of those years of going in that direction as morley safer called it, mike jumping out of a closet. he teased everybody. he was a rascal full-time, full-time rascal. he was that way on our floor. charlie: how did he get along with morley safer? jeff: that was a tough relationship. what happened is he was shocked because mike wallace stole a couple of his stories right out from under him, and morley safer is coming from london. well, that is not "60 minutes." welcome to my program. in a way, that helped us because morley was driven to find his own path. he had such a great way with words. he was able to come up with these interviews, whimsical adventures.

>> arthur miller's play death of a salesman, once in my life he said i would like to own something out right before it is broken. i am always in a race to the junkyard. i just finished paying for the car on its last leg. they time those things so that when you finally paid for them, they are used up. the trouble really is that nothing these days is built to last. a motor car best represents the fact that we have most of our lives in a junk society. >> show me you have not got any money. >> no, it is against company rules. >> do you like that one? jeff: he did that with his partner over many years, his producer. i think that is an important genre for us, and became that.

that is part of the mix, a regular part of the mix. charlie: it took that long to do what, build an audience, find a home? jeff: to find a home. it was 7:00 on >> how can you sunday. tell? >> just on the technical grade factors. >> a judgment call? >> no, sir. >> you telling me any decent grade should be marked good instead of choice? >> there is no question in my mind. jeff: dan rather joined at that point which was important because you have an ensemble of reporters. that first broadcast in december 1975 at 7:00 on sunday, they had been off the air all fall. it was the beginning of the modern "60 minutes." charlie: part of the success is the mix? jeff: i think so. charlie: you don't want three investigative reports. jeff: no, but if there are three important news stories ready to go and are perishable, we would

put all three on. we feel strongly about that, that the mix is not the most important thing. covering what is important is the most important thing, but if you have the chance and the ability to have a little of everything for everybody, i think it is the most viable. -- valuable. it gives you a chance to lighten up a little bit. the world is not such a bad place. we are going to different story that is inspirational and help you better understand the world. charlie: scott had a terrific piece about a young conductor. jeff: a prodigy. it was brilliant. she was amazing. ♪ >> wonderful.

you just made that up before our eyes. it is not written down. will it never be played again? >> i can't remember everything. i can never remember. jeff: talking about taking you away, a 12-year-old girl that has that ability. some extraordinary powers that nobody can explain. ♪

charlie: next in line was ed bradley. >> most people in this country

think you are the face. -- the face of evil. >> they do. i am just being me. >> what was your reaction when you saw the pictures? >> i think like everyone else i thought it was a tragic event. >> and the children? jeff: ed had so much. when i think of ed, we miss him so much. they each brought something unique. he was losing credibility. -- he was oozing credibility. i really think, i loved him when he would fill in for the evening news, because he worked at it, but he was like walter that way. he had that kind of god-given credibility. he had amazing ability. he really could do an interview. one of the things he talked about that i think made so much of what he did special is that he would wait it out. he would just wait it out. i don't have to rush in and fill the void if there is silence in this interview. charlie: let silence speak.

jeff: let that come out. he would sit and wait for that to come out. bob dylan is a great example. he sat there with bob dylan and got yeah, maybe. >> just like that? >> yeah. >> where did it come from? >> it just came. charlie: eventually the silence will work for you. the interviewee will feel compelled. jeff: eventually there is a relationship that builds, and it is between the two of you. forget about all the other people watching. ed did that brilliantly. it was a shock when we lost him. as it was with bob simon, just a shock, stunning development, and we -- i will never forget that weekend when we lost ed, and then lost bob, both of them in their 60's. charlie: cancer and leukemia.

jeff: leukemia that rose up, and after he had been diagnosed 10 years and within three weeks he was gone. it absolutely attacked his system. putting together everything, a tribute to him, over a four-day period was therapeutic because you hear his voice coming out of every edit room. all of the great stories of the people we interviewed. charlie: buffett loved him and came back. jeff: what's the line he is with lena horne? charlie: people always say what is your best interview. i would tell them the story of ed bradley, who told the story about going to heaven and being stopped, why do you deserve to be here? he said to god, have you seen my lena horne interview? [laughter] jeff: a great interview. >> i am a rich, ready, ripe, juicy plum.

>> when you say i am a rich, m, canright -- ripe plu you say that again? >> you cannot help your sexual nature. that is what that line means. charlie: he showed a side of her that the audience didn't know. jeff: part of that is what we hope to do. i did not know that. i learned something. i got something out of that. i gave him this time. thank god they gave me something back. a lot of that is the time it goes into it, the amount of reporting. almost everything we do is investigative because we spend so much time, even on a profile, digging into somebody and determining what is interesting. charlie: what makes them tick. jeff: yeah, and what the audience finds interesting. that surprises you. charlie: "60 minutes" is more of a collaboration than anything i have ever seen. jeff: yes, it is. charlie: from the moment you

focus in on the story, the process, producer and associate producer kick in and decide what elements are possible. jeff: that is a huge part of the success. as you see the people have been on the air it is a high-quality , individual that gets to "60 minutes." we have been able to maintain that. when you get there, you realize you have made it to a place that is special, and you have to perform, you have to deliver, and people feel that pressure every time they go out on a story, but it is a collaborative effort. and we recognize that when there is a good collaboration, a producer workin a very well together, it shows. you can tell. you see it. there is a higher quality story. charlie: and when you come back and the editor understands the story. jeff: the videotape editor is a producer as well in many ways. they are looking for how to best tell the story.

yeah, there are several levels of collaboration before it gets on air, and sometimes that can be painstaking. [laughter] charlie: there is the screening, which we have talked about before, the producer, correspondent, and editor have put together something and say, look, here is a beginning cut. jeff: yes. charlie: you and your colleagues and offer what is essentially a storyteller's craft of being able to look at something and say, it works better this way. jeff: i think that process we go through, that ritual, which can be painful, but also fulfilling, is part of why a story that gets on "60 minutes" looks like it belongs there, which i hope the viewer takes for granted. they come in and tune in every sunday night expecting something. charlie: expecting quality. jeff: and we have to deliver. charlie: yeah.

jeff: that responsibility, diligence, and care helps to deliver stories that belong there. charlie: have you ever had anybody come up to you and say, i don't like this. this is not for me. i am out of here? jeff: there can be a burnout factor, the intensity can get to people. it is an intense place. at the same time it is an adult , shop. we are not supervising people. you arrived at "60 minutes." we know you will bring back a quality story. our job, my job as executive producer is to help you be better at it from if i can, to do whatever i can to help you tell that story and report it. we will talk through the process, if they want to, if they need to, otherwise that is , one of the great beauties of being there. people love working there because they are adults. charlie: there are not a lot of meetings or memos. i don't like memos.

jeff: i don't either. [laughter] it is a reporter's place. charlie bank the people part of the 50 year history, -- charlie: , the people part of the 50 year history we had don, mike, harry , had gone to abc, came back to cbs, had morley come in, dan come in, was it diane next? jeff: when diane left is when steve came. charlie: he came in for a couple of years. jeff: she went to abc. that is when steve came in. that was a huge development as well. >> how long do think this will take? >> we will push and people hope to have their power in january, maybe february. jeff: talk about a pillar of the broadcast, 30 years. he and i joined together. charlie: you were his producer for a while. jeff: i produced his first story at "60 minutes." season that was a good 21. experience.

we were really nervous about that. i was anyway. i think steve was confident. i was new at it. mike wallace -- charlie: another magazine show on cbs. jeff: mike wallace came to our screening. charlie: he has no reason to be there. jeff: it never happens. you do not find a correspondent to come to screenings, but he wanted make sure we are good enough. it scared the hell out of me. i knew that -- they gave us a round of applause. i think it was because they were relieved. charlie: that you did not screw it up? jeff: that we had a story you could put on air. i learned so much from him just watching him. a year later, i had a terrible expense where we brought in a story about the berlin wall falling and poland shifting towards capitalism and we finished showing the piece, lights came on, and don said, where do you want it, kid? right between the eyes?

charlie: what came out of that was a better piece? jeff: absolutely. and that is how you learn. he showed us how to make that a better piece, and we were happy. they got on the air. charlie: leslie stahl was next. >> i understand the fbi was running a sting on the bush-quell campaign? about the wiretapping allegations? >> i don't know anything about that. jeff: another pillar of the broadcast. she was two years after steve. it is amazing. she came with more experience than anybody had. as a real reporter. one of the things she brought have, was an amazing work ethic. people look at it and say how many stories is she doing. 15-20. that requires a time. every correspondent who works at "60 minutes" does every single interview.

that means a lot of travel, road time, and a lot of late nights trying to get a story together. charlie: left me catch up with your journey. born in massachusetts? jeff: yes. charlie: started in television there? jeff: 1977, graduated from college and got a job as a kid to help out basically. charlie: ended up in san francisco? jeff: started writing radio news and got a job as a news writer in san francisco. charlie: when did you come to cbs? jeff: 1982. for the first night watch. i was producing the 11:00 news at kpix and they needed someone who could produce a broadcast live. charlie: nightwatch was live for the first couple of years. jeff: it was. i was the first broadcast producer. i was 27. it was an amazing entry into cbs news. a great way to start. i was there for a year.

charlie: it became a cult favorite. jeff: when you took over. charlie: then you went to london. jeff: london was the best experience i ever had. because of the variety of stories. it was hard, challenging, a great bureau, still is. charlie: pretty good place to live. jeff: it is. i was not there much. when you work in a london bureau as a producer, i was primarily cbs evening news. you are on the road most of the time. we had a couple of kids at the time, and i was gone 60% of the time. you cover just about everything imaginable. the level of experience for someone who had just turned 30 was remarkable. also, another adult job. i loved that about it. it was amazing. charlie: there for three years, 1985-1988, then came back to "60 minutes"? jeff: 48 hours, and i was there for a year. my family stayed in london. my wife did not want to come

back to the u.s., so i did a lot of the foreign first 48 hours of visits and we edited them in london. it was great, and amazing opportunity. charlie: how long had you been pointing at that thing? jeff: for me, it was a dream. i could not imagine what happened, but a year in i started talking to morley safer about a job and i had worked in london with steve kroft for the evening news. he got the job and boom, he asked me if i wanted to come with him, and i sure did. charlie: how long before they ask you to go over? to the evening news? jeff: five years. i produced three years for morley, two years for steve, and learned a ton from don so that i thought i was at age 40 ready to be an editor myself. that was a great thing about "60 minutes" and my trajectory. i had so much time out covering every kind of story.

i think there aren't enough editors in the world who spend enough time out in the world to experience what it is that people go through when they are covering stories. i think that helped me a lot in running the evening news. charlie: dan rather was your anchor? jeff: yes, a wonderful experience. i loved working with him. charlie: then the idea of "60 minutes ii" came up? jeff: les moonves presented the idea to the correspondents. he had just inherited cbs as head of entertainment. it was a terrible schedule. he had nothing to work with. news magazines were proliferating and he thought, why wouldn't we copied the best one, so he got them together and they were upset about it. charlie: they wanted no part. jeff: he said it was like arguing with mount rushmore. he had huge respect for mike and

morley and ed. charlie: and don? they thought it would be an imitation. jeff: they thought it would be watering it down. they got used to the idea it was going to happen and would be better off if you choose someone -- charlie: they rounded up some good correspondence. jeff: the compromise was i would run it. charlie: first you, confidence in you? jeff: yeah, and the evening news had gone well because i was using the traditional values. charlie: and your belief in hard news. jeff: and covering what is important. very little frills and not many tabloid stories, so it started incredibly well. you're one of the first people i went to, charlie. charlie: i wanted to keep this show. jeff: he did not think i should hire you if you weren't willing to show up.

it is funny because morley, forget that. bring charlie in. charlie: thank you. one of the things i take great pleasure in. i occupy morley's office and desk. morley would let the cigarettes burn until the end, all these marks, and you see pictures of his office. it's like someone threw 150 books on top of the desk. he was also a painter. jeff: really talented. the work he had done, he gave me so many pieces. charlie: including one with your head. jeff: my head on a platter. i was quoted at the start of "60 minutes ii" when someone asked me if i expected to win the ratings. i said no.

. quoted john the baptist my minister had talked about him that sunday. i quoted john the baptist saying it is ok to be number two. we all know who number one is, so morley came in the next they with my head on a platter, and under it said the punishment of saint john the baptist. of saint jeffent the baptist. charlie: dan rather, scott pelley, me, bob simon. jeff: that was it. it was a great team. charlie: we were there five years? jeff: six years. charlie: when don retires, when did you know you would succeed him? jeff: i did not think about it until two years before it happened. they started talking about the possibility. we were doing great and i was very happy and i did not think in my mind that, i thought don would always be there.

it became apparent that it was time for a change. he was getting on and they needed something fresh at some point, and i think most of the correspondence recognize that. about a year and a half before he retired, i knew. charlie: a year and a half before it happened? the jeff: yeah. charlie: you know they say come you don't want to follow the guy who is the legend. you want to follow the guy who

follows the legend. tim cook succeeded steve jobs and needed that kind of challenge. how did you meet the challenge? he knew you. it was not somebody plucked from another network. that would not have worked. jeff: i don't think so. everything we did at "60 minutes ii," all those correspondents were working. they were all working there. for me, i was confident i would be able to do the job well. i had learned from don so much. i love what it was. i thought we could be newsy. we did. my job was really to show everybody i could help them make their stories better period, one story at a time. the person i was closest to, steve and morley and mike, and ed, but ed was the most nervous. charlie: about you? jeff: yes, and is this really going to work. it took two serious story collaborations to convince him, and once he was on board, he was great. he was just great. charlie: what makes a great "60 minutes" segment?

jeff: it's funny, we tend to judge ourselves -- charlie: story is a better word. jeff: we tend to judge ourselves by how good our investigations are. i'm not sure that's how a viewer judges us. this year, impact is a better way to put it, if you look at this season, the 50th, it has been an interesting mix of stories, beginning with your steve bannon interview. charlie: why do you do this interview? >> it is important to get the message out about president trump. charlie: never interviewed, in everybody knew, but did not know, even more controversial in person than he was from a distance. jeff: he really surprised us. he came to play. talk about impact. i don't remember an interview with one person where there was so much talk. there were legs. week after week after week,

quotes from it in so many stories. charlie: the white house press secretary spent the entire day on monday answering questions about steve bannon. jeff: yes. the monday after you hope for that. i think impact. we have had so many stories in these past two months. the one that stands out to me is the story about the opioid crisis and the dea being hobbled in terms of not being a good crack down on illicit sales. that was a collaboration with the washington post, and talk about legs. that thing hit hard. it is those kinds of stories that we try for. everybody who works there wants that. charlie: in the news, relevant, timely, and have an impact so that the president of the united states is forced to respond. jeff: yes, yes, and the man who has been appointed drug czar has to step out. one of the great things working at "60 minutes," you can do something totally different. the next are you had was the emir of qatar.

i fascinating change of pace. incredibly newsworthy. it was one of his favorite interviews. charlie: no matter how well you knew him and read every book, you got a feeling from him. you understood him. you had seen him through his words. now you saw him through his own voice. that is what "60 minutes" can do. jeff: three weeks later, steve is in puerto rico doing a story about the disaster there. >> when you say puerto rico is a colony of the united states, what do you mean? >> it is a colonial territory. we are possession of the united states. congress has full power over

puerto rico. >> what is to stop the congress from saying, i'm sorry, but you know we have california and florida and texas to take care of them and you are just a u.s. possession? >> what will happen is that fast majority of puerto ricans will catch a flight and moved to one of those states. -- >> you know what will happen? a vast majority of puerto ricans will catch a flight and moved to one of those states. jeff: another thing we try to do that we are proud of, to help our viewers better understand what they saw. that is another thing we try to do. there are stories that can have an impact on an individual viewer by helping them better understand the world, but then there are stories that have an impact on the greater good. ♪ is this a phone?

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charlie: you can explain something to people that people don't know much about, but no it is important. artificial-- intelligence is one thing. immunotherapy is another. scott pelley went to duke. and you have done some artificial intelligence stories that have been important. this is looking at the frontier of science and where it is going and finding the people who are doing the things that will make the difference, win the nobel prizes, who will infection are you the way. jeff: some of those stories are complicated and difficult to tell on television. that is a challenge and source

of pride for us as well. in terms of the business world, the great crash of 2007 a year later, we did a story on credit default swaps. oh, my god. it was two parts. most people in the television news business would not go near that. >> these investment banks were not only selling securities that turned out to be terrible investments, they were selling insurance on them? >> it made it easier to sell the terrible investments if you could convince the buyer that not only were they going to get the investment, but insurance. >> when homeowners begin defaulting on mortgages and wall street's high risk mortgage backed securities begin to fail , the big investment houses and insurance companies who sold the credit default swaps had not set aside the money they needed to pay off all the insurance contract they had written. jeff: that challenges us. it goes against conventional wisdom of what is supposed to

work on television. the viewer did get a much better sense of what created that horrible recession and crash and sent shockwaves through the financial world, and at the same time, you know, really had a feel for it and the audience was huge. it is one of the biggest audiences of the fall, so there is a hunger for it in america , for that kind of reporting. charlie: what is the culture like, people who see every sunday coming up, and you watch it at home because you want to be where the viewer is. jeff: i watch it every sunday at home. charlie: and don does the same thing? jeff: yeah. i don't like to be invited somewhere on sunday. charley: if i am having a big party to celebrate my piece? jeff: i'm not coming. it is just one of those things where i feel like you have to watch it, like everybody is watching it, even though i have

seen the story so many times. charlie: can you define the culture? jeff: of "60 minutes?" yes, i can. without sounding too hokey, i think everybody who works there thinks of it as a calling, that there is a responsibility, that you have an opportunity here to reach the biggest mass audience for a news program in america. charlie: how many? jeff: there were probably 13 million people watching, early october. 13,000,000-14,000,000. that is about what we get this time of year. it goes up to 18 million, but there is that drive in our broadcast to do something important and to really be better than last sunday. that is a big part of the culture too. i am so busy thinking about next sunday, i can barely remember what happened last sunday, which is what made writing the book so

interesting. charlie: you can look back. jeff: you can look back and see that you touched a lot of stories. charlie: a couple of things that you have done that make accessibility more easy. one is the "60 minutes" app and something called "60 minutes" overtime. >> my model of businesses the beatles. they were four talented guys who kept each other's negative tendencies in check. they balanced each other. the sum -- the total -- was greater than the sum of the parts, and that is how i see business. great things in business are never done by one person. they are done by a team of people, and we have that here at pixar, and we have that at apple as well. that is what let's me do this. when the beatles were together, they did truly brilliant come -- brilliant, innovative work. when they split up, they did good work, but it was never the same. i see business that way.

it is always a team. charlie: we were all with producers who come together to write, producers often write a first draft, then you work on that, and then show it to you. i think this is what a great story editor does. we are trying to tell the story, and then you will say, your remarkable colleague bill owen will say, this is a story about not know about. that is what you say. it is the idea of asking yourself, how do i reach the viewer? i want to tell you a story about a war you may not even know about and a place you have probably never been, but is having huge consequences in the middle east and not lead to -- and might lead to something horrible. jeff: so, what is also a big part of our culture is to tell a story not in newspeak the way reporters tell stories. i have a board in my office that

has forbidden words, news speak, words only reporters use, and as an example, the word "clear," people are so sick of hearing that. the most overused word in news television. you hear all the time. nothing is clear. we don't talk like reporters on tv think they are supposed to talk. charlie: we talk like storytellers. jeff: yes, we like to speak and write in the spoken word. it is easy to follow and so important that it is not overwritten and understated rather than overstated. we hate hype. i think the viewer feels that as they watch it, just easier to take in, and we always follow this principle that you can't go back and read that paragraph again. you better make that understandable, and that is part -- charlie: it is also for the ear,

not the eye. jeff: it is also for radio. that is not the driving force. we are on the radio as a simulcast because it works so well. charlie: has there been a more difficult time for "60 minutes" than the tobacco story? was that the biggest crisis? part of that happened here at this table. jeff: it did, and that is where erupted. charlie: yes, it was. jeff: it was tough and difficult. it was cbs saying you can't run that story because the tobacco companies will sue us. jeffrey wygant was the whistleblower, saying they understand nicotine is bad here it was addictive and the secret and everything in it would kill you, but they kept saying it wasn't. he came on to say it wasn't. -- he came on to say it was. they feared, and this to me is a little bit of sanity, a lot of sanity, that when the public health is at stake in terms of reporting, nothing is more important, so how can a company

sue us when we are trying to report the truth about a public health hazard that is killing millions of people? and so it was the perfect "60 minutes" story, but when the company blocked it, and in the days of larry tisch, i don't know the exact reasons, but they owned a company that was part of it possibly. charlie: his company being the owner of cbs and the largest holder of stock and ceo. jeff: yes, so forbidden to put the story on the air, what are you going to do? but when adversity i think arises in a situation where everyone is working closely, and yet competing against each other, which is part of how the place is set up, it started to get tense. it did break out at this table when morley was assuring you,

charlie rose, and your viewers that everything was on the up and up. he was a pure whistleblower, when he had been paid a consulting fee on a previous story, not on the story in question at the moment. and, he had been promised by some kind of insurance protection from that, so morley was so upset when he found out. he wrote you a letter of apology. charlie: they say they never threatened to sue and they never had any contact with cbs, correct? >> as far as i know, they didn't. charlie: what indication is there that brian williamson would have sued cbs if they went forth with this interview? wouldn't they raise this with you? the lawyers, and to you and don -- >> we raised it with them. charlie: and they said?

>> they said this is our judgment. this is our judgment. charlie: our judgment as they will sue. our judgment is they may sue or will sue? >> i am told it is a fairly litigious company. the tobacco companies generally speaking have been litigious. what they do is with documents that they do not want to put to public view, they will file or send all documents that are sensitive through their legal department or to their outside counsel, thereby invoking attorney-client privilege, am i wrong? >> 10 years ago, brown and williamson did collect a few million dollars from cbs which was in a libel suit coming out of chicago television. for many years, that was the largest libel judgment collected against anybody. charlie: that was part one of

our two-part conversation with jeff fager. 50 years of "60 minutes." tomorrow night, part two. ♪

julia: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i am julia chatterley. we are inside the magazine's headquarters here in new york. in this week's issue, the flooding of houston's energy corridor, u.k. prime minister theresa may's delicate balancing act, and the bloomberg annual business school rankings. all that to come on "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ julia: i'm here with editor in