Hewitt's direction remained flexible and uncertain. with design for the program possibly including any number of "pages" and "chapters." lasting 1 to 20 minutes and spanning breaking news, commentary, satire interviews with politicians and celebrities, feature stories and letters to the editor. CBS proclaimed the groundbreaking potential of this magazine form  announcing that no existing phrase could describe the s­eries configuration and that any attempt to gauge (or predict) the show's demographic appeal based on comparisons to traditional public  affairs  programming  was a limited prospect. Yet by the time it had  been on  the  air for a quarter of a century, the series' success was so established within the history of  network programming that CBS and 60 Minutes had competition from roughly half a dozen other prime-time magazine programs.

     From September 1966 through December 1975, network management shifted  the  scheduling  position  of 60 Minutes seven times. Its ratings were very low according to industry standards (although slightly higher than those of CBS Reports when aired in the same time slot), but critical response remained positive. In the 1970s, Hewitt, with a tone of self-aggrandizement, passionately publicized the methods that would make the series a success. Audiences must experience stories in the pit of their stomach, the narrative must take the viewer by the throat, and, noted Hewitt. when a segment is over. it is not significant what the audience has been told: what matters is "only what they remember of what you tell them."  Hewitt  predicted high ratings if 60 Minutes packaged stories, not news items, as attractively as, "Hollywood packages fiction." Such stories require drama, a simplified structure, a narrative maximizing conflict, a quick editing pace, and issues filtered through personalities. By acknowledging this marketing approach, Hewitt generated controversy in the television industry.

     Several of 60 Minutes journalists had established their professional reputations before the series  began, but with the program's growing success and signifi­cance, the correspondents  reached  international celebrity status, becoming crusaders, detectives, sensitive and introspective guides through  social  turmoil, and insightful investigators of the human psyche. A confrontational style of journalism, pioneered by Mike Wallace, grew and was embraced by a more confrontational society. In the 1970s, certain correspondents seemed to speak for a public under siege by institutional greed and deceit.

     Through it all. Hewitt remained sensitive to balancing the series through the use of varying casts. Wallace's role remained consistent as the crusading detective, played, as the series began, opposite Harry Reasoner's calm, analytical, and introspective persona. As correspondents were added (Morley Safer, Dan Rather, Ed Bradley, Diane Sawyer, Meredith Vieria, Steve Kroft, and Lesley Stahl), Hewitt developed complementary personas for each season's team. The correspondents became part of his "new form'' of storytelling, allowing the audience to watch their intimate involvement in discovering information, tripping up an interviewee, or developing a narrative. As a result, the correspondents are often central to Hewitt's notion of stories as morality plays, the confrontation of vice and virtue.

     The investigative segments of the series have made 60 Minutes the focus of consistent examination hy the press concerning such issues as journalism ethics and integrity. 60 Minutes has been taken to task for having correspondents  or representatives  use  false  identities to generate stories,  establishing  sting  operations  for the camera, confronting the person under inquiry by surprise, and revealing new documents without prior notice to a cooperative interviewee in order  to  increase the shock value of the information. Despite widespread knowledge of these strong techniques, individuals still subject themselves to interviews, offering the audience an opportunity to anticipate who will win the battle. Indeed, companies  frequently  must weigh the benefits of  voicing  a  corporate  perspective on 60 Minutes against the risk encountered by company representatives when facing the penetrating (aggressive) questioning and fact-finding by the correspondent. By raising these issues, the series has focused attention on emerging techniques  of  broadcast journalism.

     In the late 1990s, the power of 60 Minutes to confer unwarranted status on people appearing on the show crystallized with detrimental consequences to the series' credibility. Segments of the public vehemently objected to an hour-long interview with Timothy McVeigh, the individual convicted of bombing the federal building in Oklahoma City, and a repeat of  the show with family members  of  the  victims  responding to McVeigh's statements . After Hewitt made the decision to air the assisted suicide performed by Jack Ker­vorkian (May 22, 1998), critics accused Hewitt  of giving Kervorkian a vehicle to challenge the legal system and position himself as a martyr .

     Critics, researchers, and the public continue to investigate the reasons behind the longevity of 60 Minutes as a popular culture phenomenon. The series' timeliness, its bold stand on topics, its access to powerful people, and its confrontations with institutions out of reach of the public all provide audiences with the pleasure of knowing that accountability does exist. For some, the program is compelling because of its crusades. such as its coverage of Lenell Geter, freed from life imprisonment after 60 Minutes explored and analyzed his case. For others, the most appealing stories involve a subject's vigorous self-defense, as when Senator Alfonso D' Amato (Republican, New York) poured out his wrath in a 30-minute response to claims that he misused state funds. The series' perennial “'light" moment, "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney," confirms the value of personal opinion on otherwise mundane matters.

     60 Minutes generates news about itself and  thus keeps  the series attractive  by  humanizing  its  trials and tribulations. Producers. correspondents, and Hewitt have played out  issues  in  public.  The  announcement by CBS of a new magazine program, West 57th. geared to a younger audience, met with a bombardment of criticism and sarcasm from 60 Minutes personnel. creating well-publicized tension between both units working in the same building. Producer Marion Goldin twice quit 60 Minutes after accusing the  unit  of  sexism . Hewitt charged Rooney with hypocrisy for criticizing CBS owner Lawrence Tisch  on  air  instead  of quitting . Wallace has been reprimanded for using hidden cameras to tape a reporter who agreed to help him with a story . However, Wallace made an unprecedented "denouncement" on the air, without repercussions, of CBS management after they prevented testimony by Wigand against his  former  employer  in the tobacco industry. Even when the series dropped to number 13 in the 1993-94 Nielsen ratings (after being first for two years), the drop became a "story." Hewitt and others blamed CBS, Inc., for losing affiliates in urban areas and for allowing the FOX network to win the bid for Sunday afternoon football, 60 Min111es' long­ time lead-in program.

     When Dateline NBC. a similar newsmagazine, was programmed opposite 60 Minutes in the spring  of 1996, the press covered the move as a battle for the hearts and minds of the audience. However, for several months before the direct competition, Hewitt began to revamp 60 Minutes, adding briefs, hard news segments; announcing the production of new stories  throughout the summer: adding a commentary section: and tracking down new and  unfamiliar  topics.  Although the series has been criticized for sporadically following compelling stories broken by magazines  such  as The Nation instead of breaking news,  the  strategy meets Hewitt's mandate to impact a large audience. In its fourth decade, 60 Minutes continues to shift strategy and change in form. With the arrival of 60 Minutes II in January 1999, Hewitt faced the challenge of keeping the original series distinctive and maintaining its prominence among magazine programs.

     When Leslie Moonves, president and chief executive officer of CBS Television, conceived of 60 Minutes II, Hewitt and Wallace believed that he was motivated by profit making and trying to respond to the decisions of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) to dedicate more programming time to other newsmagazines. For Hewitt, the new CBS program would lead to the "dumbing down" of the 60 Minutes brand in order to attract the 18- to 49-year-olds absorbed by the soft-news and celebrity-oriented stories of the competition on other networks. The strong resistance of Hewitt and Wallace to 60 Minutes II abated after Jeffrey Fager left his position as executive producer of the CBS Evening News to head the series, and Rather became a regular correspondent. Joining the series as correspondents were Bob Simon, Charlie Rose, and Vicki Mabrey, with Carol Marin as contributing correspondent, and Jeffrey Tingle, a Boston-based comic, as commentator. When Tingle's brand of humor failed, Charles Grodin came aboard in October 2000. Scott Pelley joined as the fifth correspondent late in 1999.

     Fearing that the potential failure of 60 Minutes II would permanently tarnish the original series, Hewitt and Fager took the further precaution of limiting the appearance on the new series of original 60 Minutes correspondents to "classic" segments, updates of memorable stories from the original series. Since mid- 2000, 60 Minutes II has been the second-highest-rated newsmagazine behind 60 Minutes. Hewitt, confident that the new series was "committed to the values" of 60 Minutes as promised by CBS News President Andrew Heyward, permitted correspondents to contribute stories. Highlighting the tradition and strengths of 60 Minutes' investigative reports, Bradley examined whether the massacre at Columbine High School could have been prevented, and Wallace revealed the practice of genetic discrimination.

     In its first year, hoping to attract a younger audience, 60 Minutes II offered profiles of Elton John, Madonna, Bonnie Raitt, Jody Foster, Pat Summit, and Oscar de la Hoya that transgressed timid celebrity gazing and storytelling. The series also featured in-depth reporting on such subjects as new research into the nature of the brain; a growing anarchist movement based in Seattle, Washington; a cover-up of a 1921 race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and a variety of national and international conditions that fit the meticulous investigative format established by the program's predecessor. 60 Minutes II was not afraid to take risks in tracking down stories or to shy away from legal battles. Producers won a court challenge accusing them of infringing on patient confidentiality by airing footage from a microcamera attached to a hospital worker's eyeglasses, capturing patient mistreatment in one hospital administered by a corporation responsible for 91 hospitals. The series demonstrated that it could be an agent of change when a story on child labor in India resulted in U.S. Customs stopping cigarettes rolled by children from entering the country.

     After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, 60 Minutes II secured a position as an invaluable and professional newsmagazine firmly anchored in the tradition and accomplishments of 60 Minutes. 60 Minutes has built an extensive archive of film from stories on smallpox, the Middle East, international terrorism, Pakistan, the Taliban, Afghanistan,

     U.S. counterterrorism units, and biochemical warfare. The foresight and courage of 60 Minutes to cover issues with minimal audience appeal and shunned by other newsmagazines was evident in the breadth and depth of its coverage of topics that gained fresh relevance in the United States' new war on terrorism. 60 Minutes II employed the resources, film, and research reports of 60 Minutes to live up to Don Hewitt's standard of broadcasting journalism.