Jeff Fager

Few assignments from my first year at 48 Hours have remained with me as vividly as this one. We traveled deep into the Zimbabwe bush to report on the poaching war threatening the black rhino and spent about ten consecutive days there. We loaded a flatbed truck with tents, sleeping bags, food, water, and beer, knowing we would spend most of two weeks living beside an open fire in a place with no nearby roads. From a helicopter, a team darted a rhino while we recorded what followed. Dozens of African laborers then worked together to transport the animal to a site called “Capture Camp.” Watching them bring it in was almost like seeing a small dinosaur being moved. Rhinos are extraordinarily powerful and strange to encounter at close range. They also inhabit such isolated territory that workers had to cut a route through the brush by hand before a truck could get near enough to carry one away. One scene from the assignment remains clearer in my mind than anything else. Each night, we gath...

I didn't make 60 Minutes better than it had been. I made the broadcast more modern, with the most important change being to make it newsier. For many years, the prevailing belief had been that covering a current news event was not really what 60 Minutes was supposed to do. I disagreed. After I took charge, major news stories became an important part of the broadcast. September 11th provides the clearest example. At 60 Minutes II, our sister broadcast, we dedicated every hour to the attacks and their aftermath for three and a half to four consecutive months—every hour. The original 60 Minutes devoted about a tenth as much time to the story. I believed then, and I still believe today, that an experienced team can produce a story in one week, or sometimes in only three days, that is every bit as strong as one developed over two months. We could work that quickly because most of us had come through the CBS Evening News . We knew how to produce stories under intense time pressure witho...

When Don Hewitt stepped aside and I became the executive producer of 60 Minutes , I felt confident, but I also understood how intimidating the responsibility was. Don had created the broadcast in 1968 after Fred Friendly pushed him out of the CBS Evening News. The program was his creation in every possible sense. At first, he was not particularly helpful to me, and I understood why. It was not personal. He had devoted his life to the broadcast, and I was the person taking his place. Don had a remarkable ability to help reporters improve their stories. He never softened his opinions or avoided difficult conversations. He simply told people what worked and what did not. I had watched him closely enough that I could usually predict how he would respond to almost any question. Before taking over, I had already spent six years as a producer at 60 Minutes. I then moved to the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather before returning to launch 60 Minutes II on the same floor as the original broadcas...

The London Bureau held a special place at CBS News , and it had earned that standing. Edward R. Murrow had reported from there during World War II, and in many respects, the network itself had begun there. I arrived when I was 29 or 30. Even then, I understood that I was young for an assignment many people considered the best job in the company. Our founder, Bill Paley, visited twice while I was stationed there. During each trip, he invited a small group of producers to lunch, usually no more than half a dozen of us. He was already in his eighties, but he still wanted to remain close to the news operation and be part of what was happening. At one of those lunches, I asked him directly what made a television program successful. He answered immediately and began talking about Jack Benny. Paley told me that The Jack Benny Show had attracted an audience of roughly 70 million Americans at a time when the population of the United States was only about half of what it is today. He had once as...