In memory of Don Hewitt I'm a huge fun of
60 Minutes – the CBS show that is on air already four decades (from 1968!). It was few years ago when I first noticed the quality and the deepness of the subject examination of an episode shown on the First Channel – the Israeli official broadcasting authority TV channel. I don't remember what exactly it was about, but since then I didn't missed even one episode and few of them I watched even more than once. The excellence and the perfection is in every frame, really, it feels like you can touch it! I love the correspondents, I love the sound, I love the shooting and all this although I'm not 100% agree with what is said on the show. Well, most of the time I do sympathize, what I mean is that the way the stories are presented shows the highest professionalism at every aspect regardless if you agree or not with what is being said.
60 Minutes for me is the flagship of the news television; it is the way I want to receive information. Sadly, the show is unique on the horizon. The closest attempts I know in the Israeli television are the show
Fact (עובדה) by Ilana Dayan and the weekend news items on the Channel 2. These are nice to watch but they mostly about the views of a correspondent about the story and less the 'story' itself. Here is the biggest differentiator I realized just lately after watching the August, 2009 episode dedicated to Don Hewitt – the creator of
60 Minutes.
"It is about four words" he said, "Tell me a Story"- this is the key of
60 Minutes success and I wish other producers will learn it. The show itself definitely keeps Hewitt legacy and the only thing I would like is that
60 Minutes will be there forever, working hard as they obviously always do, telling me stories about successes and failures, juniors and seniors, peace and war.