{"id":565539,"date":"2026-04-05T06:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/565539\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T06:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:35:11","slug":"steve-kroft-hated-60-minutes-probably-wouldnt-do-it-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/565539\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Kroft ‘Hated’ ’60 Minutes,’ ‘Probably Wouldn’t’ Do It Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSteve Kroft may have had an acclaimed 30-season career at 60 Minutes<\/a> before he retired in 2019<\/a>, but if he had the chance to do it again, he \u201cprobably wouldn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKroft joined Bill O\u2019Reilly on the latter\u2019s We\u2019ll Do It Live! podcast<\/a>, where he reflected on his decades at the iconic newsmagazine, a job that he confessed he \u201chated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c60 Minutes was really appealing, and I thought, I wasn\u2019t really sure I was ever going to get there. I didn\u2019t really seriously think about it. When I did, there\u2019s so many things that, first of all, the job is just 24 hours a day,\u201d Kroft said of the grind at the prestigious program. \u201cI mean, you may get a couple hours of bad sleep. Beepers going off, getting on jets, going here and there, the whole thing, then coming back and spending, you know, three or four days writing the script, and then going to the screenings and then getting on, starting it all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also recalls the competitive atmosphere and envy among fellow journalists after he got the gig.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI can remember when I was tapped to go to 60 Minutes, I thought this was fantastic and I expected a lot of people would just come up and say, \u2018That\u2019s really great, I\u2019m really happy for you,’\u201d he recalled. \u201cAnd then you realize after a while that not everybody was happy that I got this job. There were other people that wanted it. And so then you\u2019ve all of a sudden made a bunch of enemies. And that\u2019s, it\u2019s just, you know, it\u2019s a snake pit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tInstead, Kroft said the best job he had at CBS was when he was a correspondent in the London bureau.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI got to see the world, that was the job I always wanted,\u201d Kroft said.<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, Kroft found it \u201cexhilarating\u201d to do the stories he did.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was exhilarating in the sense that the reason I loved the job was because of the stories that I could do, and the fact that they liked good stories,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Kroft retired at the age of 73, he was 60 Minutes\u2018 longest-tenured correspondent and had conducted some of the long-running show\u2019s most indelible interviews. He spoke to the Clintons in 1992 when Hillary Clinton famously invoked Tammy Wynette<\/a> amid claims that then-candidate Bill Clinton had had an affair with Gennifer Flowers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt began awkwardly because of the delicate subject matter, but as Hillary got more involved and joined in the conversation, I knew we had a good story,\u201d Kroft, who admitted he was nervous about the big sit-down, previously recalled to The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>. \u201cWhen she made the Tammy Wynette remark, I knew we were home free.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also had memorable sit-downs with Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood and Barack Obama (16 in total, including one after the 2011 assassination of Osama Bin Laden) and he led significant investigations into Saddam Hussein\u2019s hidden financial assets and insider trading in Congress. Still, he said the story that had the greatest impact on him was a 2001 report about financial firm Sandler O\u2019Neill, which lost a third of its employees in the World Trade Center attacks.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the days following the disaster, the surviving partner, Jimmy Dunne, allowed us to follow him and other managers as they planned the funerals, comforted and counseled the families, and against impossible odds, kept the company running during the worst days,\u201d he said. \u201cIt survived and is thriving today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen asked how his producers would describe him, the skilled, veteran correspondent, also a perfectionist, said, \u201cI think if you asked them during the scripting process the answer would be unprintable. When the story is finished and screened, they would be more complimentary. I\u2019m not easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the summer, Kroft briefly returned to the spotlight<\/a> when he joined Jon Stewart on The Daily Show to share his thoughts on Paramount\u2019s controversial $16 million settlement with President Trump tied to 60 Minutes\u2018 editing of its interview with Trump\u2019s opponent in the 2024 presidential election, former Vice President Kamala Harris. Kroft was blunt in his assessment of the deal, calling it a \u201cshakedown.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen asked about the mood at 60 Minutes in light of his likely ongoing communications with past colleagues, Kroft agreed with Stewart\u2019s assessment that the settlement is likely \u201cdevastating to the people who work in a place that prides themselves on contextual, good journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of fear over there,\u201d Kroft said. \u201cFear of losing their job, fear of what\u2019s happening to the country, fear of losing the First Amendment, all of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Kroft may have had an acclaimed 30-season career at 60 Minutes before he retired in 2019, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[10673,147784,236,88,2190],"class_list":{"0":"post-565539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-60-minutes","9":"tag-bill-oreilly","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-podcast"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}