Ddamn. Another icon gone. 2016 is certainly taking it’s fair share of our pop culture personas, isn’t it?
His retirement was announced just last week! There was an hour-long retrospective about his career on 60 Minutes this past Sunday. At least he lived long enough to see it, but he didn’t get to enjoy much of a retirement…
Since he was 84 and could have retired almost 20 years ago, he undoubtedly preferred working.
I just saw that. I’m so sad for all of us for our combined loss. 
Growing up, he and Dan Rather were the voices of investigative journalism on Sunday nights. They probed deeper behind the scenes and consistently delivered more than the flash bumper-sticker versions of stories. They never disappointed me as a viewer.
There were other news shows on other networks that tried, but all of them failed to match 60 Minutes. Most of those other shows devolved into slow plodding cold-case dissections of solved murders or lurid ‘gotchas’ of sex offenders.
Hard-hitting comedy news shows today are fun, true… but they’re just not the same.
There are no more journalists on TV like Morley Safer today although Meet The Press and PBS Newshour (the shadow of the great ‘The MacNeil/Lehrer Report’) are good.
Thank you for the stories, Morley. You put a little bit of humanity, integrity, and intelligence into every one of them and I’m truly lucky… and grateful… for being able to watch.
Until the next place, that’s was Morley Safer… signing off…
Jeez, when we were watching 60 Minutes last week I said to my wife “I hope he doesn’t pull an Andy Rooney!” Holy crap…
From Wikipedia:
Safer’s report on this event was broadcast on CBS News on August 5, 1965, and was among the first reports to paint a bleak picture of the Vietnam War. President Lyndon Baines Johnson reacted to this report angrily, calling CBS’s president and accusing Safer and his colleagues of having “shat on the American flag.” Certain that Safer was a communist, Johnson also ordered a security check; upon being told that Safer “wasn’t a communist, just a Canadian”, he responded: “Well, I knew he wasn’t an American.”
Yes, PBS Newshour is the only nightly news show worth watching. I wish I could (or somebody would) figure out a way for that format to foster and include relevant local news reporting - as in they’d produce a local news segment or program for smaller geographic areas.
Yep, if the man had a perfect talent, it was his ability to narrate his news. Cronkite was on his way out when I was becoming aware of why watching the news was important, so Safer’s and Rather’s voices are the ones I associate with thorough news.
Happy trails, sir. You will be missed.
Andy lasted almost 5 weeks after his last appearance on the show. It’s going to hard to break Morley’s record for shortest 60 Minutes retirement. (Tho Morley’s last report was in March, he had just announced his retirement on a special earlier in the week.)
I hate it when things like this happen, because my first thought is that he knew something was wrong with him, and he wanted to close a couple books before he left.
I didn’t think Rooney lasted that long, I thought it was about two weeks, tops. But you’re right. Wiki says his last 60 Minutes appearance was on 10/2/2011 and he died 11/4. Still… yeesh!
One thing that distinguished “60 Minutes” from other similar magazine news shows was that they were the only one that regularly did foreign stories.
I read an article earlier today that said they did the retirement announcement and the special because of his quickly failing health.
I’m imagining St. Peter having to go in and tell The Boss that Morley Safer is in the waiting room, with a list of questions.
So, that’s it, the whole original cast of 60M hosts is now gone.
I imagine that Safer would be a bit surprised to be greeted by a Christian saint. 