Morley Safer, CBS newsman and '60 Minutes' stalwart, dead at 84
Morley Safer, the golden-voiced 60 Minutes correspondent and CBS newsman whose legend was fixed when his uncompromising reports on the Vietnam War changed how the conflict was covered, has died. He was 84.
CBS News, his broadcast home for five decades, reported his death Thursday -- just over a week after announcing his retirement. The network had just aired an hourlong special on Sunday honoring Safer, whose 46 years on 60 Minutes stands as the longest contiguous primetime network TV stint of any kind.
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World leaders, art, technology, culture, investigations -- Safer did it all, churning out weekly story after weekly story for 60 Minutes, a program that, believe it or not, was still relatively ratings-challenged when Safer took over for Harry Reasoner in 1970.
The toils of Safer and his partner-in-crime (and sometimes frenemy) Mike Wallace (above, right) got 60 Minutes a hard-won spot in the Top 10 by the late '70s, and the program would remain a ratings juggernaut for decades to come.
"Morley was one of the most important journalists in any medium, ever," said CBS Chairman and CEO, Leslie Moonves. "He broke ground in war reporting and made a name that will forever be synonymous with 60 Minutes. He was also a gentleman, a scholar, a great raconteur -- all of those things and much more to generations of colleagues, his legion of friends, and his family, to whom all of us at CBS offer our sincerest condolences over the loss of one of CBS’ and journalism’s greatest treasures."
As an on-camera correspondent for CBS News, Safer made a name for himself in 1965 for his piece on the systematic burning of Vietnamese villages by the U.S. military. It's widely believed that the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite report emboldened other American journalists to stop censoring themselves, possibly changing the course of the Vietnam War -- and war reporting -- forever.
The Canadian-born Safer's reporting ran the gamut: He got a wrongly convicted man out of jail in Texas, sparked the notion that drinking red wine has health benefits, was the first U.S. newsman to broadcast from inside Communist China, and sat with countless U.S. and foreign leaders for interviews heard 'round the world. But he also had an ear for quirky cultural stories, the likes of which he produced until very recently.
Safer is survived by wife Jane, their daughter Sarah, three grandchildren, and a sister and brother.
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Josh Dickey is Mashable's Entertainment Editor, leading Mashable's TV, music, gaming and sports reporters as well as writing movie features and reviews.Josh has been the Film Editor at Variety, Entertainment Editor at The Associated Press and Managing Editor at TheWrap.com.A finalist for the Los Angeles Press Club's Best Entertainment Feature in 2015 for "Everyone is Altered: The Secret Hollywood Procedure that Fooled Us for Years," Josh received his BA in Journalism from The University of Minnesota.In between screenings, he can be found skating longboards, shredding guitar and wandering the streets of his beloved downtown Los Angeles.
