Thursday, July 08, 2004

This Sunday on 60 Minutes: Exclusive Kerry/Edwards Interview

Those long, boring, dog days of summer 60 Minutes repeats -- you know, the ones where you get positively intimate with the Kerry-Bush Skull and Bones story all over again, for the fifth time -- may be over. In an age of hyper-competitive television, where 24 hour cable news channels regularly eat the lunch of network news divisions and first run midsummer replacement reality TV programs regularly snack on the bones of newsmagazine reruns, CBS is doing something rather groovy, baby, to be sure. For the second time this summer (Dan Rather's Bill Clinton exclusive interview was the first; remember when Dan dressed in geeky jeans pulled ... just a little bit too far up in 'old man uncool' fashion and roamed through the mean streets of Little Rock, Arkansas with Bill? Priceless), the 60 Minutes gang is cutting short their long and lusty summers in Martha's Vinyard to actually break some news (Just what the fuck is it about liberals and Martha's Vinyard, anyway? Please tell me, I'm clueless). This time, 60 Minutes has the first joint interview with that new political sensation, the John-Johns, Senator John Kerry and John Edwards. USA Today notes (link via Romenesko):

"Sunday, the show will be fresh again when Lesley Stahl interviews Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, fresh off a campaign stop Saturday in Edwards' home state, North Carolina.

"It will be another exclusive: the candidates' first joint interview.

"Executive producer Jeff Fager, who has taken the reins from legendary producer Don Hewitt, will interrupt his vacation on Martha's Vineyard to put the interview together. He has asked commentator Andy Rooney, who is on his traditional July vacation in upstate New York, to weigh in, too.

"Fager says viewers should expect more breaking news in summers to come -- even though, when it comes to ratings, there is little incentive: 60 repeats do nicely in the summer, routinely finishing in the Top 10.

"'When there's news, we're going to be covering it. The viewers expect that. This has become a broadcast where big news is broken. That's an exciting thing . . . so it's not going to matter in the future what time of year it is.'"

Breaking news during the summers ... cool -- and so begins the reign of Jeff Fager.

The CBS 60 Minutes website, which, by the way, is all over this groundbreaking exclusive, touting it's own network horn, says:

"Stahl will talk to both candidates and their wives, Teresa Heinz Kerry and Elizabeth Edwards, in Edward's home state of North Carolina, after the two wind up a campaign swing through Ohio, Florida, West Virginia, New Mexico and North Carolina."

We can't wait either to hear that breathy Mozambique-by-way-of-Switzerland accent of Theresa Heinz. What can I say, we Gemini's get off on odd speech patterns.




2 comments:

John said...

Martha's Vineyard is just a really nice place to go. There's nothing about it that should particularly appeal to liberals except that it's relatively integrated for a high-end vacation spot and it's in Massachusetts (which has gone from the cradle of the American Revolution to a sex-mad adjunct of Holland, if you ask the Republicans). My family and I go for a week every August; hoping to bump that up to two weeks in future years, and eventually to have a big ol' liberal-media cottage of our own.

The Corsair said...

I know, I'm just playing about the Vinyard. I've been there too, it's just that whole Mike Wallace-Jackie O- Carly Simon-Walter Cromkite connection had us in a tizzy.