Anderson Cooper bids farewell to CBS News 60 minutes Sunday night after 20 years in the news magazine by praising the program’s “independence” and “its trust with viewers.”
“hope 60 minutes remains 60 minutes“, he said in an interview on 60 minutes additional time. “There are very few things that have been around as long 60 minutes It has the quality that it has and it maintains it, and things can always evolve and change, and I think that’s great, and things should evolve and change, but I hope that the essence of what 60 minutes “It remains permanent.”
60 minutes It has been making headlines recently under its new ownership by David Ellison and Ellison’s appointment of CBS News editor-in-chief Barry Weiss. In December, Vice posted a clip about the “brutal and torturous conditions” in the El Salvador prison where the Trump administration sent deportees. An official statement said the story “needs additional reporting.”
60 minutes He also faced criticism for sidelining legendary reporter Lesley Stahl, and assigning Major Garrett to interview Benjamin Netanyahu, after negotiations between Weiss and the Israeli prime minister.
President Trump achieved a victory after he filed a lawsuit against the company over the editing of A 60 minutes An interview with 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The lawsuit resulted in parent company Paramount Global settling for $16 million in damages. Part of the settlement agreement included conditions for Paramount’s release 60 minutes Transcripts of interviews with presidential candidates after air.
“I think independence 60 minutes “It was critical,” Cooper continued over time. “I also think a variety of stories. When you see A 60 minutes A story and you say, “That was a really good story,” and it was a good story because it takes time, it takes patience, it takes money. … hope 60 minutes It’s there when my kids grow up and have kids and can watch it with their kids.
Cooper said there were several factors that led to his decision to leave the show.
“The whole time I made the cut in 60 minutes, “My full-time job at CNN was over and still is, and it was really hard to do the kind of work you have to do,” he said. 60 minutes Stories mostly while using his time off from CNN. “I loved it, but it was hard.”
The second reason? His children.
“I have two kids, a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old, and I want to spend as much time with them as possible while they still want to spend time with me, and on those days, the clock is ticking,” he said. “I don’t think the reality has really hit me that I’m not going to do this anymore, you know, to give up something that I’ve watched since I was a kid, yeah, I’m going to miss this.”
Cooper has also delved further into his passion 60 minutes As a child.
“I was a weird little kid,” he said. “I loved watching the news. After my father died, there was a lot of silence in my house and we would watch the news at dinner, you know something like the old CBS reporters.”
Then the legendary praised 60 minutes Reporters include Morley Safer, Mike Wallace and Bob Simon, marveling that he got the latter’s office when Simon died.
“60 minutes “It’s always been a place, at least for me, where you can step into someone else’s shoes,” Cooper said. “You can see things through their eyes and see what their struggles are and what they’re up against, and you learn from that. … You never knew what you were going to get, but you were willing to go on the ride because you had faith in the people working on it and that it was going to be a good story.
Doing a story told to 60 minutes You feel like you’re entering people’s lives and that you’re invited into their homes. You’re invited into their struggles. You’re invited into everything that brought them into being. 60 minutes. …Sometimes it’s something wonderful they did, sometimes it’s something terrible that happened to them. …It’s like having a human connection with someone, being able to ask someone deeply personal questions and have conversations with people. “It is a privilege.”
the over time The segment included clips of Cooper’s interviews with Donald Sutherland, Dave Grohl, Adele, Timothée Chalamet, Holocaust survivor Irene Weiss and more, as well as clips in which Cooper engaged in some high-adventure activities, from scuba diving to find Nile crocodiles to surfing big waves in Nazareth, Portugal, with legendary surfer Garrett McNamara — burning his corneas from UV reflection off the water.
Cooper also mentioned how high the bar is 60 minutes To put a story on the air, noting that everyone working on the show is “the best” in their field.
At the end of the segment, Cooper became emotional as he said reporters’ signature introduction — “I’m Anderson Cooper” — one last time. Watch it below.
