By Barbara Petty

On air since 1968, 60 Minutes is the most successful television show in history. Not to say that they or that CBS has never made any blunders, for indeed they have: 60 Minutes bowed to “Big Tobacco’s” influence by softening their story that was supposed to uncover the deliberate use of additives to make cigarettes more addictive; the firing of Dan Rather from CBS News in order to gain favor with the White House after certain documents emerged alleging political influence was used to prevent George W. Bush from serving in any serious capacity during the Vietnam conflict (quickly followed by a lawsuit that Rather won); or Lesley Stahl’s tumultuous interviews with French President Nicolas Sarkozy where he walked out of the taping when asked if he and his wife were having marital difficulties, and with Boris Yeltsin when asked about his mother.

But isn’t that what a reporter is supposed to do—ask the tough questions? Lesley Stahl may be the second toughest female interviewer in journalism (next to Barbara Walters); however, she doesn’t always get what she wants. In addition to the infamous Sarkozy and Yeltsin walkouts, she was unable to get Taylor Swift to comment on the Kanye West faux pas. But she will doggedly persevere.

 

In her biography Reporting Live, Stahl recalls her ah-ha moment with respect to her life’s calling, “I was born on my 30^thbirthday. Everything up [until] then was prenatal. By 30 I knew two things for sure. One was I wanted to be a journalist, which would mean, in the environment of the 1970s, surmounting my femaleness and my blondness. The other thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to be like my father—not in his success at business but in his character. He was patient, always respectful, gentle.”

By the time she was 32, she was an on-air reporter at Channel 5 in Boston. But it wasn’t easy, as she recounts, “I had to plug away. There are two kinds of reporters. There are those like the late Charles Kuralt who wrote so well he could spin a good story out of one or two bits of information. And there’s the other kind, door kickers like me. My reports have to have lots of hard facts.”

Affirmative Action was her calling card to make it to the big league. All three major networks sent out invitations for women and African Americans with news experience. Stahl applied to all three. She was given an audition by CBS’ Washington’s bureau to write some radio copy. Stahl remembers, “I worked hard on those radio scripts, because CBS had the premiere news department and I wanted to work there. The anchorman, Walter Cronkite—“Uncle Walter”—was number one in the ratings, and his team, his horsemen, were inspired by the legacy of Edward R. Murrow, who, in creating television journalism, had insisted on the highest standards of reporting.”

Stahl said goodbye to Boston and began working behind a desk in the hallway in an overcrowded, dirty CBS newsroom. After working for a few weeks, she realized that regardless of the Equal Opportunity Employment Act, the male-dominated industry was not a picnic. “One day I was sent to Arlington National Cemetery to cover a ceremony at John Kennedy’s grave,” Stahl recounts. “When the cameraman saw that I was the reporter on the story, he picked up his heavy camera cases and hurled them one by one into the trunk of his car.”

The “bullyragging” toughened her up. She worked all the time, determined to prove herself. Another twist of fate landed her the story of the decade. “I was sent out to cover the arrest of some men who had broken into one of the buildings in the Watergate complex,” Stahl shares. “That CBS let me, the newest hire, hold on to Watergate as an assignment, was a measure of how unimportant the story seemed.

“When the five Watergate burglars asked the judge for a bail reduction, I got my first scoop. Unlike my competitors, I was able to identify them. That time the cameraman listened when I said, ‘Roll! That’s them!’ And so CBS was the only network to get pictures of the burglars. I was a hero at CBS.”

She sensed a big story and continued to deliver bits and pieces to the news desk, “These guys are from Cuba” or “They were carrying around phony passports!” or “They had money in consecutively numbered hundred-dollar bills!”

She became friends with Bob Woodward (and dated for a time) who was also doggedly pursuing the story. “Bob’s tenacity bordered on clinical compulsion, which was why he was such a good reporter,” Stahl comments. Still, with the exception of the Washington Post, other news media were reluctant to give the story much coverage… until Walter Cronkite got involved.

When the story finally became national news, Stahl was relegated to a supporting role for Daniel Schorr. Rather than taking offense, she decided to take this as a learning experience—until Schorr took credit for one of her stories. She balked and Schorr threatened to have her fired. Fighting for her life, she went to Bill Small, bureau chief in Washington, and as Stahl recalls, “You must hear my side of this… Small responded, ‘I was beginning to think you would never stand up to that SOB… Now that you’ve shown me some spine, I think you’re ready to go out and report on your own.’” She was promoted to Morning News correspondent covering the Senate hearings, the first female White House Correspondent for CBS. And At 35 Stahl was promoted to anchor of the CBS Morning News, the second anchorwoman in the history of male-dominated CBS.

In addition to launching her career, Watergate also introduced her to future husband Aaron Latham, sent by New York Magazine to write an article. Over coffees and dinners kibitzing about the scandal, romance was brewing. Nearing the end of the tumultuous scandal, Latham moved in with Stahl. Within two years they were married and had a daughter.

After Watergate, Stahl began covering the women’s movement. She reflects, “This was an issue we wanted to report on yet were afraid would typecast us… but I did it for me. Succeeding at becoming a woman of authority on television would in itself help other women.”

Women’s issues have continued to have an ongoing presence in Stahl’s life. She is one of the founding members, along with Liz Smith, Mary Wells Lawrence, Peggy Noonan, and Joni Evans, of wowOwow.com (an acronym for The Women on the Web), a website for women to talk about culture, politics, and gossip that was launched in 2008. Stahl blogs about a myriad of topics from high-image news stories (Bin Laden “We Got ‘Em!”) to more mundane topics such as what she carries in her purse!

Since 1991 Stahl has worked for 60 Minutes, and has interviewed high-profile individuals ranging from Jack Abramoff to Vice President Joe Biden to Lou Dobbs to Tom Cruise to Diane Keaton. She has a collection of Emmy Awards for her interviews on Face the Nation (where she worked from 1990–1991) and her 60 Minutes reporting, including a Lifetime Achievement Emmy given in September 2003. Her 60 Minutes reports “How He Won the War,” about former FDA Commissioner David Kessler’s battle with the tobacco industry, and “Punishing Saddam,” which exposed the plight of Iraqi citizens, mostly children, suffering the effects of the United Nations sanctions against Iraq, were both Emmy winners. “Punishing Saddam” also won Stahl an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award. Her profile of search engine giant Google earned her a 2005 Business and Financial Emmy award, and more recently, her 2006 interview of ex-Hewlett-Packard Chairwoman Patricia Dunn won an Emmy for coverage of a breaking news story.

In 1996, Stahl was awarded the Fred Friendly First Amendment Award, given by Quinnipiac College in Hamden, Conn. She was also honored that year by the Radio/Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) with an Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence in Television.  In 1993, she received a Matrix Award for Broadcasting, presented by New York Women in Communications Inc. In 1990, she was honored with the Dennis Kauff Journalism Award for lifetime achievement in the news profession.

Stahl will be 70 this month, and for being a door kicker for 40 years, she has the great legs to prove it!

 Photos courtesy of CBS News

VIDEO
Lesley Stahls answers 5 Questions from Craig Kilborn

 

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