60 MINUTES {CIGARETTES, CAR TALK, SOUTHBURY} (TV)
Summary
One in this series of news magazine programs. The first segment, "Cigarettes," opens with reporter Mike Wallace's warning that the segment being broadcast has been edited dramatically. He promises to return at the end of the program and provide further explanation of, as well as a personal statement on, his report. In the segment, footage of Wallace's questions to an unseen and unheard guest runs under Wallace's explanation that a big tobacco "insider" came to "60 Minutes" with the intention of providing evidence that the chief executive officers of all of the major tobacco companies lied to Congress when they claimed to have no knowledge of nicotine's addictive properties. CBS's legal department, Wallace explains, told "60 Minutes" not to run the interview because the "insider" had signed a confidentiality agreement that would put the network at risk if legal action were taken. Wallace explains that, when ABC ran a similar report, tobacco giant Phillip Morris sued that network successfully for over $10,000,000. Although Wallace is not allowed by his network to air actual footage of the insider's testimony, he does interview other eloquent people on the issue, including scientist Henry Waxman, who claims that the tobacco companies have known how dangerous their product is for thirty years. Waxman discusses several of the cigarette additives that the tobacco industry uses and then invariably attempts to play down, such as ammonia and freon. Wallace concludes the report by stating again that he will speak at the end of the program. In the second segment, "Car Talk," Steve Kroft presents a profile of popular National Public Radio fixtures Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the hosts of "Car Talk." In an extended interview with the duo, the radio personalities state that they want to make it clear that they do not even know very much about cars. "The show's not even really about cars," Kroft says. "It's more about the changing values and mores in America." Kroft visits the pair in their radio studio, where they do some of their trademark bits, such as discussing the unrecognized stereotypes of the drivers of certain car models. After footage is shown of the two making a sold-out, benefit appearance at a large venue, one fan equates tuning in to "Car Talk" to "listening to two teenagers messing around with the school's public-address system." In the third segment, "Southbury," Ed Bradley shares the cautionary tale of the Southbury School, a private institution for the mentally retarded that came under major scrutiny from the Justice Department in the light of increasingly frequent complaints of abuse and neglect. Bradley speaks with the parents of two mentally retarded brothers, and the mother swears that her children would have been much better off physically and mentally if they had not been treated so poorly at Southbury. The segment ends with the Justice Department's confirmation that the conditions at the school are often life threatening. In the fourth segment, Andy Rooney addresses several hundred viewers' complaints that his statement about O.J. Simpson's guilt in the former football player's murder trial was racially insensitive. Rooney flatly denies the charges. The program ends with Wallace's statement that he is disappointed with the network's decision to prevent news that could help the public at large from being reported.
Cataloging of this program has been made possible by the Bell Atlantic Foundation, 2000.
Details
- NETWORK: CBS
- DATE: November 12, 1995 7:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:57:51
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:63176
- GENRE: News magazine
- SUBJECT HEADING: Mental retardation facilities; Radio broadcasters; Tobacco - Addictives; Tobacco industry
- SERIES RUN: CBS - TV series, 1968-
- COMMERCIALS:
- TV - Commercials - Cigna property and casualty insurance
- TV - Commercials - Compaq computers
- TV - Commercials - K-Mart department stores
- TV - Commercials - Lexus automobiles
- TV - Commercials - McDonald's fast food
- TV - Commercials - Mercedes Benz automobiles
- TV - Commercials - Merril Lynch financial planning
- TV - Commercials - Norelco razors
- TV - Commercials - Oldsmobile automobiles
- TV - Commercials - Toyota automobiles
- TV - Commercials - UPS shipping service
- TV - Promo - "48 Hours"
- TV - Promo - "CBS News"
- TV - Promo - "CBS This Morning"
- TV - Promo - "Remember Me"
- TV - Promo - "Streets of Laredo"
CREDITS
- Don Hewitt … Executive Producer
- Philip Scheffler … Senior Producer
- L. Franklin Devine … Producer, Writer, News Writer
- Lowell Bergman … Producer, Writer, News Writer
- Abigail Pogrebin … Producer, Writer, News Writer
- Merri Lieberthal … Producer
- Arthur Bloom … Director
- Allen Mack … Direction (Misc.), Associate Director
- Alicia Tanz Flaum … Direction (Misc.), Associate Director
- Mike Wallace … Reporter
- Ed Bradley … Reporter
- Lesley Stahl … Reporter
- Morley Safer … Reporter
- Steve Kroft … Reporter
- Andy Rooney … Reporter
- Simpson, O.J. (See also: Simpson, Orenthal James)
- Ray Magliozzi
- Tom Magliozzi
- Henry Waxman