'60 Minutes' Legend Morley Safer on the Huge Problems Facing Network TV Journalism

60 Minutes news legend Morley Safer died on Thursday May 19 at 84, just days after retiring. Safer won 12 Emmy Awards and was the longest-serving reporter on the show. 

Nearly three and a half years ago, Safer spoke with C-Span about his career and how the media industry has become degraded. 

“You can’t do a lot on television you have to know your limitations and they’re enormous limitations," Safer said, and warned aspiring journalists that "if you’re going to cover issues there’s no way you can do an honest job of that - even in an hour let alone 12 and a half minutes."

Sometimes in Safer's days, awful stories didn't even make it on the air.

“If the interview goes on and on and on generally it’s because the subject is either totally inarticulate so you just keep going and going and going trying to get him to make some sense or the answers are just so clearly misinformation and an interview can just become a slanging match. It just creates more heat than light so you junk it," explained Safer. 

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