Hewitt and ’60 Minutes’ ’ legacy

Re “So Elegant, So Timeless,” by Robert Lloyd, Aug. 20: Nothing against the late Don Hewitt, but “60 Minutes” was an entertainment show, not a news show.

Cramming three features, plus Andy Rooney, plus all the promos and commercials into an hour means they “cover” a story (sometimes a very complicated one) in 16 minutes.

The reason it got such high ratings (as opposed to, say, a carefully presented PBS documentary) was because it was slick, superficial and fast-paced, one cut above tabloid news.

David Macaray

Rowland Heights

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Don’t forget about PBS: “Nightly Business Report” and “NewsHour.” This is journalistic reporting -- unbiased, straight news that does not dumb-down the viewer. How nice to allow viewers to form their own opinions.

If newspapers focus on journalistic reporting, they may survive. Seems they are in the position that TV news was years ago, when cable came onto the scene -- albeit without the gorilla Internet. There are lessons to be learned for newspapers vis-a-vis the TV news evolution. Stick to the knitting -- be smart -- and go deep whether local, national or worldwide.

M.J. Krempel

New York