Bill Whitaker's 60 Minutes debut

For Bill Whitaker's debut on 60 Minutes, he reports on captured Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Reporting on Mexico's drug war is familiar territory for Whitaker.

"That was sort of my bread and butter when I was in Los Angeles," Whitaker tells 60 Minutes Overtime. "And El Chapo was always in the mix."

For almost 21 years, Whitaker was based in Los Angeles, and during that time, his stories took him all over the world. But on the U.S.-Mexico border, there was never a shortage of stories to cover.

It was there, 15 years ago, that Whitaker reported on Guatemalan immigrants who were fleeing the devastation of a hurricane by sneaking onto trains that would take them through Mexico and into the U.S. Bill Whitaker was there, reporting from the top of a moving train.

"It's like the train of death, it truly is," Whitaker says. "And the chance that one of the migrants is going to make it all the way up the length of Mexico without being robbed, or raped, or assaulted in some way is almost nil, and yet they come."

Whitaker's reporting career goes back to his beginnings at a local station in San Francisco to North Carolina, Atlanta and Tokyo where he reported on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, to an unlikely 1992 story on Japanese centenarian twins. He also covered some of the most devastating natural disasters, including the earthquake in Haiti and the Tsunami in Japan.

"I love hearing people's stories," Whitaker says. "I've insatiable curiosity and I love what I do."

The above video was produced for 60 Minutes Overtime by Magalie Laguerre-Wilkinson and Lisa Orlando.

Video of Bill Whitaker's reporting in Charlotte, NC courtesy WBTV.

Photo of Media, PA courtesy Media Borough.