A remarkable career: A conversation with retiring correspondent Steve Kroft
Thirty years and 500 stories later, Steve Kroft retires from "60 Minutes" comfortably knowing the show, now in its 52nd season, will go on without him. He makes this and other observations on his remarkable career in an interview with his colleague, Lesley Stahl, in a special hour to be broadcast on "60 Minutes," Sunday, September 8, at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
The first two-thirds of the program contains some of Kroft's biggest moments on "60 Minutes," moments fans will remember among the very best on the news magazine. When Stahl suggests those contributions to "60 Minutes" will be missed, the newsman says, "It means a lot to me to hear you say that… '60 Minutes' will be fine, just fine."
Among those moments, stories about Chernobyl, Clint Eastwood, Justice Clarence Thomas, Beyonce and Jerry Seinfeld. In the last part of the hour, "60 Minutes" rebroadcasts Kroft's whimsical tale of life on an island off the Scottish Coast. "The Isle of Eigg" won an Edward R. Murrow award last year.
In a few weeks, "60 Minutes" will learn whether it wins any 2019 Emmy awards; four of the nominated stories are Kroft's.
It is his time to leave, he tells Stahl, who says she tried to talk him out of it. "I've always… had a great amount of respect for people who've left their professions when they were on top," says the 74-year-old journalist. "I felt that this was the time for me to go, that there were other things that I wanted to do that I still had the energy to do."
