# 60 Minutes and the Collapse of the Empire

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Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-thinking-through-the-fourth-turning-with-sasha-stone-5501501/60-minutes-and-the-collapse-of-the-empire.md
Podcast: [Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone](https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-thinking-through-the-fourth-turning-with-sasha-stone-5501501)
Published: 2026-06-07T16:54:23+00:00
Episode link: https://www.sashastone.com/p/60-minutes-and-the-collapse-of-the
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/200936101/00e88ce950f5a849bb788c960a09cf6b.mp3
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Duration seconds: 1888

## Resource

Charles Manson famously said, “You can’t kill me. I’m already dead.” I thought about that quote as the 60 Minutes scandal erupted, with a conversation between reporter Scott Pelley and newly hired producer Nick Bilton. From the NYT : “She is murdering ‘60 Minutes,’” [Scott Pelley] said. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it, and she’s been doing exactly that.” Mr. Pelley added: “She has no qualifications for her job; you have slender qualifications for this job. The changes that she’s made at the ‘Evening News’ have been catastrophic, so why should we expect that any of this is going to be any better?” Mr. Bilton responded: “Well, I will show you. That’s what I have to say. That is my plan over the next two weeks. I’ll be meeting with everyone. I’m very excited to meet with everyone, yourself included.” Needless to say, it didn’t exactly go as planned. Several sanctimonious “don’t you know who I am” statements later, Pelley was out. 60 Minutes isn’t quite dead, but it is a relic of the past. In the 1990s, it was pulling in 20-30 million viewers. That dropped to 14-16 million in the 2000s. By the 2010s, it was down to 10-12 million. Now, just 9 million people tune in every week in a country of 340 million. Much of that is due to the changes in technology, but still. There is no doubt that 60 Minutes, like all of legacy media, is trapped inside the same bubble that thinks Jimmy Kimmel’s nightly monologue is still relevant, believes the Oscars still represent the majority of moviegoers, and that the New York Times has its finger on the pulse of everyday America. Like so much of what we might call “resistance era culture,” there doesn’t seem to be a place for 60 Minutes in our culture now, beyond being a propaganda tool for the Democrats, which expla…

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