After 34 years as a full-time correspondent with the program, Mike Wallace,
84, said he will cut back on his workload at CBS' 60 Minutes.
He told The New York Times he would reduce his workload by 50 percent
starting next season.
Of course, Wallace said the same thing about the current season, and he's
already done 15 segments, more than any other staff correspondent.
This time, Wallace insisted that he means it, saying that the world travel
has become too fatiguing.
Others at the CBS News division were skeptical. In fact, for the past two
seasons, Wallace has been contractually obligated to do only one-half the normal
full-time load of a 60 Minutes correspondent, but he has worked full time
anyway.
If he does cut back, it's expected that both Bob Simon, a full-time 60
Minutes II correspondent and occasional 60 Minutes contributor, and
Christiane Amanpour, a full-time Cable News Network correspondent and part-time
60 Minutes contributor, would increase their contributions to the
show.
Wallace has been a correspondent on the magazine since its debut in 1968. It
remains the top-rated newsmagazine and, up until last year, it had been in the
top-10 network prime-time show ranking for 23 years.
The show's executive producer, Don Hewitt, isn't getting any younger, either.
He's 79.
Hewitt however, has no plans to cut back. 'My aim is to die at my desk,' he
told the Times.
