Steve Kroft

(CBS) 

Steve Kroft was named a "60 Minutes" correspondent in May 1989 and delivered his first report that September. The 2011-12 season is his 23rd on the broadcast.

Kroft reported two of the biggest news stories of 2011, getting the only interview of President Barack Obama on the killing of Osama bin Laden and revealing that author and humanitarian Greg Mortenson lied in his best-selling book "Three Cups of Tea" and misrepresented the achievements of his charity. In 2010, he was chosen for the Paul White Award by the Radio, Television and Digital News Association (RTDNA) - the highest honor from the industry's largest peer association. At the same time, he became the only "60 Minutes" correspondent to ever win two Peabody Awards in the same year. One was for a story on the vulnerability to computer hackers of crucial infrastructures like the power grid, and the other for a story examining the enormous sums of money spent prolonging the lives of dying Americans, bringing his total number of Peabodys to five. The year 2010 continued to bring more recognition, as he received a George Polk award for his report attributing wild swings in the price of oil to Wall Street speculation and an Emmy for his report on rising Islamic militancy in Pakistan.

In 2008, he landed what was arguably the biggest interview of the year: the first post-election sit-down with Barack and Michelle Obama. It was broadcast on "60 Minutes" Nov. 16 to 25.1 million viewers, the largest primetime television audience of the season to that point. His joint investigation with the Washington Post exposing the deeply flawed forensic science of bullet lead analysis won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism award earlier in 2008 and was one of four major awards he won in the space of a year. He won the Sigma Delta Chi award for the same story and the coveted Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University silver baton for an investigation into the disappearance of over $500 million from Iraq's treasury. He also received the Fred Friendly First Amendment award from Quinnipiac University, one of the industry's most prestigious recognitions, in May 2007. His considerable body of work also was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in September 2003. And one of his finest investigative stories, a report examining the conflicts of interest between military contractors and the government in the awarding of contracts, "All in the Family" (April 2003), earned him a Peabody Award.

Many of Kroft's other "60 Minutes" reports have been recognized by awards committees. His report "America's Worst Nightmare" (Oct. 2000), on Pakistan's political instability, nuclear weapons and ties to Islamic militant groups such as the Taliban, won him an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University silver baton for a report the committee called "strikingly prophetic." "I.N.S." (March 2002), on the Immigration and Naturalization Service, was cited as one of the reports for which CBS News won the 2003 Overall Excellence Award from the RTDNA. Kroft also conducted the first television interview with Jonathan Lebed, the teenage stock manipulator who was the youngest person ever sued by the SEC. Kroft won an Emmy for a "60 Minutes" segment about the risks posed to the nation's water supply by the gasoline additive MTBE, now present in the ground water of 49 states.

In 1998, two of Kroft's "60 Minutes" reports were honored with a George Foster Peabody Award: "Veronica Guerin," a piece about an Irish reporter gunned down by drug dealers, and "West Side Story," an uplifting account of racial tension turned into racial harmony. Another Peabody winner, "Friendly Fire," about a Gulf War incident which explored the tragic, yet common occurrence of soldiers accidentally killing their own men, was broadcast on "60 Minutes" in 1992.

In 1996, Kroft's report "The Worst Nightmare" was the first to document the involvement of the Russian mafia in the smuggling of nuclear materials out of the former Soviet Union. The story won the prestigious Renner Award for reporting on organized crime, which is given by the Association of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE).

In 1994, Kroft was honored with two of his 11 Emmy Awards. One was for a profile of Senator Bob Dole and the other for a report on the Cuban government's policy of quarantining people infected with the AIDS virus. His 1998 story about the tough, flamboyant mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, won an Emmy as well.

His exclusive 1992 interview with then-Governor Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, ended up on the front page of virtually every newspaper in the country, and it is continually cited as one of the defining moments of that presidential election.

Two of Kroft's most significant reports have been on Chernobyl. In 1990, he was the first American journalist to be given extensive access to the contaminated nuclear power complex in Ukraine. That report also won an Emmy for special achievement in broadcasting. Kroft returned to Chernobyl in 1994 and became the first American reporter to enter the crippled reactor building.

Other memorable "60 Minutes" stories include an undercover investigation on the rolling back of odometers by car wholesalers in Houston, which triggered a federal grand-jury investigation that resulted in five convictions; the only television interview with Woody Allen during his bitter custody battle with Mia Farrow; a report on alleged jury tampering in the O. J. Simpson murder case; and his investigation of Saddam Hussein's hidden financial assets, estimated in the billions of dollars, which attracted worldwide attention.

Before joining "60 Minutes", Kroft was a principal correspondent on the CBS News magazine "West 57th," after having been a foreign correspondent for CBS News based in the London bureau, a period during which he covered international terrorism in Europe and the Middle East, including the TWA hijacking in Beirut, the massacres at the Rome and Vienna airports by the Abu Nidal terrorist cell and the Achille Lauro hijacking. He also covered the war in Beirut and the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. His report for the CBS Evening News on the assassination of Indira Gandhi won an Emmy Award.

Prior to his assignment in London, Kroft was a correspondent in the CBS News Miami bureau (1983) and traveled extensively in Latin America and the Caribbean. During that time, he covered the civil war in El Salvador and the U.S. invasion of Grenada.

Kroft joined CBS News in January 1980 as a reporter in the Northeast bureau in New York. He was named a correspondent in May 1981 and worked out of the Dallas bureau (January 1981-May 1983).

Before joining CBS News, Kroft was a reporter for WPLG-TV Miami, WJXT-TV Jacksonville, Fla., and WSYR-TV Syracuse, N.Y.

He was born Aug. 22, 1945, in Kokomo, Ind., and was graduated from Syracuse University in 1967 with a bachelor of science degree. He was honored by his alma mater in 1992 with the George Arents Medal, the highest honor the university gives to an alumnus. Kroft earned a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Indiana University. He served with the United States Army in Vietnam as a correspondent and photographer for Pacific Stars and Stripes.

Kroft is married to journalist Jennet Conant. They live in New York with their son, John Conant Kroft.

[2wssj]

PLEASE LISTEN TO PODCAST, WHEREAS THE QUESTION & ANSWER PERIOD. ISSUE 5 LOST IN OHIO!


The City Club Of Cleveland
A Citadel of Free Speech
Fri, 13 Jan 2012





Podcast Listing

Posted City Club Podcasts

January 13, 2012 featuring Grover Norquist, President and Founder, Americans for Tax Reform.

Grover Norquist, President and Founder, Americans for Tax Reform, talks about opposing any net tax increase and his most recent project, the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.

Download Duration:
00:57:03 Published: Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:00:00 -0500



http://www.cityclub.org/mediacenter/cityclubpodcast/Podcastpsting/tabid/194/Default.aspx

[dckelley2]

Steve Kroft's interview of President Obama was terrible and exhibited extremely poor journalism. While relentlessly jabbing Obama and showing no respect for his position as president of the United States, he failed to engage in intelligible discourse about legitimate issues facing our country. Instead, he relied on arguments propounded by Obama's opponents and CBS's most recent public poll statistics as sufficient evidence of Obama's competency as president, without exploring the nuances of issues facing our country and approaching the interview with the objectivity expected of legitimate journalists. As Obama pointed out during the interview, Mr. Kroft essentially accused him of both being too firm to achieve bipartisan compromise on important issues, and as too weak to stand up to republicans. Both stories cannot coexist, and Mr. Kroft's accusations in the interview were merely a recitation of unreasonable criticisms Obama has faced throughout his presidency. From 60 Minutes, I would expect a thoroughly researched and thoughtful interview of the President, and I was sorely disappointed to see Mr. Kroft fail to meet minimum standards of respectable journalism in last week's interview.

[Audacity-is-Right]

I can't believe you actually had the balls to say in front of the American people to that lousy excuse of a President, "You definitely have some impressive accomplishments." LOL...come on, did you actually believe that??? Or were you just trying to make a joke? Well, if you believe that spending more money than ALL of the past presidents COMBINED is an accomplishment then I suppose you are right after all. Amazing.

[tlanava]

Steve Kroft; Steve, Thanks for the great piece on congressional insider trading. I have followed updates by WSJ and Sen Libermann's hearings. Thanks to you we have a piece of legislation (STOCK ACT) moving thru the swamp with many co-sponsers.Can you do a f/u piece to suggest we should claw back ill gotten booty from the criminals. And add to that an interview with the SEC to kick start an investigation into Pelosi et al. Maybe we can target these guys as felons and kick their collective butts out of the swamp as an example. Next ,let's work on legislative extortion and sleezy real estate deals. Maybe we can get a better class of criminal elected to the swamp. Anyway, food for thought. Thanks again for a great piece of reporting. You really helped the nation. Best to you and family. tom lanava

[JabberJaw101]

Steve you have been amazing for years! But, recently you've been superman! Has anyone attempted to follow the money of the War-Machine - ever? Recently, congress created the most heinous bill in our nations history that included in the NDAA Bill Detains every person on this planet without right to trial, and now they leave that up to the supreme court - supposedly. Follow the money on this one and you'll be surprised who the fundraisers and associates on this one - sickning. Oh, and pic up a publication of Rebublic, lost. Their are other books that have recently been published that connects the War-Machine dots to legislation, Contracts, and Money going into big pockets...

Million's of U.S. Citizens jobless, homeless, starving and basically dying - yet the War-Machine always takes presidents over all. Follow the contracts, the fund raising, and connect the dots.

http://armed-services.senate.gov/press/NDAA%20FY12%20Conference%20Press%20Release.pdf

That cape looks great on you... Superman!

[lford7]

Steve, I don't know if you might have run into the rumor that Mozillo and others were buying up properties after they were foreclosed on and put up for auction. Talk about "double dipping." Then, there was the closing of the bank that he was involved with in California. Whenever you see him, he always looks impeccable; I wonder if he cares about all the people that he destroyed. I hope the day will come..........

[r38658]

Please report a segment about "anchor babies" in US. When illegal immigrants have babies in US, they are automatically entitled to free hospital for baby, free food stamps, free college education for mother, free housing, free baby sits for mother while in college, while across US, taxpaying US citizens are suffering from cuts from many services.

Anchor babies cost Los Angeles welfare $600 million last year


http://www.examiner.com/county-political-buzz-in-san-diego/anchor-babies-cost-los-angeles-welfare-600-million-last-year

[tommyjimjim]

Here are a couple more posts from Paul Ehrlich ,
The population bomb is still ticking 13 December 2009
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20091211105819323
"The "Population Bomb" Echoes ,
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/%E2%80%9C-%E2%80%9Cpopulation-bomb%E2%80%9D-echoes

We the people deserve to have and to hold a Nation of Liberty from this . ,
http://my.brainshark.com/Agenda-21-for-Public-Officials-472185383
More on the Idealogy that we the people are not getting to debate !!!
http://www.earth-policy.org/books/out/out_table_of_contents


It is absolutely baseless to put the American people through this Over population control Experiment like Obama's CZARS want him to do with health care and the ANTI GROWTH economic policies all to create a " DO AS WE DO " Philosophy like Paul Ehrlich is advising Obama to do to we the people because we are already sustainable growth society if we do what the Sierra Club says we should do, http://www.susps.org/ , and this makes sustaining our Liberty a Righteous act and we should Debate these technocrats Publicly in a forum about why we should give up our Liberty because they think they are the smartest thinkers in the room called Earth !!!! Read what Paul Ehrlich's book says on How to control the US Population go to page 2 of this PDF , Paul R. Ehrlich says we in USA have to be forced into the idea of population control for them to then be able to be a good model for the rest of the world " http://***********/74p7nzs
Everything we see going on today is a goal to bring worldwide Population Control into effect now, and It was the Plan in 1971 with the NSSM200 study, http://www.population-security.org/11-CH3.html , ( and Kissinger is still in there advising these Government Bureaucrats today so tell me he's just there for coffee) , and its still the plan today , http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/the-two-for-one-solution/



Its not the USA People thats the Problem so why should we have to sacrifice our Liberty and justice for all , we are Only 300 Million out of 6.7 Billion , and we have plenty of Land so why are we being made to collapse our amber waves of economic prosperity when we are the perfect model for the rest of the world as a self reliant people sustainable under GOD and Indivisible with Liberty and Justice for all ? This is why Big Government is very very dangerous .
I hope this is further evidence in why we the people need Independence in our way of creating and Implementing our heath care Needs in the USA and that this serves as a set of examples to be shown to the Supreme Court as to why US Constitutional rights that are being usurped could pose a threat to Liberty in the USA . And the action is UNJUST based on sustainable population growth in the USA being shown here in this Fertility Chart ,
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html

We need to maintain what this Professor says in this Video .
http://www.youtube.com/user/LearnLiberty?v=WZgVUCGva8w&feature=pyv&ad=8301426729&kw=free%20markets

Please do a story on this for the sake of Liberty and restoring self Reliance in our USA Please because these creeps are systematically bring down our Country and its wrong !!!! Obama's Science CZAR is DE-Developing the USA with our FREE market system and that is because we are not making the WTO enforce the FREE Trade Free Floating Currency rules that China would have to live by as all the Industry has flowed over to their country over the years , India too ,

Obama's Science CZAR wants to DE-Develop the USA , http://www.cnsnews.com/node/75388
Here is the Mechanism they are using ;
The High Cost of the China-WTO Deal: Administration's own analysis suggests spiraling deficits, job losses; By Robert E. Scott; February 1, 2000:
http://ning.it/cNJn9O
And
http://ning.it/bTIt9f
It has also taken Mexico\'s Jobs away over the years too. Europe\'s Jobs too. This is all because of a Simple Currency manipulation that does nothing to promote quality in our products.
Remember what Ross Perot said , we would Hear a Giant Sucking Sound with this Trade Policy , he was right . http://www.thenation.com/article/new-giant-sucking-sound

[tommyjimjim]

Here is how the Green Agenda grows without any true supply-side growth and Job Creation , here is what the TOO BIG TO FAIL are doing to Inject cash to themselves , How BOA can use the 2005 Bankruptcy Law to steal depositors money. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x92402
Is Corzine Hiding the fact of what happened to the MF Global Money with this Loophole ? Is this loop hole in the 2005 Bankruptcy and Consumer protection reform law helping Pelosi and Boehner make a killing off insider trading too like 60 minutes reported ? http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=198650
The Collapse of Communism: The Untold Story about why we might be seeing a failing Free Enterprise system and Liberty in the USA .

http://www.collapseofcommunism.com/wmatrailer.html
UN Pushes Population Control Agenda

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-mainmenu-26/north-america-mainmenu-36/9545-un-pushes-population-control-agenda

"Merkozy" Letter to EU: Now Is the Time to Strip Countries of Sovereignty

http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-mainmenu-26/europe-mainmenu-35/10120-merkozy-letter-to-eu-now-is-the-time
I think Environmentalism is all about Population Control don't you ????

I find it fascinating that President Obama thinks he can convince the voters that he is looking out for them as middle class citizens and that he will pay them all more than these Rich people who he says are not paying their fair share , I mean isn't that what he is saying that the Rich need to pay more to Obama so Obama can in turn give that Money back out to the Middle Class ??? So How is that going to pay down the Deficits ?? Does this mean that Obama is going to be the Biggest Employer of the Middle Class ??? And what becomes of the CZARS that advise Obama about to many people in the USA and the World , do they become the managers of these New Employees that Obama is going to Hire with all the extra Tax Money from the Rich and what will all these New Employees do for Obama and these Population Control CZARS that are advising That Obama needs to look at Population growth as a Threat to USA and World Security ???
SEEMS to ME that having a Whole Bunch of Rich people to work for might be a safer occupation than working for the CZARS of the Presidents when all they really seem to be concerned with is Population Growth don't you think ?

"Seven big problems for 7 billion people . Experts weigh in on predicaments caused by a burgeoning world population , are they experts or just Marxists ?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44990504/ns/us_news-life/

And they wonder why no one trusts the Government .....
http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2011/11/03/the-department-of-health-and-human-services-death-panel/

This is why Big Government is very very dangerous .
Obama Returns to End-of-Life Plan That Caused Stir.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/us/politics/26death.html?_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss
Gates is on the record Speaking of this,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrJBY2l1MQQ
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1346357/World-faces-overpopulation-disaster-number-people-set-rise-75-million-EACH-YEAR.html

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/eye/overpopulation/effect.html
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/621153/cia_predicts_the_future_2015_water_resources/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/621146/cia_predicts_the_future_2015_overpopulation/
Co Author to Obama CZAR John Holdren , Read what Paul Ehrlich says in this , and wonder is Bigger Government the answer to health care ?
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/seven-billion/kunzig-text
Here is his quote " I have understood the population explosion intellectually for a long time. I came to understand it emotionally one stinking hot night in Delhi a couple of years ago... The temperature was well over 100, and the air was a haze of dust and smoke. The streets seemed alive with people. People eating, people washing, people sleeping. People visiting, arguing, and screaming. People thrusting their hands through the taxi window, begging. People defecating and urinating. People clinging to buses. People herding animals. People, people, people, people".?—Paul Ehrlich .

[CheSul]

Steve, Congrats on a very biased interview with our President. Loved the red tie. You kept saying "people are saying" yet did not name anyone. Have you been watching Fox News again or reading only certain newspapers or articles? I'd also like to know how many people participated in your polls and what part of the country they were conducted in. I did not hear you give our President any credit for trying to get things done or for what he HAS accomplished. True patriots would be cheering him on for trying to help the middle class; instead, you interviewed him in a negative and accusatory way. You know Obama did not create this mess - Congress is not helping him to fix it, and it's all at the expense of the average citizen's well-being. I lost a lot of respect for you and for 60 Minutes tonight - The President is not the bad guy here - he has the public's best interest at heart and why the republicans want to destroy that and not vote on anything that would actually help the American people is beyond me.