John Dickerson on storytelling and the 60 Minutes tradition
60 Minutes viewers will hear a new "I'm" on the broadcast this Sunday.
John Dickerson, the former anchor of Face the Nation and CBS This Morning, joins 60 Minutes with a story about Christine Lagarde, the incoming president of the European Central Bank.
For Dickerson, the path to becoming a correspondent on the broadcast came with decades of preparation. Every Sunday as he grew up, Dickerson watched 60 Minutes—and watched as his mother took notes on how the broadcast's veteran correspondents put their stories together.
His mother, Nancy Dickerson, was the first female news correspondent for CBS, a position she attained after working at the company behind the scenes for a decade. She died before she ever saw her son accomplish the same achievement.
"She would be probably be first astonished that I was on TV," Dickerson told 60 Minutes Overtime in the video above, "second, astonished that I was still gainfully employed in some kind of journalistic enterprise, and then I think she would be very proud."
One observation Dickerson took away from all those Sundays listening for the ticking clock was what he calls "the art of the interview." One of his favorite elements in journalism, a quality interview pulls information out of people, Dickerson said.
"I'm just fascinated in why someone thinks the way they think, what they think, how they've come to those ideas, how they would explain that to other people, and then to get them to tell stories themselves," he said. "And then you get to show that to other people. And that's why we get into this business."
The video above was produced by Sarah Shafer Prediger and Brit McCandless Farmer. It was edited by Sarah Shafer Prediger.
