Yesterday, 60 Minutes’ Mike Wallace acknowledged that the tick, tick, tick of time waits for no man. At 87, Wallace said that his eyes and ears were not what they used to be, and that he would step down from the newsmagazine after this season, though not necessarily end his news career. Immediately, there were suggestions that, as Tom Shales put it in his Washington Post column, the move was part of a "purge" at CBS to put new faces in front of the camera.
Wallace immediately denied the rumors, vowing that he was not pushed. But at risk of seeming disrespectful as Wallace collects his well-earned tributes, it’s worth asking: if CBS did push him out, would that be such a terrible thing?
In one sense, of course, yes: ageism, besides being illegal, is a knee-jerk and unfounded prejudice, in TV more than anywhere. However you might nitpick Wallace’s career or 60 Minutes’ legacy–see The Insider, for instance–he defined full-frontal TV investigative journalism for decades.
Still, "decades" is the operative term here, and as much as CBS has tried to infuse the show with new faces like Lara Logan, it sometimes seemed frozen in time. It can bring in new staff and new producers–Jeff Fager, for instance, took over for executive producer Don Hewitt–but a show can’t really evolve its tone or its perspective until the old guard who have dominated it give another generation a shot. No one should have forced Wallace out, but assuming he wasn’t, he should be thanked for changing his mind–he once said he’d only leave the show feet-first–and putting 60 Minutes’ legacy over keeping a job he obviously loves. Andy Rooney, are you listening? (Tick, tick, tick…)
Ironically, though, Wallace’s move comes as CBS is publicly trying to woo Katie Couric to take over the Evening News–while the senior-discount-eligible Bob Schieffer has boosted the show’s ratings as interim anchor. Mike Wallace deserves credit for realizing–eventually–that it’s important to give new talent a chance to make its mark. But Bob Schieffer deserves credit too, for reminding us that "new" does not have to mean "young."