Morley Safer Biography

Morley Safer was a television journalist who spent nearly 50 years with CBS News, a co-host of 60 Minutes, one of the longest running and most-watched shows in American television.

Safer was a Canadian who got his start after World War II in the newspaper business, but was on television by 1956. He was hired away from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by CBS in the 1964, while stationed in London. For almost three years, Safer was their correspondent in Saigon, where his reports on the harsh realities of the Vietnam War made him an enemy of President Lyndon Johnson.

Morley Safer joined 60 Minutes in 1970, a calm counterpoint to bulldog co-host Mike Wallace, and during his career won just about every journalism award there is. His memorable moments include a 1967 journey inside communist China (Safer’s Canadian citizenship allowed him entry), a revealing 1975 interview with First Lady Betty Ford, and a profile of a wrongly accused criminal whose life sentence was overturned thanks to Safer’s reporting.

A week before he died, Safer announced his retirement from CBS.