Anyone who hears me talk TV news knows that I think 60 Minutes is the pinnacle of the profession. While I found the show “boring” during Sunday dinner as a small child, I eventually realized what a treasure the long-running TV news magazine has been.
From a journalism perspective, 60 Minutes’ work inspires me and has even personally changed my life. (More on that another time.)
In 2017, I have discovered something extremely concerning about 60 Minutes: Its website no longer displays video effectively, at least for me and a half-dozen other people I have asked.
This is particularly unfortunate for Oklahomans this morning, hours after the show aired its story Shots Fired about Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby’s lethal shooting of Terrance Crutcher in September.
I, among other people, have wanted to watch the piece, and we would have gladly endured three minutes of Viagra ads to do so, if only the video player would load.
Unfortunately, the video player won’t load for me, just as it had failed to do the past two weeks as well.
It’s another reminder that interneting is hard.
Mac? PC? iPad? Doesn’t seem to matter
For full disclosure, one fellow journalist was able to get the Shots Fired video to load this morning on his PC using Google Chrome, though slow streaming speeds made watching the piece impractical as loaded.
But NonDoc managing editor Josh McBee has not been able to get it to load using his PC and Chrome browser. Meanwhile, I’m on a Mac, and I can’t see it. Two other friends are on PCs, and they can’t see it. The above-mentioned fellow journalist also tried to load it on his iPad, but all that showed up was a giant Pfizer logo that never gave way to the news story.
Before authoring this piece, I took to the CBS News website to try to find contact information for someone who could help troubleshoot and/or provide an explanation. After all, perhaps video was now blockaded behind their paywalled “All Access” platform?
Alas, no contact information exists. I could only find a form by which to “submit site feedback” and a disclaimer noting that no one will reply if I do.
That means a great deal of concerned citizens and I are unable to watch the best TV journalism in the land this morning, and it leaves me sad.
It also leaves me with only one option to rectify an unfortunate situation: Twitter, a place where we can tag @60Minutes until someone helps satisfy my desire to watch erectile dysfunction ads and quality journalism.
