Morley Safer: 5 Unforgettable Moments From Legendary Journalist’s Career (Videos)

“60 Minutes” correspondent spent 46 years on the program, the longest run on primetime television

Morley Safer
CBS

Safer’s famous 1979 segment “It’s a Long Way to Furudu” sent him to the Maldives, where he stumbled upon a story of murder (highly unusual there at the time) and a very unique form of punishment owing to a lack of jails.

“60 Minutes Overtime” feature on Morley Safer was one of the series’ first segments.

In 1979 Safer went behind the scenes of the upcoming “Muppet Movie” and despite his war correspondence, had no idea about the trap Miss Piggy set for him.

This “60 Minutes Overtime” segment detailed the many places Safer traveled during his 46-year career. The veteran journalist traversed the world, often with typewriter in hand, to tell stories about places from Texas to Nauru.

The story of Lenell Geter, who was wrongly convicted of robbing a Kentucky Fried Chicken, took Safer seven months to complete and resulted in the aerospace engineer’s release from prison in 1987.

CBS attempts to honor Safer’s career in only one hour, a nearly impossible feat considering he’s one of the most accomplished journalists in history. A behind-the-scenes look at the special shows how difficult it was for producers to cram everything into one show.

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