''West 57th'' is a

newsmagazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories, in greater depth than do newspapers or n ...

television program that aired on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

from August 13, 1985, through September 9, 1989. ''West 57th'' originally premiered as a summer show, and took its name from the New York City address of the CBS Broadcast Center, 524 West 57th Street. The original correspondents were Jane Wallace,

Bob Sirott Robert "Bob" Sirott (born August 9, 1949) is an American broadcaster. He is the morning host at WGN in Chicago. He is also a former television news anchor, most recently working in that role at Chicago's WFLD. Professional career Sirott began ...

Meredith Vieira Meredith Louise Vieira (born December 30, 1953) is an American broadcast journalist and television personality. She is best known as the original moderator of the daytime talk show '' The View'' (1997–2006), the original host of the syndicated ...

and John Ferrugia. Later contributors included

Steve Kroft Stephen F. Kroft (born August 22, 1945) is an American retired journalist, best known as a long-time correspondent for ''60 Minutes''. Kroft's investigative reporting garnered widespread acclaim, winning him three Peabody Awards and nine Emmy a ...

, Selina Scott, Karen Burnes and

Stephen Schiff {{Infobox person , name = Stephen Schiff , image = , image_size = , alt = , caption = , birth_name = , birth_date = , birth_place = Detroit, Michiga ...

. The program's popularity, a concern for ''

60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique st ...

'' creator

Don Hewitt Donald Shepard Hewitt (December 14, 1922 – August 19, 2009) was an American television news producer and executive, best known for creating the CBS television news magazine ''60 Minutes'' in 1968, which at the time of his death was the longest- ...

, prompted pundit

Andy Rooney Andrew Aitken Rooney (January 14, 1919 – November 4, 2011) was an American radio and television writer who was best known for his weekly broadcast "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney", a part of the CBS News program ''60 Minutes'' from 1978 to 2011 ...

to dedicate one of the closing segments on his program to a parody of ''West 57th'' correspondents. This was widely interpreted by the ''West 57th'' team that Hewitt perceived their show as a threat. After the cancellation, the program was replaced by ''Saturday Night with

Connie Chung Constance Yu-Hwa Chung (born August 20, 1946) is an American journalist. She has been an anchor and reporter for the U.S. television news networks NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC. Some of her more famous interview subjects include Claus von B� ...

'', and then '' 48 Hours''. Vieira and fellow correspondent Steve Kroft transferred to ''60 Minutes'', from which Kroft retired in 2019. Vieira went on to anchor

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

's ''

Today Show ''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It w ...

'' (after appearing on '' The View'' for nine years). Sirott moved to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

to continue a successful career in local TV and

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

. John Ferrugia moved to

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

, where he has been an investigative reporter and is currently anchor and managing editor of ''Insight with John Ferrugia'' at

Rocky Mountain PBS Rocky Mountain PBS is a network of PBS member television stations serving the U.S. state of Colorado. Headquartered in Denver, it is operated by Rocky Mountain Public Media, Inc., a non-profit organization which holds the licenses for most of t ...

Reaction

Despite serious reporting on issues like the

Iran–Contra affair The Iran–Contra affair ( fa, ماجرای ایران-کنترا, es, Caso Irán–Contra), often referred to as the Iran–Contra scandal, the McFarlane affair (in Iran), or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States ...

, the

Space Shuttle Challenger disaster On January 28, 1986, the broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The spacecraft disintegrated above the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39a.m. EST (16:39 UTC). It w ...

, and the dangers of

grey market A grey market or dark market (sometimes confused with the similar term " parallel market") is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels that are not authorized by the original manufacturer or trade mark proprietor. Grey market pr ...

drugs, the program was criticized for its slickness and superficiality. This may have been because ''60 Minutes'' executive producer

campaigned against the program both internally at CBS and through media contacts outside the company. ''

The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...

'' called it "a ditsy, disco-beat docu-mag for viewers with a short attention span". In ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', John Corry wrote that the program "isn't really television, and it certainly isn't journalism; it's video, and it's a mess. Nothing works well except the synthesizer music. It's as if news and entertainment fell into combat and neither side won." By contrast, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'' critic

Tom Shales Thomas William Shales (born November 3, 1944) is an American writer and retired critic of television programming and operations. He was a television critic for ''The Washington Post'' from 1977 to 2010, for which Shales received the Pulitzer Pr ...

wrote of a particular segment, "What's again impressive is the quality of footage obtained, especially unusual on an investigative piece like this. "West 57th" is raising the standards of broadcast journalism as far as video photography and editing are concerned."

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, 88638
John Mellencamp ''West 57th'' interview (1987)
via

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

Crosby Stills Nash ''West 57th'' interview John Ferrugia
via

Steven Stills ''West 57th'' interview John Ferrugia
via

1980s American television news shows 1985 American television series debuts 1989 American television series endings CBS original programming Television series by CBS Studios CBS News