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“We deal with much more serious journalism,” 60 Minutes producer Don Hewitt told the Chicago Tribune in 1996. Don Hewitt, the producer of 60 Minutes, was not a fan of Dateline. I think our definition of what is news is just broader.” 5. … I think our view of news is not just what you would see on the front page, it is what you would see in all parts of the paper.

#Nbc dateline how to#

Two years later, Shapiro told the Los Angeles Times, “We do a whole thing entitled ‘Family Focus,’ where we do things about how to raise kids, how to discipline kids, how to make kids eat. And I think we've done that better than anybody.' Sometimes it's just about what's the hot book, what's the dopey trend in movies, what's the cool special effect that everybody's talking about. It's nice to acknowledge that our lives are more than just big important stories about corruption in Washington. And there'll be some things at the end of the magazine that make you laugh or chuckle or something. You may get some little stories, or you may get one big takeout on an important story. In 1996, he told the Chicago Tribune that Dateline is “exactly like Time and US News and Newsweek.

… But there were some key differences.Įxecutive producer Neal Shapiro noted that there were some differences that made Dateline stand out. The show ended with a report on Michael Jordan’s gambling. The opening segment looked into cases of people dying from being given the wrong medications there was also a profile of two adults with Down syndrome. Initially, Dateline’s format was heavily borrowed from 60 Minutes …Īs Mother Jones wrote of newsmagazines in general in 1993, “The correspondents, the graphics, the music, and the length of segments may differ from program to program, but the formats are remarkably similar, usually slight variations on either 60 Minutes, with its three-story-per-hour structure, or 48 Hours, with its single-theme structure.” The Baltimore Sun said Dateline was “shamelessly imitating CBS’ 60 Minutes in its use of news stories structured along the lines of basic entertainment formulas.” The first episode- called “impressive, if familiar” by the Orlando Sentinel and “formulaic but also solid” by the Chicago Tribune-combined investigative pieces with feel-good stories.

Unlike its other newsmagazines, NBC committed to Dateline for at least one year before an episode had even aired. The network took those two approaches and threw them together, hiring Pauley and Stone Phillips to co-anchor. When creating their new newsmagazine, NBC looked back at two of its failed half-hour shows, which had both lasted just one season apiece: Real Life with Jane Pauley, which focused on human interest stories, and Tom Brokaw’s Exposé, which was all about hard-hitting investigative journalism. Dateline was a combination of two of those failed shows. The 18th time would be the charm: Dateline launched in March 1992. Over the course of 24 years, the network launched: First Tuesday Chronolog First Tuesday (for a second time) NBC Presents a Special Edition Weekend Prime Time Sunday Prime Time Saturday NBC Magazine with David Brinkley NBC Magazine Monitor First Camera Summer Sunday, USA American Almanac 1986 Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Real Life with Jane Pauley and Exposé. CBS had 60 Minutes and 48 Hours, and ABC had Primetime Live, but NBC had trouble creating a successful newsmagazine. Eugene Gologursky/Getty Imagesīy the 1990s, newsmagazines had become all the rage: Viewers tuned in in droves for the real-life stories they told, and networks loved them because they cost half as much to produce as scripted shows (roughly $500,000 versus $1 million an episode). L to R: Chris Hansen, Joshua Mankiewicz, Hoda Kotb, Keith Morrison, and Dennis Murphy celebrate Dateline's 20th anniversary in 2011.