Steve Kroft Says He “Hated” 60 Minutes and Would Not Do It Again
Quick Reads
- Steve Kroft, who retired from 60 Minutes in 2019 after 30 seasons as its longest-tenured correspondent, says he “hated” the job and would “probably” not do it again.
- Kroft made the remarks in an interview on Bill O’Reilly’s We’ll Do It Live! podcast, published April 4, 2026.
- He described the 60 Minutes newsroom as a “snake pit” of professional jealousy and cutthroat competition.
- Despite his misgivings, Kroft called the work “exhilarating” and credited the show for giving him the space to pursue stories that mattered.
- Kroft also weighed in on the current state of CBS News, saying there is “a lot of fear over there” in the wake of the network’s controversial $16 million settlement with President Trump.
Steve Kroft spent three decades as one of American television journalism’s most recognised faces, racking up Emmys, Peabody Awards and 17 interviews with Barack Obama. But in a candid new conversation, the retired 60 Minutes correspondent said the job he is best known for is also the one he would walk away from if given the choice a second time. He “hated” it, he said plainly, and “probably wouldn’t” do it again.
Kroft sat down with conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly on the We’ll Do It Live! podcast and gave one of his most unfiltered assessments of life inside 60 Minutes since stepping away from the programme in 2019. The picture he painted was not of a storied newsroom humming with camaraderie but of an exhausting, round-the-clock machine where the grind rarely stopped. Beepers going off in the middle of the night, constant flights, three and four days writing scripts, screenings, then starting the whole cycle over , that was the rhythm, and Kroft says it wore on him.
What compounded the pressure was the competitive atmosphere inside the building. When Kroft was first tapped to join 60 Minutes, he expected warmth from colleagues. What he found instead was resentment. Other journalists had wanted the slot, and his arrival created enemies. He described the dynamic plainly: “It’s a snake pit.” Both The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline confirmed Kroft used those words to capture what the internal culture felt like at its worst.
The job he loved, he said, was the one that came before 60 Minutes: a posting as a CBS correspondent in the London bureau. That role gave him the chance to see the world and report from places that excited him. It was, in his words, “the job I always wanted.” Yet the contradiction at the centre of Kroft’s account is hard to miss. Even as he described 60 Minutes as a job he hated, he acknowledged it was also “exhilarating” the stories were significant, the platform was vast, and covering events like the Gulf War and the Chernobyl disaster gave him a kind of adrenaline that was hard to replicate. He even suggested that reporting from genuinely dangerous conditions added to the thrill because surviving them made everything feel more alive.
