While there are more platforms than ever before, broadcast television still has an important “big tent” role. It may be the closest thing left to a town square. While cable news serves specialized audiences (who have often already made up their minds), broadcast news has to talk to an audience with a wide range of backgrounds and opinions. CBS Sunday Morning Executive Producer Rand Morrison and Correspondent Mo Rocca talk about the exciting challenge of keeping a big and varied audience engaged during a time of more and more options.
Speakers: Rand Morrison, Mo Rocca
RAND MORRISON is the executive producer of “CBS Sunday Morning.” He is the winner of 11 Emmy Awards, two George Foster Peabody Awards and two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards. Under Morrison’s leadership, “CBS Sunday Morning” has earned four Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Morning Program. Before joining “CBS Sunday Morning” in 1999, he served as executive producer of CBS News Productions. Prior to that, Morrison served in senior management positions on several CBS News magazines, including senior broadcast producer for “Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel” and “48 Hours,” and senior producer for “Eye to Eye with Connie Chung.” Before joining “48 Hours,” Morrison was a producer for the Weekend Editions of the “CBS Evening News” and served as a broadcast producer for the “CBS Morning News.” He joined CBS News in 1982 as a writer for “Nightwatch,” the overnight news broadcast, after having held a variety of positions at the Associated Press and United Press International.
MO ROCCA is a correspondent for “CBS Sunday Morning,” He is also the host of CBS’s series “The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation.” In January 2019, Rocca debuted the podcast “Mobituaries” — an irreverent but deeply researched appreciation of people and things of the past who have long intrigued him. He is the author of a forthcoming book of the same name to be released in November 2019. Rocca created and hosted the Cooking Channel’s “My Grandmother’s Ravioli,” in which he learned to cook from grandparents across America. He is also a frequent panelist on NPR’s hit weekly quiz show “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” Before joining CBS, Rocca was previously a correspondent for Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” On Broadway, he played Vice Principal Panch in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” Rocca began his career in TV as a writer and producer for the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning PBS children’s series “Wishbone.” Rocca is the author of “All the Presidents’ Pets,” a historical novel about White House pets and their role in presidential decision-making. Rocca is a graduate of Harvard University, where he served as president of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals.