Lowell Bergman - Television Career

Television Career

From 1978 until 1983, Bergman was a producer, reporter and then executive in charge of investigative reporting at ABC News. He was one of the original producers of 20/20. In 1983, Bergman joined CBS News as a producer for the weekly newsmagazine 60 Minutes, where over the course of 14 years he produced more than 50 stories, from organized crime, international arms dealing and drug trafficking to the Iran-Iraq and Persian Gulf wars. He also produced the first U.S. television interviews with Lebanon's Hezbollah leadership.

The story of Bergman's investigation of the tobacco industry for 60 Minutes was chronicled in the 1999 feature film The Insider, in which Bergman was played by Al Pacino. The controversial success surrounding The Insider and its allegedly negative characterization of 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace and producer Don Hewitt, led to Bergman's virtual blacklisting from the show, according to Bergman himself.

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