We hope you were able to tune into “60 Minutes” on Sunday, January 9, 2022. StoryCorps—a nonprofit dedicated to recording, preserving, and sharing the stories of Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs—was honored to be the subject of a feature on the premier newsmagazine program. But, if you missed it, you’re in luck–we’ve included it below. You can also watch StoryCorps on “60 Minutes” Overtime here.
Watch the full “60 Minutes” segment here.
The segment, hosted by correspondent Norah O’Donnell, profiles the growth of StoryCorps from its inception in 2003, when founder and award-winning journalist Dave Isay established a single recording booth in Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, to today. As of 2021, more than 600,000 Americans have participated in a StoryCorps interview, preserving a piece of personal history in the archive at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and contributing to the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered.
Norah interviews a number of people associated with the organization, including Dave, Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden, and award-winning author and former StoryCorps facilitator Jason Reynolds. “60 Minutes” also visited StoryCorps’ headquarters in Brooklyn, where they filmed Dave leading an advisory meeting and a StoryCorps facilitator training, among other activities.
The feature also spotlights one of StoryCorps’ more recent and ambitious projects, One Small Step. Piloted in 2018, One Small Step brings people with different political views together to record a 50-minute conversation with each other about their lives, not politics and to date, more than 2,000 people in 40 cities have participated.
One Small Step is anchored in four U.S. cities, with an aim to connect people and reinforce the notion that we have much more in common than what divides us. StoryCorps gave “60 Minutes” unprecedented access to One Small Step conversations as they unfolded in Richmond, Virginia this fall and they also caught up with Dave in Charlottesville, Virginia, as he gave a speech at a kick-off event for the organization’s partnership with the UVA Democracy Initiative.
One Small Step is made possible by the generous support of The Hearthland Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Charles Koch Institute.
