Pinnacle Master Philip Scheffler wins Emmy

Pinnacle Master Philip Scheffler, third from right stands to left of Mike Wallace

Philip Scheffler, Executive Editor of 60 Minutes, has been chief operating officer, with day-to-day responsibility for that broadcast, since 1980. On March 16, 2001, Scheffler marked 50 years with CBS News, 30 of those spent helping shape 60 Minutes into the best and most watched news program in history.

Mr. Scheffler was born in 1930 in New York City. He graduated from the City College of New York in 1950 and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1951. After joining CBS News in 1951, he worked for the CBS Evening News and other regularly scheduled news broadcasts as a writer, reporter, and editor until 1960. From 1960-1963, he was a reporter and associate producer on the award-winning CBS News broadcast Eyewitness, a weekly half-hour series covering each week's top story.

In 1964, Mr. Scheffler became a producer of documentary and special news broadcasts, including CBS Reports, and produced more than 100 such broadcasts. He was named a producer of 60 Minutes when it became a weekly series in 1971. He was responsible for 58 segments, covering such diverse areas as politics and government, medicine, social issues, law, and military affairs, before being appointed the Senior Producer in 1980 (title changed to executive editor in 1996).

CBS news broadcasts that Mr. Scheffler has produced have received numerous awards, including the Peabody, the Emmy, the Ohio State, the University of Missouri, the Columbia-duPont and the award of the National Education Association. In 1981, he received the Alumni Award for distinguished contributions to journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and he is a 1997 recipient of the Townsend Harris Medal given by the City College of New York for outstanding post-graduate achievement. Mr. Scheffler's work has taken him throughout the world, including five assignments in Vietnam. He has reported from all but three of the United States and from more than 50 foreign countries. He is married to Dr. Linda Weingarten Scheffler, a clinical psychologist, author, artist, and retired Hunter College professor.