L. Jon Wertheim

The iconic news magazine program returns for its 59th season tonight with a whole new cast as it emerges from a chaotic and controversial offseason.

Only Leslie Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and John Wertheim will return as reporters.

And even they needed convincing from bosses, including Barry Weiss, that the network would let the journalists report their stories.

Viewers will notice a change in graphics and some story presentation differences.

Cecilia Vega, another correspondent, and the former executive producer Tanya Simon.

Still at 60 Minutes, Leslie Stahl, Bill Whitaker, the designated media survivor, John Wertheim?

Yes.

Remember when there were purges both at 60 Minutes and Sports Illustrated and somehow Wertheim survived both?

Without Scott, though, what protects it?

What protects it are, uh, certainly Leslie and, uh, Stahl and Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim know how the show works.

What protects it also are the people that they've hired, the, the new correspondents that they've hired.

They can always stand up and say to management, "You can't do this," whether they...

Why would she be a good fit for that show? I can't even imagine her or really any of these names joining the ranks of Trump.

the three remaining original 60 Minutes journalists, Leslie Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and John Wertheim.

We've also learned that this season, Norah O'Donnell will be returning to take on a bigger role.

And so will Matt Gutman, along with the five other full-time hires that they brought on to 60 Minutes.

We also have some breaking news about what the first episode is set to cover.

because we now know that John Wertheim has a profile on the Los Angeles Rams.

I guess that's because they're expected to be in Super Bowl contention this year.

And this episode, the premiere, is airing right after the first weekend of football being back.

I hope you guys come back, 'cause I'm ready to go.

"Completing that All-American upset won't be easy," says 60 Minutes correspondent Jon Wertheim, who's also a senior writer for Sports Illustrated.

All of this optimism for the Americans comes tempered by the fact that Carlos Alcaraz is looking to be in peak form.

And while the tennis stars have been shining on the court, it's the people in the stands that have been making headlines.

And that means Kalshi's name is plastered all over billboards and signs and media and so on, social media for the US Open.

And John Wertheim, the journalist who's on Andy Roddick's Serve podcast, he was up in arms about this more than anyone.

And Ben Rothenberg wrote an article on it in Bounces, and he hated it too.

and I don't get it like I understand people don't like betting right I work in betting and when people ask me what I do I almost feel like it's the tobacco of the 80s that's what that's what betting and sports book feels like it's like oh Jesus don't judge me I work in betting it's like someone who worked in tobacco in the 80s must have felt because like that was the industry that was up and coming but people kind of knew deep down it was bad for you and that's what I feel a little bit when I'm having to tell people what I do but like people are so naive and uneducated on this stuff as well it's like you know I'm replying to John Wertheim on Twitter and he responded a little bit once he responded and then he didn't respond or get into dialogue anymore with me but he was basically like oh no this is bad this is just like the US Open is meant to be funding the ITIA and how are they going and selling out to the gambling industry but like These people don't understand that the four Grand Slams are selling all of their data for years and years and years to Sport Radar and BetGenius, who provide it directly, funnel it directly to the sports books to power their models, to take the bets.

They're funding the betting industry themselves.

Like, this has been going on for years.

Um- And in April, three political candid- candidates were found to be betting on their own races, and a number of politicians have been given lifetime bans from the platform.

Jon Wertheim, our colleague, uh, called this partnership a moral failure.

He was incredibly punchy about it on Twitter earlier.

Um, he described it as, "A platform predicated on profiting from insider information being welcomed into a sport with a known match fixing problem." Um, and of course beyond that, a problem with players, particularly female players, receiving extensive abuse from people on the wrong end of, of the betting industry.

The Ala mania is too hard to ignore that top U.S.-based sports publications featured Filipino tennis ace Alex Ala ahead of her U.S. Open return.

John Wertheim of Sports Illustrated and Aishwarya Kumar of ESPN both penned long-form pieces, diving into Ala's journey from the Philippines to being world number 18 today.

Ala even graced Sports Illustrated's August 28 digital cover titled, Alexandra Ala is the pride of the Philippines and tennis's next great superstar.

The cover with the headline Pinoy Power featuring Ala hoisting her Washington trophy with a backdrop of Filipino fans prefaced Wertheim's story.

I was writing for Sports Illustrated.

My, probably my closest friend in media and where the wedding, I met my wife is John Wertheim, who's SI writer, 60 minutes guy.

Great, great guy.

And, um, John had gotten a book deal for, he was a tennis writer at SI.