Inside 60 Minutes - A Conversation with Andy Court

INSIDE 60 MINUTES

After more than four decades on the air, 60 Minutes is still the most dominant news show in TV history, finding its way into Nielsen's list of top-10 primetime TV shows on a regular basis.

Just last week, in fact, about 18.5 million people watched the show -- putting it in the #2 spot in the country. Not bad for news.

The key to 60 Minutes' success is thorough reporting and strong storytelling, and the people who make that happen are the show's producers and associate producers -- a small army of off-camera journalists who track down leads, research stories, direct shoots, write scripts, and work closely with the correspondents to create another memorable Sunday night story.

Andy Court has been one of those producers since 2004. His work has taken him around the world, and he's won some of the top awards in the field, including a Peabody, a duPont , a Loeb, and two Emmys. Andy's assignments for 60 Minutes have ranged from a report on Iraqis stealing half a billion dollars from their own military, to a profile of a professional video gamer.

One of Court's most recent assignments took him to Cuba, to tell the story of a pristine coral reef off the island nation's coast. As you'll see in this piece, "Inside 60 Minutes," we found Andy at his desk scripting the story, and working with editor Terry Manning screening footage.

Andy, correspondent Anderson Cooper, and co-producer Anya Bourg took dozens of hours of footage and interviews and wove them into a 12 minute story for 60 Minutes. Court allowed us to tag along for part of his day to see the storytelling process that has made 60 Minutes a perennial success.

60 Minutes coral reef story, "The Gardens of the Queen"-- http://bit.ly/tLKd2w

60 Minutes Overtime story, "Swimming with Sharks" -- http://bit.ly/urBXqB

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