Lowell Bergman, now 80 years old and officially retired, remains highly active. In recent years, following his retirement from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in 2019, his main preoccupation has been the unwillingness of the United States to impose any meaningful regulatory framework on the operations of Big Tech. It is a subject he returned to repeatedly during his 90-minute conversation with Kathimerini.
Bergman is a living legend of American journalism. He began building his career immediately after his student years at the University of California, San Diego, where he studied under the renowned critical theorist Herbert Marcuse. He got his start by founding an alternative newspaper, the San Diego Street Journal, in 1969. “We made a lot of news, because there was no other news organization in the city,” he recalls.
His career
He worked for or collaborated with many of America’s leading news organizations, but he is best known for his tenure at “60 Minutes,” CBS News’ flagship investigative program, which he joined in 1983. In the years that followed, he produced more than 50 reports on subjects ranging from organized crime and international arms dealers to drug-trafficking networks involving the CIA, and much more. In 1993, he secured the first television interviews with the leadership of Hezbollah for an American network.
