• PBS host Tavis Smiley celebrates his 2,000th show tomorrow. Smiley’s diverse guest list, from musicians to presidents, authors, actors, and activists, will be highlighted in a clip reel. Smiley’s show premiered on PBS in 2004.

• This Memorial Day Weekend CBS’s Steve Kroft, a Vietnam veteran, will host “Combat Stress: Finding the Way Home” on CBS Radio News. The one hour show explores the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder on our nation’s veterans.
• Ann Curry anchored her first newscast for NBC News in 11 months. The former “Today” co-host was filling in for Brian Williams this evening on “Nightly News.” She posted this image (above) to Instagram about 15 minutes before the show.

Today’s pre-Super Bowl interview by Scott Pelley made more news in less time than last week’s interview by Steve Kroft on “60 Minutes.”

Pelley’s 8-minute interview included questions about football safety, tax rates, women in combat, gays in the Boy Scouts and the economy. Pelley’s interview made some news — though not surprising — when Pelley asked “Should scouting be open to gays?”

“Yes,” said the president. “My attitude is that gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does, in every institution and walk of life.”

Obama also said he would have reservations if he had a son who wanted to play football given the risk factors involved. He also said there’s no plan to raise taxes again, but that nothing can be ruled out as deficit reduction talks continue.

Last Sunday’s two-part “60 Minutes” interview with Pres. Obama and outgoing Secy of State Hillary Clinton was criticized for its lack of pressing questions. Kroft told the AP, “I would have liked very much to delve into some areas of foreign policy and what is going on in the world, but it was not anything we could take on in 30 minutes.”

Watch, after the jump…

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The Atlantic says Steve Kroft‘s “softball” interview with President Obama and Secy. of State Clinton “ought to earn him a rebuke from his peers in the news business but almost certainly won’t.” The Baltimore Sun thinks CBS and Kroft were “happily allowing themselves to be used,” by the president. While Bill O’Reilly called the interview “disappointing. “I respect Steve Kroft, I don’t know why he didn’t ask hard questions,” O’Reilly said leading off his show Monday night.

Kroft tells the AP’s David Bauder, “I would have liked very much to delve into some areas of foreign policy and what is going on in the world, but it was not anything we could take on in 30 minutes.” And about the criticism, he says, “This is something that has not been on my radar screen.”

Still, 11.65 million people watched the two-part interview making Sunday’s “60 Minutes” the No. 7 show of the week.

President Obama has granted a pair of interviews to media outlets to kick off his second term. The first, as we noted, was to CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes,” alongside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The second was to liberal magazine The New Republic, where he was interviewed by Franklin Foer and a former campaign staffer-turned New Republic owner Chris Hughes.

In the interview with the magazine, the President set his sights on the media, specifically Fox News:

One of the biggest factors is going to be how the media shapes debates. If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest, then you’ll see more of them doing it.

During the “60 Minutes interview, after Steve Kroft asked about Secretary Clinton in 2016, Obama responded thusly:

You know, Steve, I gotta tell you, you guys in the press are incorrigible. I was literally inaugurated four days ago. And you’re talking about elections four years from now.

WATCH:
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President is beginning his second term, and Secretary of State Clinton is preparing to leave her role to make way for John Kerry. To mark the moment, the pair are sitting down for their first joint interview, with CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes.”

The program says it is the first time that the President has given an joint interview to a TV news outlet that was not with Michelle Obama.

Steve Kroft is interviewing Obama and Clinton today at the White House, and the end result will air this Sunday on the newsmagazine.

A last second Steelers win over the Ravens helped propel “60 Minutes” into the Top 10 last week. 16.15 million viewers made “60″ the 6th most-watched program of the week. Sunday’s show featured Steve Kroft’s investigation of for-profit hospital chain HMA, Bob Simon’s report on two adventurers who hope to fly their solar-powered plane around the world and, while he was Live on CNN hosting the annual “CNN Heroes” special, Anderson Cooper interviewed a North Korean defector for the CBS newsmagazine.

CBS News “60 Minutes” executive editor Bill Owens will be adding to his duties as the co-EP of “60 Minutes Sports,” which will debut on pay-cabler Showtime in January. Owens gets profiled by B&C’s Tim Baysinger (subscription required), and reveals a bit more about the program, which will combine updated archival stories, new stories, and in-studio interviews.

“Everybody on the floor is going to contribute stories,” he says, noting that Steve Kroft, Scott Pelley, Byron Pitts, Lara Logan and James Brown will all participate. CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian will also be a full-time correspondent. And Owens says they have talked about bringing in sports talent from outside the CBS/Showtime corporate family: “We may well end up with a familiar face from one of the other broadcasts.”

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Sunday’s “60 Minutes” had its largest audience since January, drawing 16.3 million viewers to finish at # 3 for the week. The show, with the New York Giants – Pittsburgh Steelers lead-in finished at #3 in households with a 10.2/15 in that measurement. It was the program’s best delivery in viewers and households since January 8, 2012.

Sunday’s broadcast featured Steve Kroft’s report on the partisan gridlock in the U.S. Senate, part I of Morley Safer’s interview with historian/author David McCullough (part II is next Sunday) and Scott Pelley’s profile of Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

Who had the harder interview tonight on “60 Minutes?” Scott Pelley during his profile of NFL MVP Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers — we learned he’s quite sensitive about his height, and doesn’t want to talk much about the bounty scandal — or Steve Kroft who sat down with Senate leaders Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY)? If you ask Kroft, he did. Exasperating is one way to put it. Here’s Kroft talking about it in “60 Minutes Overtime.”

The overtime New York Jets – New England Patriots game Sunday afternoon which drew 23 million viewers in its final hour helped propel “60 Minutes” to the #2 show of the week.

The broadcast drew 15.86 million viewers, the CBS News magazine’s highest weekly ranking since December 18, 2011.

Sunday’s broadcast featured Steve Kroft’s report on the medical marijuana boom in Colorado, Anderson Cooper’s interview with the former Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith and an interview with Steven Spielberg by Lesley Stahl.