The Company We Keep: Choosing Role Models with Ira Rosen

Be the Sun, Not the Salt

In this episode, Harry, Connie, and their guest Ira Rosen, a 24-time Emmy-winning investigative journalist formerly with 60 Minutes, discuss the importance of positive influences, making conscious choices, and the profound impacts of role models, both good and bad. Ira shares his family's history of survival during World War II, offering a poignant lesson on the choices between good and evil. He also talks about his career challenges, stresses around high-stakes journalism, and how he found joy and fulfillment in the smallest yet significant aspects of life.
About Ira Rosen
For nearly 25 years, Ira Rosen produced some of the most memorable, important and ground-breaking stories for 60 Minutes. A former Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University, Rosen was the senior producer and one of the creators of Prime Time Live at ABC, a show hosted by Diane Sawyer and Sam Donaldson. He was there from the series’ inception in 1989 until 2004, when he returned to 60 Minutes.

Rosen pioneered the use of hidden cameras for Prime Time Live investigations. The stories included exposing racial discrimination, abuses in VA hospitals, mistreatment of farm workers, unsafe and unsanitary food handling practices inside meat packing plants and supermarkets, and political corruption in Washington. His hidden camera stories led to major reforms across countries, corporations and governments.

Rosen has spoken frequently to academic institutions on topics ranging from current events to investigative reporting.

He has won nearly all the major television awards including 24 National Emmys, four Dupont awards, two Peabody awards, six Investigative Reporters and Editors awards (IRE) and two RFK awards. In 2019, in addition to the previously mentioned awards, he garnered two Sigma Delta Chi awards, a Murrow and Hillman awards, for his Opioid reports. He is also the co-author of a book on the accident at Three Mile Island titled, The Warning.
To explore the book, or for more episodes, information, tips and tools to live a more heliotropic life, visit us at bethesunnotthesalt.com and find us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok.

Chapter

1. The Company We Keep: Choosing Role Models with Ira Rosen (00:00:00)

2. Introducing Ira Rosen (00:00:41)

3. 60 Minutes: The Impact of Mike Wallace (00:04:28)

4. Personal Growth and Awareness (00:06:11)

5. Building Authentic Relationships (00:10:45)

6. Handling Conflict with Grace (00:20:41)

7. Passing on Wisdom: Avoiding Negative Reactions (00:24:43)

8. Learning from Tough Mentors (00:25:38)

9. The Importance of Having Fun at Work (00:26:28)

10. Lessons from a Father's Survival (00:30:04)

11. Choices of Good and Evil (00:31:55)

12. The Importance of Role Models (00:39:05)

13. Practical Steps to Being a Better Person (00:40:19)

14. Embracing New Experiences and Lifelong Learning (00:44:04)