TV Ad Icons, Cynthia Erivo, The New Yorker magazine's 100th Birthday

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Now streaming exclusively on Paramount+. Good morning. I'm Jane Pauley and this is Sunday Morning. Today we celebrate what may be our country's biggest unofficial holiday. It's Super Bowl Sunday, of course.

This evening in New Orleans, the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl 59. But this morning, like many millions of Americans tuning in tonight, we're more focused on the commercials, meeting a few very familiar people you certainly know by face, if not by name. Now this from David Pogue. TV ads get a lot of attention on Super Bowl Sunday. But what's it like to star in TV ads? Being dressed like this, you can't have a bad moment.

You can't be like, no, I'm not in the mood. There are some casting directors that won't touch me with a 10-foot pole because they're like, oh, he's too visible as that guy. On Sunday morning, from the big game to the big screen with Seth Doan, we'll visit with Cynthia Erivo, the Academy Award-nominated star of this year's blockbuster movie, Wicked. This Tony and Grammy Award winner remembers drawing a crowd as a kid singing on the playground. So I thought, oh, I think I can do this. Do you remember that feeling of recognizing the talent? Yeah, it's kind of exhilarating.

Cynthia Erivo is soaring ever higher later this Sunday morning. The New Yorker magazine is marking a serious birthday this year. California helps us page through its storied history. The New Yorker, the weekly magazine known for its reporting and its cartoons, is celebrating its 100th anniversary. I've been a staff writer there for 17 years. When did you start working here at the magazine? 1978. You can tell me what we published in 1979, but you can also tell me who's mad at whom. Yeah, and I can tell you why they're mad at that and why that thing in 1979 didn't work out. Coming up on Sunday morning, the inside story.

Dr. John Lapook introduces us to some grandmothers who've launched a mental health revolution simply by listening. Luke Burbank heads to upstate New York and a distillery turning sap into spirits. Plus humor from Jim Gaffigan, commentary from John Wertheim and more on this Sunday morning for February 9th, 2025.

We'll be back in a moment. For many of us, the must-see TV tonight isn't just the game, it's the commercials. And with some ads going for as much as $8 million for a 30-second spot, there's plenty of pressure to get noticed. And sometimes, David Pogue tells us, a star is born. Hey, Flo.

You know those progressive insurance ads? Good, again? Oh, a big old tree limb comes crashing through the window. Boom! You're covered.

This is what it's like to make one. Steph, lose the wow up front. Ready and action. Maybe a big old tree crashes through her living room. Uh-oh, she's covered. Is it safe to say that doing what you do, having witnessed it, is harder than the average person might think?

I'm going to say yes, because you're catching me at the halfway point of our day, and I'm like, mother needs a, mom needs a stake. Comedian Stephanie Courtney has played Flo the insurance woman in 215 ads so far. She's helped turn progressive into America's second largest car insurance company. You are, by any measure, one of the most successful actors in the world. You've been on television nonstop for 16 years. Oh, yeah. Face recognition by the public, money, like every single way there is, you are at the top.

Thanks. I'm not going to fight you on that, even though in my head I'm like, what? What does it mean when you go out in public?

Do people harass you, want selfies? No, not really. I mean, I'm sort of halfway to Flo right now, but normally I look like a sea hag. So I get a double life.

She's come a long way since 2007. I was broke as a joke. I was auditioning. I was driving around L.A., auditioning for every commercial, every show. Is it too much of a trope to say that you were a struggling actor?

I think that would be a compliment. I would have aspired to be a struggling actor. And then I got the audition for progressive.

That first ad wasn't intended to be funny, but then came the ad lib that changed advertising history. So I remember the first actor, his line after I tell him the whole thing is, wow, you know? And he said, wow.

And 24-7 live support, all at no extra charge. Wow. Wow. I'm like, wow. And then I was kind of shocked at how I screamed in this actor's face and I was like, wow, I say it louder. Wow. No, I say it louder. And so that's the first clue about like, who is she?

How crazy can she get? Viewers loved Flo and the commercial icon was born. The name your prize tool. Oh, gosh, don't mind if I do. Now, you may know Dean Winters from his roles on Oz.

Not only did he say that he put a curse on me, he said he put a curse on you. 30 Rock. Dennis Duffy, beeper king. Who's got a gun?

Or John Wick. But you're most likely to know him from the 150 TV ads he's made for Allstate. I'm a parking gate and I'm all out of whack. He plays Mayhem, the human embodiment of every risky person, place or thing in your life. I'm a raccoon. I'm a bear. I'm a random windstorm. Shaky, shaky.

It's like Mayhem, Mayhem, Mayhem. I can't even ride the subway anymore. Does it bother you at all that you're getting recognized more for an ad campaign? I think in the beginning maybe a little bit, but I wouldn't have the lifestyle that I live if it wasn't for people watching the commercials, watching the TV shows and movies, paying for their insurance. So every time someone stops me, my first thought is, oh, this person is helping me pay my mortgage. The luxury of having a side hustle is not lost on Winters. It's a very fickle business and thing.

You can go six months, eight months without working easily. A lot of my friends are struggling right now, and so I'm very cognizant of how lucky I am. It's become the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Barbie has always shown us that we can turn the impossible into reality with boldness and a little heart. I am a 360-degree entertainer, singer, songwriter, vocal coach.

So playing this game for ten minutes could win you more than a whole day's work. But if anyone knows about the ups and downs of showbiz, it's Diana Colon. If you want to be in the world of entertainment, you have to do it all. She was on America's Got Talent. And she's appeared in ads for Pepsi and Big Lots. But the biggest break she ever got was the Jardience commercial. I never even gave her a name, but the chick from the Jardience commercial? She was dancing with my mailman, and I'm like, hey, how you doing, buddy?

And she's living her best life. The ad aired in March 2023, and aired, and aired, and aired. Apparently they showed it one million times.

People were yelling at me online, I'm so sick of seeing your face, and I'm like, I have no power in how much they air this thing, guys. I don't think the public has any idea what commercials pay. So I'll tell you, with Big Lots, I made over $100,000 in a three-month period. That's pretty good. Pretty good. Plus health insurance.

Plus you get your health insurance, yeah, it's awesome. What wasn't so awesome was the online hate that the Jardience ad brought her. I would get emails to my personal website that were horrible, and I'd just be crying. And it was mostly about my weight and how, you know, oh, if you danced like that all the time, you wouldn't be the size you are.

Would you do anything differently now that you know how toxic and horrific some people can be? No. No. I'm always going to be a plus-size woman. I'm always going to be a curvy woman. And you're going to see me singing and dancing and acting. The joy of it all. Faraways. The haters. Sports.

I've never been number one at anything until I put these babies on. Meanwhile, Dean Winters will be mayhem for as long as Allstate will have him. You know, I really hope that I'm doing it until mayhem is wheelchair racing in a nursing home. You know what I mean? And I'm feeling every single creepy finger on this old man's head. As for Stephanie Courtney, she's given up her youthful dreams of appearing on Broadway and on Saturday Night Live.

But she still performs every week with the Groundlings improv group in L.A. And she still loves being Flo. One, two, three. I will tell you the thing that made my heart grow three sizes that day was the Halloween costumes. Seeing especially, like, little kids. That, I love it so much. I just, I'm like, just keep reapplying powder.

Reapply your lipstick. Go, go forth. Be free.

Go spread the word. Let's head into the woods with Luke Burbank. And there begins the old ritual of the New England spring. It's maple sugaring time again. Most of us are familiar with the Northeastern tradition of taking maple sap and turning it into syrup.

A process once documented right here on CBS by our own Charles Kuralt. Smells good. This annual harvest is all about making the most out of it. For being a gift from the trees.

It takes 40 gallons of sap to get just one gallon's worth of maple syrup. It's really wonderful. Good. But that was then. And this is now. At Steve Finan's 12 Mile Creek Maple Farm in Naples, New York.

In New York's Finger Lakes region. We verified that it's nice and clear. And now we're putting it in barrels.

The machinery is modern. And the final product? Cheers. Cheers.

Probably not what you were expecting. Ah, that's so good. It's 40% alcohol. This used to be sap in a tree. This was sap in a tree.

That's right. This is not your granddad's maple syrup. This is Karl Neubauer's tree spirits that he makes at Hollerhorn Distilling, not far from the maple farm.

There have been times that are like pure magic where everything aligns. And they're into a beautiful long run of some amazing high quality syrup that tastes phenomenal. Neubauer combines locally produced maple syrup with water and yeast, then distills that fermented mixture, transforming the golden nectar back into a clear liquor.

And that's the spirit that we're pulling off. The color comes from the barrel aging process. The labels are drawn and designed by his wife, Melissa. It's maple syrup, yeast, and water. Oh, it's very, very smooth. It's really different than anything I've ever tasted. Now, before you at home start adding water and yeast to your maple syrup in your kitchen, just know... It's a labor and energy intensive process, for sure. Is it a more expensive source material than, say, rye? Probably 10 times the cost.

You know, I feel like we need to have a few of those things that maybe don't make financial sense, but they make, you know, fun sense. Now, if we were to measure life like a tree, you would see some burn marks on the rings of Hollerhorn. This survived the fire. Oh my god. Tragedy struck a few years ago when an electrical fire from the kitchen consumed everything Carl and his family had built by hand. Was there a period of time where you were really not sure if you were going to keep trying to do this?

A hundred percent. We lost a lot of family heirlooms, very personal things that we had here. It was too traumatic to be down here and look at just a pile of ash. News of the fire spread throughout the town of Naples and the Finger Lakes region. The community rallied behind us, and I think that is the thing that pulled us out of sort of our own self-misery. Customers immediately swung into action to raise money for and rebuild the treasured local gathering place. It's been an honor to be able to make things that people appreciate. I get choked up because it's just more than a distillery, you know. It's a community space, and I think we need that. In a fitting twist, what did survive the fire has now been marked by a phoenix, a symbol of rebirth for this tight-knit community.

Who knows? If this tree spirits thing takes off, there may be a new maple harvest ritual to look forward to each year. Just probably not one you want to put on your pancakes. My favorite distilleries are ones that represent that place. You taste the magic of that place, and that's what we're trying to do.

And oh so comfy, making it ideal for all-day wear. Get 20% off your first order, plus free shipping, at MeUndies.com slash Spotify, with code Spotify. That's MeUndies.com slash Spotify, code Spotify. Prepare to be entertained. Gladiator 2 is now streaming on Paramount+. Do you hear that crowd? It's ferociously entertaining.

I'm just here for the games. And an absolute triumph. Take your father's strength. His name is Maximus. Paul Meskell, Pedro Pascal, with Connie Nielsen and Denzel Washington. Strength and honor.

Strength and honor. Gladiator 2, directed by Ridley Scott, now streaming on Paramount+. Rated R. Some of us can't wait for tonight's matchup between Kansas City and Philadelphia.

But for our Jim Gaffigan, let's just say it's complicated. Well, it's finally here. Today is Super Bowl Sunday. This year, it's Super Bowl licks.

Which seems slightly inappropriate, but I guess that's just marketing. I'm excited to watch the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles. But I must admit, I'm also a little bit sad. You may wonder, Jim, are you sad because your team didn't make it? No, it's not that. Is it because the Lions and the Bills couldn't complete their storybook seasons?

It's not that either. I'm just not looking forward to next Sunday. The Sunday after Super Bowl Sunday.

I guess you could say I view the Super Bowl as half empty. Next Sunday is going to be brutal. Those first couple Sundays after the NFL season are rough. I'm always a little lost. Suddenly the day has like eight extra hours.

I don't know what to do with all the time. NFL games are the background of my Sundays. The games are always on. The sound of crowds cheering, whistles blowing, and men grunting is comforting to me. If I want to hear the voices of Jim Nantz or Tony Romo, I'll have to watch golf or those horrible shoe commercials.

I just step in and go without touching my shoes. Those first couple non-NFL Sundays feel less like Sundays and more like Monday Eves. Sundays just become the day before I have to wake up early to get my kids up to go to school. I mean, I'll watch this show Sunday morning.

I mean, if I'm on. But after that, what am I supposed to do? What do non-NFL fans even do on Sunday? Maybe it's an opportunity. I could go to church, but that would involve going outside and being around people. I could spend quality time with my children. Nah, they wouldn't want that either.

I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm sure I'll get through it. Maybe. Calle Verzane this morning has the inside scoop on a milestone at one of America's most prestigious magazines. What we have here basically is the whole history of the New Yorker. The New Yorker, the beloved weekly magazine, is celebrating its 100th birthday.

It's a million cards. I've been a staff writer at the magazine since 2008, and Bruce Dione's has been at the New Yorker since, well, not quite since the beginning. When did you start working here at the magazine?

1978. You must have been, what, three or four years old? I was in the cradle. They left me on the doorstep. What is your official title here?

I don't really have one. Aidan Abet, all the crimes that happen here. He's that guy that's always around. An expert on both the people and the magazine. That's right. You can tell me what we published in 1979, but you can also tell me who's mad at whom. Yeah, and I can tell you why they're mad at that and why that thing in 1979 didn't work out.

Exactly right. The New Yorker is known for its reporting and for its idiosyncrasies. Each issue also includes cartoons, a short story, and a few poems. The front cover features not a photograph, but a painting. Do you actually know what's in all these different boxes and folders? Now I do.

It takes a second. One of Bruce's many responsibilities is to organize the magazine's archive. We have every magazine, every issue since the first one. We have scrapbooks, papers, and all sorts of weird little ephemera from people's offices.

Kind of fun, interesting stuff. These are all the artists. The New Yorker may be America's leading literary magazine, but its story starts with an artist, Ray Irvin. So all the artwork in The New Yorker is based on his work. And this is his first ever cover, 15 cents back in February 1925.

That's right. He did the headers, talk of the town, going on, he did all of that. He sort of figured all of that out for us. Including this, a fancy young man in a top hat inspecting a butterfly. His name is Eustace Tilley, and he became the magazine's mascot, for better or worse. At long last, I'm going to tell you that I'm ambivalent about Eustace Tilley. Ambivalent about Eustace Tilley? Yeah, because some people look at it and they think it's a symbol of snobbery or an overweening pride.

When it began, it was meant to be a joke about snobbery. David Remnick was a 39-year-old reporter when, in 1998, he was named the fifth editor of The New Yorker. I would consider you smart and ruggedly handsome even if you weren't my boss.

I know you wouldn't. But you are my boss, and you've been editor of The New Yorker for some time. 26 years, and we're going to have a whole bunch of them now. David's job is to keep the writers happy and, as he sometimes reminds me, productive. His job is also to figure out how and how much to modernize a 100-year-old magazine that once specialized in light-hearted articles about Manhattan society. The founding editor was Harold Ross. This is from the first issue of The New Yorker, February 21, 1925. It is not edited for the old lady in Dubuque. What did he have against Iowa?

I don't know. To him, Dubuque included Queens, Los Angeles. The magazine's reach now extends far past Manhattan.

We have more readers in the state of California than we do in the state of New York, including for the old lady in Dubuque. It's a magazine that has deep, deep reporting and prides itself on accuracy and fact-checking. What is a fact-checker?

Somebody who takes a story submitted by someone like you and, before we publish it, make sure that it is accurate, balanced, fair, and as complete as it can be. Fair? That seems like a hard thing to figure out. I know that's hard for you. It's not hard for us. It's hard for everyone, isn't it?

It's hard for everyone. Fergus McIntosh leads the magazine's battalion of fact-checkers. More than two dozen. I spoke with a handful of them.

And everything gets checked, right? Not just articles, but poems, short stories, cartoons. Teresa Matthews is the department's associate director. She once had to fact-check a cartoon about a penguin meeting his girlfriend's parents. He says, we prefer the term Arctic American. And this is factually incorrect because penguins live in the Antarctic. But Antarctic American wouldn't have been as funny. Not pithy enough. Not pithy enough. All of my emails to the wonderful cartoon editor about any potential issues I find, almost always I get a response of, thank you so much, Teresa.

We will not be taking that change. Somewhere along the way, The New Yorker became a serious magazine, publishing writers ranging from J.D. Salinger to James Baldwin, from the film critic Pauline Kael to the investigative journalist Ronan Farrow. The relationship between writers and editors is a complicated one. The New York Public Library will celebrate the magazine's anniversary with an exhibition later this month. So what is The New Yorker in 2025? It is not just one thing. What's Illustrated was about one thing.

And it's easy to understand for advertisers and readers. It's a more complicated thing. It may be a little bit tricky to invite people in. Is The New Yorker itself more political than it used to be? I think it's certainly more political than when it started out. That's for damn sure. Would it be wrong to describe The New Yorker as a liberal magazine?

No, I don't think it would be wrong. I think there's a wide range. I don't think it's an assertively ideological publication. I think reporting is at its center more than finger-wagging. These are anxious times for the media industry and The New Yorker is not immune. The magazine had a round of layoffs in 2023. But The New Yorker has a steady base of about 1.2 million subscribers, many of whom read it on their phones. How do we write shorter, faster things as well as do the other things?

So it's an addition to, it's not an instead of. We have a pretty robust audio operation, four or five podcasts. We do video. But I'm thinking forward. I'm thinking about how do we have a New Yorker that has the possibility of celebrating 200 years because in American life, in the history of the media, that's unusual. Just ask the people who used to read Life magazine.

For Bruce Dione's, The New Yorker's 100th birthday is a good excuse to revisit ancient history. There was a guy named Fred Keefe when I came here in 78 and he was a little guy like me with a bow tie and he would sit in the corner and type out letters to the editor answers. Thank you for your letter. We're afraid there isn't much to see in our offices. The editors and writers are all shut away in little cubicles and are very upset if people pop in on them. In fact, those old editors and writers and artists and cartoonists are still here in spirit and also in these boxes. The party's been going for 100 years and new people are still being invited to join in.

Maybe in another 100 years someone will come and flip through whatever the newest version of that archives is. That's right. And I'm in it now. You're in it now. You're in it too. So it's like that's kind of the thrill of it is that you realize that, oh, this has always been going on. And it's all connected. We're all part of it. Yeah.

Screaming on Paramount+. Everyone who comes into this clinic is a mystery. We don't know what we're looking for. Their bodies are the scene of the crime.

Their symptoms and history are clues. You saved your life. We're doctors and we're detectives.

I kind of love it if I'm being honest. Solve the puzzle, save the patient. Morris Chestnut is Watson. Now streaming on Paramount+.

New episodes return Sunday, February 16th on CBS. Our look ahead to the Academy Awards continues this weekend. With Cynthia Erivo, the Wicked star who hopes to add an Oscar to her already impressive resume. Seth Doan caught up with a multi-talented actor in her hometown of London.

Stand up, take my people with me. Together we are going to a brand new home. Before gracing such grand venues as the Academy Awards, Cynthia Erivo could be found here. It's been such a long time. At the Stratford East Theatre, not far from where she grew up. The auditorium felt huge and now it feels really intimate. Where she'd fill any role she could. Whether it was me working the bar or being an usher, when I got to be in a play here I was so happy. That was a big deal for me. The talent that made her a big deal is undeniable.

A dynamic vocalist who convincingly took on the role of Aretha Franklin. Oh but how can I, how can I, how can I give you all the things I have more. If you're tying both of my hands. Is it possible to really recognize how special that is? What I think is most special is what I get back from people, the connections that get made. That's the thing I'm always looking for. She connected with Broadway audiences in The Color Purple.

Earning a Grammy, an Emmy, and a Tony award. Hi mommy look. No one should be scorned. Or laughed at.

Or looked down upon. And now she's starring in the film Wicked, which has ten Oscar nominations, including Best Actress for Erivo. Come with me.

What? To meet the wizard. Opposite Ariana Grande, Erivo plays Elphaba in this prequel to The Wizard of Oz.

Don't dream too far. Don't lose sight of who you are. Elphaba battles being an outcast and discovers her inner strength. It's time to try defying gravity.

Before I saw the film, I saw all of the people online doing takeoffs of your defying gravity. It's really fun that people have sort of taken it and made it their own, and I'm glad that that moment brings so much joy to people. What do you think you brought to Elphaba? The vulnerability, her humanity. What's that vulnerability for you personally as Cynthia? I think always wanting to do well and not wanting to fail.

Not wanting to let family down. Those are little insecurities. Finally owning how I look. What do you mean by that? Well, I think we're not necessarily told that dark-skinned black girls are the prettiest girls, and the only person that really is telling you, thankfully, is your mother.

It's up to you to figure out that for yourself and to start owning what beauty is to you. You're really close with your mom. You're not with your dad.

No. As you've gone on to have more and more success and visibility, how much do you think about your dad? I don't necessarily think about him too much.

Only that I wish him well. When I was a teenager, I was angry at what that relationship was. That sort of fractured relationship I have with him, I think, originally was one of the driving causes of, you know, you want to do well because you want to prove that you're good enough to be loved.

But then you have to start learning how to do it for you. What happened with your dad? We had a falling out that just never repaired, yeah.

And he just left early, early on. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting that you trace some of your desire to find success to a desire to... Be loved. The 38-year-old lives in Los Angeles, but grew up in London. London really is kind of what made me, you know. Erivo's parents were immigrants from Nigeria. Don't touch them.

Do not touch them because they are hot as hell. She'd come to this market with her mom, whose drive for a better life was formative. My mom made a decision because she wanted more for herself. To do that is a really brave thing, and I think that watching her do that made me do the same.

You sort of are given the tools to be determined enough to go after your dreams, yeah. Her roles show range. How lucky are you feeling tonight?

Definitely not eat that sandwich lucky. And her portrayal of abolitionist Harriet Tubman in the 2019 film... I'm gonna be free or die. ...led to her first Academy Award nominations for Best Actress and Best Original Song... Far across the river, can you hear freedom calling? ...and secured her a place on the red carpet, where she speaks through another sort of language, fashion.

I think they're the words without the words. What do you feel like you say with how you dress? I think I tell people I'm a bit of a daredevil, that I'm a kind rebel. Incredibly, she dared to sing live on set, while flying in a harness. So if you care to find me, look to the western sky.

Has someone told me everyone deserves a chance? How does singing live in a film like that change the final product? Well, you can play. It means that you can act on impulse. So that what once was, something has changed within me, something is not the same, becomes something has changed within me, something is not the same. You have more breath, more space. Something has changed within me, something is not the same. It lets the performance change, and presumably it lets more of you out. Lately, Erivo is letting more of herself out, releasing an album later this year.

Then there's part two of Wicked. I feel really open. I've felt more myself than ever in this sort of last couple of years. It makes things a lot more fun, you know? And maybe gives another meaning or undertone or something to this defying gravity.

It's kind of using the things that you thought would hold you back to us all. I pray Spencer can get here. This fight ain't over.

Anything worth having is worth fighting for. Let the bodies hit them. The Phenomenon is back.

The new season of Yellowjackets streaming February 14th on Paramount Plus with Showtime. Think about how screwed up we would be if we had survived a plane crash, only to end up eating each other. This place will follow us for the rest of our lives. The only way to truly be safe is to be the only one left. This season, the past will come back to hunt you. You really are insane.

Yellowjackets new season streaming February 14th on the Paramount Plus with Showtime plan. Our Dr. John LaPook has the tale of a helping hand and the wisdom that comes with age. It started, yeah, it was a rather painful story.

I see it on your face. Dr. Dixon Chibanda remembers like yesterday, the moment in 2005 that changed his life. During my formative years working as a psychiatrist, I lost a patient of mine to suicide. Erica was her name. She had hanged herself from a mango tree in the family garden.

Erica was just 25 years old. Dr. Chibanda, a psychiatrist based in Harare, Zimbabwe, says her family knew she needed help. They lived some 200 miles away from where I worked, and they just didn't have the equivalent of 15 U.S. dollars to get onto a bus to come to the hospital.

At the time, there were only 10 psychiatrists serving 13 million people in Zimbabwe. So you came up with this idea? Came up with the idea of grandmas. These grandmas were actually, you know, the custodians of the local culture and the wisdom, and they were rooted in their communities. And I was like, what if we could train them to be the first port of call for anyone needing to talk in a community? So in 2006, Dr. Chibanda introduced the Friendship Bench, a talk therapy program that brings mental health care directly into underserved communities. The program is free, and the grandmothers were happy to donate their time.

He chronicles this journey in a new book. When I first started this, in fact, we called it the Mental Health Bench. Did anybody come? Interestingly, nobody came to the Mental Health Bench, John, you know. Because of the stigma? Because of the stigma, until the grandmas said, you know, why don't you turn it into a Friendship Bench?

Genius. During that first year, 14 volunteer grandmothers shared a Friendship Bench with several hundred visitors in that one suburb. Dr. Chibanda says the program has since expanded beyond grandmothers to include over 3,000 older listeners who last year saw more than 300,000 people all over Zimbabwe. There are a lot of people out there who are struggling to just connect with another human being. And this gives them that opportunity, you know, to be able to sit down with someone who is empathic. Globally, just under 300 million people are struggling with depression. Only about a third of them receive any treatment. And at a time when we're facing an epidemic of loneliness and isolation, the Friendship Bench is hitting the road, expanding to vulnerable communities in nine countries and counting, including the United States.

At the Washington Seniors Wellness Center in our nation's capital, the program is being piloted by the nonprofit organization HelpAge USA, which focuses on the inclusion of older people. 74-year-old Arnett Ibitayo says she was struggling with the deaths of her son and brother. My son was sudden.

He had a heart attack at 44. And then my brother had COVID. She turned to the Friendship Bench. So I was, you know, feeling down, depressed, you know, going through.

Sure. I think I need to talk to somebody because I felt like isolating and staying home. And it was very comforting to get it out. And I wasn't judged, and I was able to speak freely. And the person gave me some helpful advice. And that person was Theresa. Theresa.

Theresa Kelly, a retired schoolteacher, listened to Ibitayo's story. We don't solve problems for them. Sometimes you don't realize that you can be your own problem solver.

And when they finish, we want them to leave empowered. A screening process refers more serious cases to professionals. For almost 20 years now, Dr. Chibanda has been using his medical training to help analyze and improve the program.

The Friendship Bench is actually rooted in a lot of research. These grandmas were a lot more effective than trained mental health professionals at alleviating symptoms of both depression and generalized anxiety disorders. Do you feel better now, having had this one session with Theresa? I felt better. I was more at ease. It worked. It was working. You feel a little less depressed now? Yeah, yeah. There's hope.

There's hope. That things are going to be better. So what's the special sauce when it comes to grandparents?

The natural abilities that come with having a long-lived life on the planet. They've seen a lot. They've experienced a lot. They have the battle scars of life, which they bring to the bench. All we're doing as Friendship Bench is helping them to use those stories, those experiences to help others.

And the bench is giving them something back. What do you get out of it? I love helping people, empowering people. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel that there's still another purpose.

That after retirement, there's still something that I can do that can help others. That it's not over. It was only a year ago that Sports Illustrated appeared to be down to the last strike in the bottom of the ninth.

Our 60 Minutes colleague, John Wertheim, a senior writer at the magazine, picks up the story from there. The great comeback makes for one of the oldest sports tropes. It's the Patriots against the Falcons in Super Bowl 51. The Red Sox against the Yankees.

The Heat against the Spurs. And every damn sports movie ever made. The scoreboard makes for a grim canvas. Time is winding down. All looks lost, but one team refuses to concede. Cue the Randy Newman soundtrack. There we go.

Thanks. Belief starts to form. A few bounces go the right way. A few heroes meet the moment. Anyone and everyone in sports media has covered the comeback.

But at Sports Illustrated, we got to live it. It's January 2024, and a new operator decides to try and gut this 70-year-old institution. He announces plans to fire us all. Pretty bleak. Morale hits a low watermark.

There are assorted obituaries. Some staffers would even leave their pride on the sidelines and go on television pleading for a miracle. SI still means something. In the present, and hopefully the future. And then there's a financial curveball for a strike, too complicated to spell out here, but the good guys prevail.

The ballclub comes together, putting the collective over the individual. A few breaks and a few news breaks go our way. And suddenly Sports Illustrated is back from the brink. We're publishing print issues in 2025. We will be expanding video production. Welcome everyone to SI Media with Jimmy Trainor.

And launching podcasts, and staging events, and sponsoring stadiums? If the comeback is a pillar of sports coverage, here's another. Don't be the story. You're there to chronicle the news, not be the news. But in this case, the comeback of Sports Illustrated might be a story worth telling. A rare blast of good news in today's media landscape. And having lived through it, in a weird way maybe we are now better equipped in our sports coverage. Lessons learned? Leadership matters. All those clichés about teamwork and belief and optimism?

They have some truth and merit. McMahon all the way back in his own 46. And sometimes Hail Mary heaves downfield are complete. Who has the ball? Touchdown! Print media may be gasping for breath. Sports Illustrated is now happily not. Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning.