TV Talk: ‘48 Hours’ executive traces love of news to growing up in Pittsburgh’s West End
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Pittsburgh native Judy Tygard, executive producer of CBS News’ “48 Hours” (10 p.m. Saturday, KDKA-TV), can trace the inspiration for her career back to middle school and reading about pioneering journalist and Western Pennsylvania native Nellie Bly, who once committed herself to an insane asylum so she could report on conditions there.
“For some reason, I was totally taken by this story,” said Tygard by phone. “And I had amazing English teachers at Langley High School – Carol Dyas and Marlene Coyne — who nurtured that.”
Since April 2019 Tygard has been executive producer of CBS’s long-running true crime series, but she’s been with the show in various capacities off and on since 1989, when she joined the broadcast as a producer.
Her move to the network followed a stint in local news at New York’s WNEW-TV after graduating from Emerson College (the 1976 Langley grad credits Coyne with suggesting she study journalism at Emerson).
Tygard calls “48 Hours” “the original docu-series” in an era when the format has grown in popularity.
“These are long-form, hourlong stories devoted to a single case and the difference (between this and local news) was the ability to dig in and really sink your teeth into a story and get to know the characters,” Tygard said. “There’s a lot more room for nuance. I also quickly discovered I did not enjoy covering politics at all. I just prefer murder to politics, especially these days.”
Tygard said she takes pride in the ability of “48 Hours” to showcase good police work and the role of prosecutors and defense attorneys and its willingness to call out those in public service who don’t do their jobs well, who make mistakes or wrongly accuse and convict the innocent.
When “48 Hours” began, the show originally chronicled a literal 48 hours in a prison or coroner’s office or political campaign. “48 Hours” pivoted in 2004 under former executive producer Susan Zirinsky, now the CBS News president, to its current crime and justice emphasis. Even when it made that turn, “48 Hours” was still four years ahead of the launch of true crime cable network Investigation Discovery, which carries “48 Hours” reruns.
“True crime stories are kind of the ultimate battle between good and evil,” Tygard said. “I know our viewers love the satisfaction of some level of justice being achieved.”
Although the show has occasionally covered crimes in Western Pennsylvania — the show previously chronicled the 2018 murder of Aliquippa teacher Rachael DelTondo and Tygard said it will likely revisit that case in an episode tentatively scheduled to air April 24 — the region is not featured as often as other locales.
“Western Pennsylvanians are a lot more sane than, say, Floridians,” Tygard said, laughing. “Western Pennsylvania is not a hotbed of ‘48 Hours’ stories.”