Steve Kroft, who was 60 Minutes longest-tenured reporter, is one of the wealthiest journalists in the world.
Kroft has a net worth of $25 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
It is not easy to get rich as a journalist. In fact, Investopedia ranked journalism as the second-lowest-paying profession, ranking the career just behind ministers in terms of pay. Steve Kroft did not have a high-paying start to his career. He was drafted into the U.S. Army when he graduated from college, and had his first writing gig with Pacific Stars and Stripes, a publication of the U.S. Armed Services. He served in Vietnam as a correspondent and photographer, according to his CBS profile.
“Few journalists have achieved the impact and recognition that Steve Kroft’s 60 Minutes work has generated for nearly three decades,” his biography begins.
Kroft worked for 30 years with 60 Minutes. In that time he won multiple awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award.
60 Minutes is airing a tribute to Kroft in an hour-long special at 7/6C Sunday, September 8.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Kroft Earned a $7 Million Salary on 60 Minutes
“You gave the show an important dimension that we hadn’t had before,” Lesley Stahl tells retiring “60 Minutes” correspondent Steve Kroft in a conversation about his 30 years on the broadcast. Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CBS
Kroft earned $7 million per year while he worked as a journalist for 60 Minutes, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Kroft worked for 60 Minutes for 30 years, and filed nearly 500 stories.
He worked for CBS before landing the role on 60 Minutes, first working as a correspondent. It was unclear how long Kroft was earning his $7 million salary.
Kroft announced his retirement in May.
“I’ve always … had great amount of respect for people who’ve left their professions when they were on top,” Kroft told Deadline. “I felt that this was the time for me to go, that there were other things that I wanted to do that I still had the energy to do…”
2. Kroft Won Many Awards During His Career, Including the Lifetime Achievement Award & Peabody Award
Steve Kroft’s advice for journalism students
Students should be prepared to work hard. Natural “attrition” is a factor in journalism, but “the ones that stay learn a lot.”
Kroft is a highly regarded investigative journalist who has won many awards for his hard-hitting pieces.
“The five-time Peabody Award winner delivered his first report for the broadcast in September 1989; the 2018-2019 season is his 30th on 60 Minutes,” his CBS profile said.
He also won the RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013 for his investigation into the Stuxnet computer virus that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program.
His CBS profile detailed his awards. It said:
In 2010, Kroft was chosen for the Paul White Award by the Radio, Television and Digital News Association (RTDNA) – the highest honor from the industry’s largest peer association. At the same time, he became the only 60 Minutes correspondent to win two Peabody Awards in the same year. One was for a story on the vulnerability to computer hackers of crucial infrastructures like the power grid, and the other for a story examining the enormous sums of money spent prolonging the lives of dying Americans, bringing his total number of Peabodys to five. Also in the same remarkable year, he won a George Polk award for his report attributing wild swings in the price of oil to Wall Street speculation and an Emmy for his report on rising Islamic militancy in Pakistan.
His joint investigation with the Washington Post exposing the deeply flawed forensic science of bullet lead analysis won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism award earlier in 2008 and was one of four major awards he won in the space of a year. He won the Sigma Delta Chi award for the same story and electronic journalism’s highest honor, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton, for an investigation into the disappearance of over $500 million from Iraq’s treasury. He also received the Fred Friendly First Amendment award from Quinnipiac University, one of the industry’s most prestigious recognitions.
His considerable body of work also was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in September 2003. And one of his finest investigative stories, a report examining the conflicts of interest between military contractors and the government in the awarding of contracts, “All in the Family” (April 2003), earned him a Peabody Award.
Kroft’s 60 Minutes reports have been recognized by awards committees since his earliest days on the program, winning an Emmy in his second season for the Chernobyl story and his first Peabody in his third season for “Friendly Fire,” which explored the tragic, yet common occurrence of soldiers accidentally killing their own men. In 1998, two of Kroft’s 60 Minutes reports were honored with another Peabody Award: “Veronica Guerin,” a piece about an Irish reporter gunned down by drug dealers, and “West Side Story,” an uplifting account of racial tension turned into racial harmony.
3. His Son, John Kroft, attended The Julliard School
Kroft’s son, John Conant Kroft, attended The Julliard School for acting. He graduated in 2016 with a graduate degree, according to his Facebook page.
Julliard is a prestigious music conservatory in New York, New York. Tuition to attend Julliard is $47,370 per year, for the 2019-2020 school year, according to the school’s website. The cost to attend including books, room and board, supplies and personal expenses in a single room is $72,168. The cost to attend the school for four years and to live on campus in a single room would cost about $288,672.
It was unclear whether John Kroft earned any scholarships or other financial aid, and what his living arrangement were.
4. Steve Kroft Landed an Acting Role on ‘Small Time Crooks’
Steve Kroft also landed a role as an actor, playing himself on Woody Allen’s “Small Time Crooks” in 2000. The movie is a crime comedy.
Kroft “pops up” in the film “during a transitional moment,” according to a film review by Welsey Morris.
“Dishwasher and small-fry criminal Ray hits on a plan with his partners in crime to re-open a local pizza place and dig through to the bank down the street,” the IMDB storyline said. As his wife can’t cook pizza but does great cookies, that’s what they sell. While the no-hope tunnellers get lost underground, the cookie operation really takes off and the team find themselves rich business people. But the other local money isn’t quite ready to accept them.”
5.Kroft & His Wife, Jennet, Live in Sag Harbor, New York
Photos of Steve Kroft wife Jennet Conant http://t.co/7B8sMOg7aB http://t.co/E3aDIKla2X
Kroft and his wife, Jennet Conant Kroft, live in Sag Harbor, New York on beachfront property.
An aerial view of the home shows a large, well-manicured lawn near a tennis court. The nearest neighbor is separated by dense woods.
Sag Harbor is home to some of the most expensive properties in the country, according to Neighborhood Scout.
“Sag Harbor is a very small coastal village (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of New York. With a population of 2,292 people and three constituent neighborhoods, Sag Harbor is the 548th largest community in New York,” the Sag Harbor profile said. “Sag Harbor home prices are not only among the most expensive in New York, but Sag Harbor real estate also consistently ranks among the most expensive in America.”
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Steve Kroft’s Net Worth: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know