60 Minutes
Vice President Biden | The New Burma | Inside the Air War
TV Flash files “Vice President Biden | The New Burma | Inside the Air War” as hour 403 of 767 in the TV Flash guide — 60 Minutes (1968–present) on CBS, season 48, episode 5, aired 2015-10-25, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S48E05: listed hour 403 of 767 in the 60 Minutes guide, hour 5 of 37 in season 48. It aired 2015-10-25 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Seeking Asylum | Make-A-Wish | Revis Island” (S48E04). Next is “Heroin in the Heartland | Smart Guns | The Slave Ship” (S48E06). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.

Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Vice President Biden- Joe Biden will discuss his decision not to run for president on 60 Minutes. The vice president will appear, with his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, on television for the first time since announcing Wednesday that he will not seek the Democratic presidential nomination. The New Burma - 60 Minutes goes to Burma before the country's historic elections to report on its democratic movement and speak to the Nobel Prize-winning woman most responsible for it. Bill Whitaker reports from the former military dictatorship and speaks to the iconic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Inside the Air War - On the combat operations floor of the nerve center for the air war against ISIS, David Martin and 60 Minutes cameras watch as a B-1 bomber zeroes in on its target. On one wall they can see a map tracking all the planes -- including Russian -- over Iraq and Syria. On another wall, they watch a live-video feed from an unmanned drone orbiting the target -- a cluster of buildings which U.S. intelligence believes is hiding an ISIS car bomb factory. Lt. Gen. Charles Brown, the commander of the air war, joins them on the operations floor and describes the strike as it unfolds in real time. This is the first-ever look inside the command center -- located in a bunker-like building in the Persian Gulf country of Qatar -- for the 14-month-old air campaign against ISIS. The air war costs the U.S. $10 million-a-day and Lt. Gen. Brown describes for Martin the amount of work that single B-1 strike entailed. "Scheduling-wise [its] about a three-day process and some of those targets we've looked at for...days, weeks and sometimes months," he tells Martin. The mission 60 Minutes follows results in the destruction of the buildings with secondary explosions indicating that explosives were stored inside. It is one of 47 such facilities the U.S. and allied planes have hit over the past six weeks. Brown acknowledges that ISIS will probably set up another factory elsewhere, but that, he says, is the nature of this war, which pits a superpower against an enemy intent on dragging the Middle East back to the Middle Ages.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Vice President Biden | The New Burma | Inside the Air War sit in the 60 Minutes guide?
S48E05 is listed hour 403 of 767 — hour 5 of 37 in season 48, season 48 episode 5.
When did 60 Minutes S48E05 air?
Vice President Biden | The New Burma | Inside the Air War aired 2015-10-25 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Is 1980s 60 Minutes different from today's?
The grammar is the same: multi-segment hour, stopwatch motif, investigations plus profiles. In the 1980s it frequently outrated sitcoms — proof news could dominate prime time.
In the series
Why this series still plays
The template of TV newsmagazine power — for the craft of the package and the history of broadcast investigation. Hewitt's stopwatch, Wallace's ambush, Safer and Bradley and Rooney's endnotes: Sunday night investigative theater that outrated sitcoms. Appointment news before the infinite scroll. Tick, tick, tick.
Tick, tick, tick — not a theme song, a weapon. CBS's 60 Minutes, Don Hewitt's stopwatch since 1968, was an 1980s Nielsen bully that outrated sitcoms on Sunday night: investigative pieces, profiles, commentator segments, correspondent star power. Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Harry Reasoner, Ed Bradley, Diane Sawyer, Andy Rooney's endnotes. **Ambush interviews and gotcha lore made Wallace a fearsome brand.** The museum guard wants the package as civic virtue. The flash is the ambush. Appointment news before the…
Filed against
- Mike Wallace as Correspondent
Mike Wallace’s ambush made 60 Minutes Sunday-night investigative theater that outrated sitcoms — Hewitt’s stopwatch, Safer and Bradley and Rooney’s endnotes, 1960s-into-1980s newsmagazine power. Appointment news before the internet stole…
- Morley Safer as Correspondent
Morley Safer’s packages helped 60 Minutes outrate sitcoms on Sunday night — Hewitt’s stopwatch, Wallace’s ambush, Bradley and Rooney’s endnotes, 1960s-into-1980s newsmagazine power. Appointment news before the internet stole the clock. TV…
- Harry Reasoner as Correspondent
Harry Reasoner was a 60 Minutes correspondent when the stopwatch became civic theater — Hewitt's newsmagazine power, Wallace ambush, Safer and Bradley and Rooney's endnotes, Sunday night investigation that outrated sitcoms. Appointment…
- Ed Bradley as Correspondent
Ed Bradley made 60 Minutes correspondent craft look like Sunday-night theater — Hewitt's stopwatch, investigative packages that outrated sitcoms, and a presence that treated the story as a public square. Appointment news before the…
- Diane Sawyer as Correspondent
Diane Sawyer worked 60 Minutes as correspondent steel — Hewitt’s stopwatch, Wallace’s ambush, Safer and Bradley and Rooney’s endnotes, Sunday-night investigative theater that outrated sitcoms. Template of TV newsmagazine power. TV Flash…
Also in season 48
- S48E01 Vladimir Putin | Donald Trump | The Greatest Escape
- S48E02 Hands off the Wheel | Patrick Kennedy | The Hidden Holocaust
- S48E03 President Obama | 30 Years on Death Row
- S48E04 Seeking Asylum | Make-A-Wish | Revis Island
- S48E06 Heroin in the Heartland | Smart Guns | The Slave Ship
- S48E07 Into Dangerous Hands | The Collider | Hamilton