Gay Talese

Gaetano "Gay" Talese is an American writer. As a journalist for The New York Times and Esquire magazine during the 1960s, he helped to define contemporary literary journalism and is considered, along with Joan Didion, Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, and Tom Wolfe, one of the pioneers of New Journalism. Talese's most famous articles are about Joe DiMaggio and Frank Sinatra.

Dan Rather Reports · S8, E19

Gone to Pot

(10/21/2013) According to government data, more teenagers are smoking marijuana today than cigarettes. And, while other illegal drug use is declining, marijuana is on the increase -- and consequently, so is demand. In California, illegal marijuana farms are springing up by the thousands deep in the back woods and far from prying eyes. These are not small backyard grows but major plantations of pot run by organized crime. So much illegal marijuana is being grown in California that it’s devastating the local environment. In a state plagued by drought, marijuana farms are using up desperately needed water. And let's not forget the fertilizers, pesticides and rodenticides, many of them banned in the U.S. years ago, that are being used by many of the illegal growers -- these chemicals are winding up in California's soil and water -- not to mention the pot itself. Also, a look at the state of journalism and technology with literary giant Gay Talese.