The Thing About ‘Dateline’

“I feel like I’ve done something horribly wrong.”

NBC’s Dateline correspondents Keith Morrison, Andrea Canning and Josh Mankiewicz are staring at me via Zoom for a rare joint interview, and the effect is initially unnerving. It turns out, this kind of reaction isn’t unusual. Canning recalls visiting the Today show with Morrison where they bumped into The Hangover actor Ed Helms. “You people scare me,” Helms blurted.

Yet when the correspondents turn their attention to the victims and suspects of sensational crimes on Friday nights, they become downright soothing — law-and-order comfort food for true crime fans and couples without end-of-week plans. For three decades, NBC’s longest-running primetime series has been a compelling and smartly produced always-there mainstay. It’s not what the critics call “appointment TV,” but it’s exceedingly reliable. Dateline knows how to tell a compelling story, complete with misdirects, twists and grabby narration.

Below, Morrison, Canning and Mankiewicz talk about the series and their 16-and-counting podcasts (or, as Mankiewicz calls them, “The Dateline Podcast Universe”). Just as their broadcast show ranks as the No. 1 true crime series across all viewing platforms, their Dateline NBC podcast often battles for the top spot on Apple’s True Crime podcast chart.

In person, Canning comes across as personable and disarmingly charming; one can see why so many imprisoned killer have opened up to her, only to feel stunned by her brutally tough questions. Mankiewicz is winsomely and contagiously passionate about all things Dateline. And then there is Morrison.

Ahhh, yes … Keith Morrison. The 77-year-old’s iconic droll narration, practically Gothic at times, has been described in the press as “buttery” and, occasionally, “sultry.” Morrison — whose very name seems cobbled together from two ’70s music legends — manages to emit rock star vibes, even via Zoom, with his unkempt hair and laid-back demeanor (“All these women are like … Keith’s handsome!” says Canning, causing the team’s senior executive producer, Liz Cole, to quickly interrupt: “You’re making him blush!”).

The correspondents have become celebrities of sorts, helping earn Dateline pop culture moments ranging from Bill Hader doing impressions of Morrison and Mankiewicz on a talk show (video below), to getting shout-outs on HBO’s The White Lotus, to Taylor Swift recently writing a song “Florida!!!” inspired by a Dateline episode. It’s a curious thing — a well-worn news franchise and its veteran hosts becoming rather cool roughly three decades after the show’s debut.

Despite Morrison, Canning and Mankiewicz’s individual styles, there’s one obvious quality they share: A seeming genuine love for their jobs. Even after all these years on the same show, there’s nothing about their energy that feels dutiful.

Here the trio, along with producer Cole, talk about their favorite episodes, the darker parts of their work, in-fighting, their competitors, and the perils of bringing up retirement to Morrison.

What makes a perfect Dateline story?

JOSH MANKIEWICZ Multiple suspects!

LIZ COLE Mystery, something surprising, a twist along the way.

KEITH MORRISON Some good character development.

ANDREA CANNING When there are these regular people getting caught up in these murders. So many of these Dateline episodes happen in small towns, and it’s wild when you think that it’s the neighbor or the teacher or the guy who works at the grocery store.

As a viewer, I would add: Interrogation room footage. It’s always frustrating when you don’t have it.

MANKIEWICZ Oh yeah, it’s the best. This is why we wait until the end to tell the story. Police and prosecutors generally won’t talk to you until the case is over. But also, nearly every piece of evidence that was shown in court, and some that were not, become public record, and you get your hands on it. That means you can get that wonderful interrogation room footage where the guy changes his story. You can get that 911 call where the person sounds kind of weird.

How do you decide who gets what case? I like to assume you fight over them.

MANKIEWICZ I have not experienced a lot of fighting. Look, it’s Keith’s world, we just live in it. But there has not been a tug of war over stories that I can remember because we’re all so busy that the question is usually, “Who is available to do this story?”

CANNING It could also be geographic. If there’s a story in Orange County, California, that’s Keith. Or if there’s a story in L.A., that could be Josh. If there’s a story in New York City, then I would hope that would go to me since I live in New York. Sometimes it could be a really sensitive story, and they want a woman so they feel more comfortable. Also, you have relationships. You might get a tip from a prosecutor you’ve worked with in the past who lets us know about a story. Or we volunteer because there’s a story that really fascinates one of us and we say, “I really want to cover this.”

This might be an easy question or a hard one: What is your favorite all-time episode?

MANKIEWICZ I did a story a couple of years ago about a friend of mine who was murdered. I always think that that’s probably the most memorable story I did. I’d seen him a couple of weeks earlier, and he was already in the crosshairs of the guy who killed him at that point. Of course, we didn’t know that. I went to Phoenix to go to his funeral, and then about 10 days later we were covering it for Dateline. It was pretty unforgettable.

CANNING Mine is when I can have some type of adventure, like tracking down an alleged killer in the Virgin Islands and taking a dinghy out and surprising him outside of his catamaran. Or going to Africa and following the story of a dentist who murdered his wife while on safari. It’s more interesting than sitting in a room doing an interview. I’m still waiting for my Hawaii story.

I remember that safari murder case. I was very bothered that the episode wasn’t titled Trophy Wife. Your perfect title was right there.

MANKIEWICZ That is the obvious name.

CANNING What did we call that episode? Now I have to look it up. [Googles]. It’s just called “Safari Story.” Missed opportunity. We normally have such good titles. So not to knock one of our titles, but that is pretty basic.

MORRISON People will ask us about an episode using the title, and we’ll have no idea what they’re talking about because we never know the on-air title until the week of air.

MANKIEWICZ They will ask about “The Mystery on Apple Road,” and I’m thinking, “Which one is that?”

Does this job ever get to you? There are episodes of Dateline where I’ve finished and thought, “I’m not watching this show for a while.” Some of these murders are very upsetting. I’m curious if there’s any particular episode that has just really stuck with you, or just in general, whether you ever struggle with telling some of these stories.

MORRISON Yeah, you do. But at the same time, people tell you the worst thing that ever happened to them. They tell you in great detail. You come away from that feeling as if you’ve been given a gift. You’ve been allowed into somebody’s life. And, yes, it’s a terrible thing. And, yes, it leaves you feeling depressed about a lot of human behavior. But at the same time, you feel uplifted by the fact that you’ve made a connection with somebody, and you can tell their story. So, in the end, I don’t have a lot of sleepless nights about the stories we do.

MANKIEWICZ You also hear these incredible stories of strength and resiliency and people come back from terrible things. You see the best in police work and the best in legal work, too. So there’s a lot about this that stays with you in a good way, as well as the stuff that’s so horrific. 

CANNING And sometimes, afterward they will say, “Thank you for that, it was cathartic.” Or, “Thank you for honoring my daughter,” or wife or sister. And you’re melting inside. You feel good about what you do when you hear things like because it is such a personal thing, and you feel like you have this connection to them.

Does that connection ever become awkward? Do you ever get threats? Do people ever keep trying to talk to you? I assume after an episode you want to move on to the next thing, but I imagine that wall doesn’t always stay where you want it to be.

MANKIEWICZ Sometimes you want [that connection] to follow you. You want to follow the people involved. Because it quickly develops into yet another story. You end up accumulating those people in your lives. There are a lot of people I’ve interviewed for Dateline, a lot of families, and a lot of people in law enforcement and in the legal profession, that I’m still in touch with. I sometimes get letters from people that are locked up, but so far that’s not been any kind of problem.

CANNING We don’t go easy on the killers in prison. Especially when I walk in, they think this is going to be an easy interview. And, of course, I start that way, asking about their love story. Then it takes a pretty heavy turn, and you start hitting them with evidence and questioning them. In the end, they’re usually not too happy with you. So you might hear about that later. They always say, “Why don’t you believe me?” They want everyone to believe they’re innocent, and usually, the evidence is stacked against them.

Oftentimes, there is so much evidence, and the murderer made so many mistakes, and sometimes the case still just barely gets solved over a period of years, which always makes me wonder: Are these stories you’re telling actually the exception — I mean, obviously, they’re the exception in that they’re the most interesting ones — but are murders getting solved much more the exception than the rule than viewers realize? It just seems like there must be a lot more unsolved murders going on out there.

MANKIEWICZ There are plenty of murders I know about that I keep praying are going to be solved — both for the families involved and also because then we’re going to be able to tell that story. The criminal justice system is a pretty bad therapist. The idea that people are going to feel better after the verdict, or that it’s going to be some kind of time machine, that’s always a mistake. I always feel better when murders are solved, in part because it means we can go to work and tell the story. But, yeah, there are way too many unsolved murders. 

CANNING Time and time in our episodes, if it’s not getting solved, you’ll see the family go into overdrive. The family will push, and the log jam will break because they won’t give up. They will go to the right people. They’ll say the right things. They’ll get the word out on social media. They will not let it go. A lot of times, what ultimately leads to a case getting solved is that the family didn’t give up.

Do you guys ever just kind of roll your eyes at 20/20 and 48 Hours? Because whenever I see a case that you cover and another show covers, yours are so much better edited and the interviewing and storytelling is stronger. I wonder what you guys think about the competition.

MORRISON That’s good to hear that. I don’t like to watch them because they do their thing. We do ours. You don’t want to be influenced.

CANNING I can say I like the way we tell our stories.

MANKIEWICZ I don’t generally watch the competition. But when I do, I see them do things that we wouldn’t do — things that skirt ethical boundaries that we would be more careful about. I think the reason we’re the number one true crime program is because we’re better at it than they are.

Well, you know I’d be a bad reporter if I didn’t follow that up and ask what sort of skirting of ethical boundaries you’ve seen competitors do in the past.

MANKIEWICZ I see people interviewed on other broadcasts that don’t know anything about the [case]. People who have been brought in to supply soundbites, or people who are identified as reporters, but who did not actually cover the story. We don’t do that. We don’t have prosecutors brought in because they’re great interviews. We interview the prosecutor who actually tried the case. We don’t build sets. We don’t hire actors. Our competitors do some of those things.

What’s the biggest professional disagreement one of you has had — either with producers or with one another over these decades?

MORRISON There are disagreements over what story to do, and how to tell the story, but that’s natural. It’s a collegial process. It used to be that those differences of opinion were quite sharp when you go back 20 years, but we’ve [mellowed].

CANNING I had a producer say I went too hard on a woman, a killer, who shot her husband seven times. That’s what I do when a jury of 12 people have convicted you of murder. Sorry, I’m not there to go easy on you. So we definitely had an after-disagreement about that. But we’ve all worked together a really long time. We have producers who’ve been with Dateline for 30 years. You travel with these people for weeks on end and get to know them really well. And I think one of the reasons Dateline has been so successful is everybody really supports everyone else. Whether it’s a story that you’re working on for two years, or something that you have to do in one week because it’s urgent. There’s no ego. And people only leave because they’re getting older, not because they don’t want to be at the show anymore.

So many impersonate Keith. But Josh, what was your reaction to Bill Hader’s impression of you? [Which Jimmy Kimmel Live! rather impolitely labeled “Bill Hader’s Most Obscure Impressions” in the video below].

MANKIEWICZ I don’t know [Hader], but if I ever see him, I’m going to hug him. And of course, everybody who knows me says, “Oh yeah, that’s exactly right.”

CANNING And now I say to you about once a month: “But you didn’t do that, did you?” If you want a celebrity anecdote, Keith’s birthday was this month, and Amanda Seyfried wanted to text Keith or get his number to wish him a happy birthday. Then I get a text saying that she’s too intimidated to reach out. So I passed it along to Keith that Amanda was blushing. And so do all these other women like Kristen Bell and — Keith’s handsome! He’s got all these —

COLE You’re making him blush!

Let’s talk a bit about your podcast empire. You guys entered the space a bit late. Then I assume NBC went, “You guys should do a podcast because money”?

MANKIEWICZ I saw a while ago that true crime was the biggest part of podcasting and that we had the biggest name in true crime, and we weren’t doing anything about it. So I remember telling them that we needed to start doing podcasts. But just like everything else around here, they didn’t pay any attention to me.

COLE Who’s the “they” Josh?”

MANKIEWICZ You!

COLE I wanted to do it ages ago.

MORRISON I was a little skeptical at the beginning because, after all, we do a TV show. But then we figured out how much fun that was to do, and how fulfilling it was to tell a story that way. We had the material, we just needed to make better use of it.

COLE Keith was reluctant, as he said, but then I listened to the first episode of his first podcast — [the six-episode series] The Thing About Pam — on the subway [on the way to work]. By the time I got to 30 Rock, the episode was over, and I called Keith immediately and said, “This is incredible. It’s going to be really big.” Just having the story in my ears and in Keith’s voice. It’s the same with Josh’s podcast and Andrea’s podcast, they’re wonderful to have in your ears.

MANKIEWICZ As great as Keith’s voice is on television — and it is the perfect voice — the thing about television is you’re always pushing something out. We’re cramming those stories into two hours, where each hour is about 38, 40 minutes long of actual programming in. With a podcast, if you need to go longer and have a great story, you can put it in.

MORRISON Anytime you go out to shoot a story, you run through a tremendous amount of recording. You have to have everything or you have nothing. So you overshoot like mad. We’ll have hours and hours of material. Although it’s a great gift to do a two-hour show, it’s still not enough time. [Podcasting is] also a much more writerly thing. You’re not restricted by the constraints that television imposes to match the picture with the words. It’s all in the mind. So you have a chance to develop how the mind is contemplating the story as they drive along.

COLE We’re not beholden to the tyranny of the network clock with a certain number of commercial breaks and a certain number of minutes. It’s way more flexible, which gives all of these guys a little bit more room to play and really expand their storytelling.

With Peacock adopting The Thing About Pam into a limited series, are there other Dateline episodes or podcasts that you think would also be right for adaptation?

CANNING We have a few others that are being actively developed right now. I’m sure Liz has a huge list.

What have you found works for podcasting that doesn’t work for TV? And what have you found works for TV that doesn’t work in podcasting?

CANNING With Dateline on TV, you get the full story — you get the beginning and the end. You get the cases adjudicated most of the time. And so with Dateline True Crime Weekly, we get to actually keep you up to date on stories that we’re following along the way. So we don’t need a verdict. We will bring you whatever the latest testimony is, or the latest evidence that has come forward, or press conference or interview with someone involved in the case. 

MORRISON We’ve all taken different roles in the podcast business. Andrea does one kind of thing. Josh does one kind of thing. I do something. And they’re all working.

You also have the Talking Dateline podcast, where you guys are on together whereas in the show you’re always reporting separately. How’s that been? Is it weird to team up?

MANKIEWICZ It’s a lot of fun. I will say that more than any other part of the Dateline Podcast Universe, which has all these different factors to it, the thing I hear about the most from people in restaurants and airports is, Talking Dateline. People like it because it’s behind the scenes. We’re talking about how we did the story, and it’s the only time we appear together.

CANNING I always think, “How are we going to talk about this for an hour?” And then somehow we do. We just keep going. You go on tangents. You find out cool things about each other, like that Keith is a lover of Scandinavian crime novels.

MORRISON You remembered that?

CANNING Of course. Also, Josh gets more time to tease Keith.

MANKIEWICZ That’s the best part of Talking Dateline.

CANNING We’re all friends. We all get along so well. And so when we do Talking Dateline, it’s like having a conversation with your friend about a story that you covered. The other thing that’s interesting is we have different people listening to the podcast than watching on television. Some of them say they listen to the podcast and have never seen Dateline when it’s been on television for 32 years.

You have a lot of podcasting content at this point, what should somebody listen to if they haven’t listened to any of it? 

CANNING Dateline True Crime Weekly!

So everybody’s going to advocate for their own thing.

CANNING Josh’s Missing in America, I see as a public service — to shine a light on these people who are missing. Maybe somebody will hear it and make a call or go to the police.

MANKIEWICZ Nothing would make me happier than if somebody was found as a result of one of these.

Earlier, Andrea brought up Dateline staff retiring. So, Keith, I’ll ask a question I’m sure you hate: You’re 77 and still going strong. Is retirement ever tempting? 

MANKIEWICZ Let me answer that. He has no plans to retire, and he resents you even asking about it.

MORRISON One of my favorite memories was years ago, I was at this public meeting involving [the late 60 Minutes correspondent] Mike Wallace. Mike at the time was just about to turn 70, and I said, “Why do you keep doing it? You’ve got more money than God. You’ve got an island in the Caribbean, for God’s sake. Your reputation is secure. So take it easy.” He got really mad. He did not like that at all. And I never forgot that.

MANKIEWICZ And then he hung on for another 25 years. That’s the important thing to remember, Keith.

CANNING We were at the holiday party talking a few years ago, Keith, talking about how long you’d do this. And you told me, “They’re going to have to carry me out of here. I’m doing this forever.”

A version of this story first appeared in the August 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.