Each week, a culture finds its reflection in the stories it chooses to tell itself — and this Sunday, CBS Morning assembles a portrait of a society wrestling with what it cannot release, cannot trust, and cannot quite see clearly. From the stubborn architecture of personal grudges to the manufactured realities of artificial intelligence, the broadcast asks a single underlying question: what does it cost us, in body and in civic life, to hold on to things that harm us? The answers arrive through science, counterculture memory, whistleblower testimony, and the quiet dignity of a ninety-year-old
CBS Sunday Morning explores forgiveness, deepfakes and Alan Alda's Parkinson's journey
Four in five adults are carrying some form of lingering ill will.
Mark
So this is really a preview of what's coming on Sunday. What's the thread that ties these stories together?
Mimi
They're not connected by theme so much as by the fact that they're all asking questions about how we live now—how we hold onto things, how we trust what we see, what institutions mean to us. It's a pretty wide net.
Luke
But the cover story about grudges—that's based on research, right? The cardiovascular stuff, the depression numbers?
Mimi
Yes. There's actual epidemiological work behind it. Tyler VanderWeele at Harvard has done research on this. And the statistic about four in five adults harboring resentment—that comes from a survey.
Mark
And the Sorkin documentary—that's opening in theaters, so it's not just a Sunday Morning exclusive?
Mimi
Right. It opens October 9th. But the interview with Sorkin and Haugen is exclusive to the broadcast.
Luke
The deepfake segment—Farid says half of internet content is fake. That's a pretty bold claim. Is that his estimate or is that something that's been independently verified?
Mimi
That's Farid's estimate. He's a leading expert, but it's important to note it's his assessment of the landscape, not a peer-reviewed finding about the actual percentage of fake content online.
Mark
And Alan Alda—he's been public about his Parkinson's diagnosis for a while now, hasn't he?
Mimi
Yes. He announced it in 2018, I believe. But this is a deeper conversation with LaPook about how he's living with it, his childhood, his work in science communication.
Luke
The Michael Lewis book—is that coming out this week?
Mimi
October 6th. So it's a timely interview.
Mark
It sounds like a broadcast that's trying to cover a lot of ground.
Mimi
It is. That's the Sunday Morning formula—you move from one thing to another, and you trust the viewer to find the connections themselves.
The Pulse
- Four in five American adults carry active resentment toward someone, and researchers are now measuring the cardiovascular and psychological damage that old anger quietly inflicts on the body.
- Ken Kesey's legendary 'Furthur' bus — once a rolling symbol of liberation — sits rusted and fragile in San Francisco, its restoration a race against the decay that time visits on even the most defiant acts.
- Aaron Sorkin returns to Facebook not to celebrate its founding myth but to reckon with its consequences, armed this time with thousands of pages of internal documents that the company never wanted the public to read.
- A leading digital forensics researcher warns that half of all widely circulated internet content is now AI-generated or fabricated, and the tools to detect the difference are struggling to keep pace with the tools that create the deception.
- Alan Alda, at ninety, speaks with characteristic humor about Parkinson's disease, a childhood marked by polio and a mother's schizophrenia, and a lifetime spent teaching others how to communicate across the distance between expertise and understanding.
Each week, a culture finds its reflection in the stories it chooses to tell itself — and this Sunday, CBS Morning assembles a portrait of a society wrestling with what it cannot release, cannot trust, and cannot quite see clearly. From the stubborn architecture of personal grudges to the manufactured realities of artificial intelligence, the broadcast asks a single underlying question: what does it cost us, in body and in civic life, to hold on to things that harm us? The answers arrive through science, counterculture memory, whistleblower testimony, and the quiet dignity of a ninety-year-old man who has learned to live with what he cannot change.
Jane Pauley returns to the anchor desk Sunday for a broadcast that moves between the interior landscape of human psychology and the vast, increasingly unreliable terrain of digital life.
The cover story belongs to the grudge — that quiet, persistent injury people carry long after the original wound has faded. Correspondent Susan Spencer reports on research linking sustained resentment to elevated cardiovascular stress, depression, and anxiety. Psychotherapist Nancy Colier and Harvard epidemiologist Tyler VanderWeele help explain why forgiveness is so difficult, and what it actually requires of us, in a country where the majority of adults are quietly angry at someone.
The broadcast also looks back at one of American counterculture's most enduring symbols. Ken Kesey's 1939 school bus — painted in wild colors, christened 'Furthur,' and driven across the country in 1964 by Kesey and his Merry Pranksters — is now on display in San Francisco's Haight Street Art Center, where a foundation is working to restore it before time finishes what neglect began.
Aaron Sorkin, who first dramatized Facebook's origins in 'The Social Network,' has returned to the subject with a new documentary, 'The Social Reckoning.' Drawing on internal documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen, the film examines not how Facebook was built but what it has since done — and what that means for the society that now lives inside it.
The technology segment confronts a problem growing faster than the solutions designed to contain it. Researcher Hany Farid estimates that half of all widely viewed internet content is now fake, generated or hallucinated by AI. Ted Koppel speaks with Farid about the psychological weight of studying digital manipulation and the deeper question of whether AI-generated personas might one day be accepted as substitutes for real human presence.
The Sunday Profile offers a different kind of reckoning. Alan Alda, ninety years old and still sharp, speaks with Dr. Jon LaPook about a life that has included polio, a mother's schizophrenia, decades of work bridging science and public understanding, and now Parkinson's disease — which he meets, characteristically, with humor rather than surrender.
The broadcast rounds out with a look at Michael Lewis's new book 'Blockers,' which profiles federal workers caught between their institutional duties and the disruptions of the Trump administration and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency — a story about what is lost when the people who quietly hold systems together are no longer allowed to do so.
Jane Pauley will be back at the anchor desk on Sunday morning, guiding viewers through a broadcast that touches on some of the year's most pressing cultural and personal questions. The Emmy-winning program has assembled a lineup that moves from the intimate terrain of human psychology to the vast, murky landscape of digital deception.
The cover story this week examines what happens when people refuse to let go of old wounds. Correspondent Susan Spencer reports on the science of grudges—research showing that those who harbor resentment carry measurable physical costs, including elevated cardiovascular stress, depression, and anxiety. Yet according to surveys, four out of five American adults are carrying some form of lingering ill will toward someone else, sometimes over grievances so small they've nearly forgotten why they're angry. Spencer talks with experts, including psychotherapist Nancy Colier and Harvard epidemiologist Tyler VanderWeele, about why some people can sustain anger for years, what makes forgiveness so difficult, and what it actually takes to move past old hurts.
Elsewhere on the broadcast, the focus shifts to an artifact of American counterculture. In 1964, writer Ken Kesey and his circle of "Merry Pranksters" loaded a 1939 school bus with music, alcohol, and LSD, painted it in wild colors, and named it "Furthur." They drove it across the country, and it became an emblem of liberation and the emerging counterculture movement. Decades of neglect have left the bus in a rusted state, but now it's on display in San Francisco as part of an ongoing restoration effort. Jonathan Vigliotti reports on the exhibition at the Haight Street Art Center and the foundation working to return the bus to something like its original glory.
Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter whose 2010 film "The Social Network" shaped how the public understood Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook's origins, has returned to the subject sixteen years later with a new documentary called "The Social Reckoning." This time, Sorkin is interested not in how Facebook was built but in what it has done. The film draws on the leaked internal documents that whistleblower Frances Haugen provided to Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz—thousands of pages that exposed how the company understood and managed the harms its platform could cause. Correspondent Jo Ling Kent speaks with both Sorkin and Haugen about Facebook's power and what its trajectory means for the rest of us.
The technology segment tackles a problem that has become urgent as artificial intelligence advances: how to detect deepfakes in a world where the line between real and fabricated is increasingly blurred. Hany Farid, a leading researcher on digital manipulation, estimates that half of all widely viewed internet content is now fake—generated or hallucinated by AI. Ted Koppel talks with Farid about the psychological toll of studying deepfakes, the weaponization of AI-generated imagery, and a harder question: whether AI agents will ever be accepted as replacements for actual humans.
In the Sunday Profile, Alan Alda, now ninety years old and best known for playing "Hawkeye" Pierce on "M*A*S*H," sits down with CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook. Alda discusses his childhood, which included polio and his mother's schizophrenia, and his decades of work helping scientists and healthcare professionals communicate more effectively. He also talks openly about living with Parkinson's disease—a diagnosis he refuses to allow to define him, approaching it instead with the humor and resilience that have marked his long career.
The broadcast also features a segment on Michael Lewis's new book "Blockers," which profiles federal workers caught in the crosshairs of the Trump administration and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. National correspondent Robert Costa speaks with Lewis and a former IRS attorney about why Americans often underestimate the value of government workers and about efforts to acquire sensitive taxpayer information.
Notable Quotes
Alda refuses to allow his Parkinson's diagnosis to define him, approaching it instead with humor and resilience— Alan Alda, in interview with Dr. Jon LaPook
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