‘60 Minutes’ Creator Don Hewitt Dies At 86
CBS News: Don Hewitt, recognized as a father of modern television news and the creator of the medium’s most successful broadcast, 60 Minutes, died today. He was 86.
Hewitt was executive producer of CBS News, the title he took when he stepped down from 60 Minutes in 2004. For the past several years, he had been involved in a variety of broadcast projects, mostly outside of CBS, including producing a primetime documentary about the Radio City Music Hall’s annual Christmas show.
Hewitt’s remarkable career in journalism spanned over 60 years, virtually all of it at CBS. As a young producer/director assisting at the birth of television news, it was usually Hewitt behind the scenes directing legendary CBS News reporters like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, using a playbook he had to write himself. He played an integral role in all of CBS News’ coverage of major news events from the late 1940s through the 1960s, putting him in the middle of some of history’s biggest events, including one of politics’ seminal moments: the first televised presidential debate in 1960.
Hewitt produced and directed coverage for the three networks of the debate between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy, an event that instantly transferred the political king-making powers print news once held to a new and more powerful medium where appearances mattered. Critics have long maintained that Kennedy won the debate because he looked better.
As Hewitt recalled in many interviews, he offered makeup to Kennedy first, who refused. Nixon, following Kennedy’s cue, also refused. But the suntanned Kennedy was a vigorous contrast to Nixon, whose pasty complexion put his five o’clock shadow in high relief. Hewitt later rued the day as the first step in the dangerous dance between politicians and the special interests that provide the big money to buy the now crucial television advertising.
