Don Hewitt, the CBS Newsman who invented "60 Minutes" and produced the popular newsmagazine for36 years, died Wednesday. He was 86.
He died of pancreatic cancer at his Bridgehampton home, CBS said. His death came month afterthat of fellow CBS legend Walter Cronkite.
Hewitt joined CBS News in television's infancy in 1948, and produced the first televisedpresidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960.
He made his mark in the late 1960s when CBS agreed to try his idea of a one-hour broadcastthat mixed hard news and feature stories. The television newsmagazine was born on Sept. 24, 1968,when the "60 Minutes" stopwatch began ticking.
He dreamed of a television version of Life, the dominant magazine of the mid-20th century,where interviews with entertainers could coexist with investigations that exposed corporatemalfeasance.
"The formula is simple," he wrote in a memoir in 2001, "and it's reduced to four words everykid in the world knows: Tell me a story. It's that easy."
Hard-driven reporter Mike Wallace, Hewitt's first hire, became the journalist those in powerdid not want on their doorsteps. Harry Reasoner, Morley Safer, Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer alsoreported for the show.
"60 Minutes" won 73 Emmy Awards, 13 DuPont/Columbia University Awards and nine Peabody Awardsduring Hewitt's stewardship, which ended in 2004.
After Cronkite's death at age 92 on July 17, Hewitt said, "How many news organizations getthe chance to bask in the sunshine of a half-century of Edward R. Murrow followed by a half-centuryof Walter Cronkite?"
Hewitt often said the accepted wisdom for television news writers before "60 Minutes" was toput words to pictures. He believed that was backward.
A Sunday evening fixture, "60 Minutes" was television's top-rated show four times, mostrecently in 1992-93. While no longer a regular in the top 10 in Hewitt's later years, it was stillTV's most popular newsmagazine.
Upon the launch of "60 Minutes," Hewitt recalled that news executive Bill Leonard told him to"make us proud."
"Which may well be the last time anyone ever said `make us proud' to anyone else intelevision," he wrote in his memoir. "Because Leonard said `make us proud' and not `make us money,'we were able to do both, which I think makes us unique in the annals of television."
As executive producer, Hewitt was responsible for deciding each week which stories would makeit on the air. Correspondents and producers alike would wait nervously in screening rooms for hisverdict on their work.
Among his other jobs, Hewitt directed the first network television newscast on May 3, 1948.He originated the use of cue cards for news readers, now done by electronic machines. He was thefirst to "superimpose" words on the TV screen for a news show.
Before the 1960 presidential debate, Hewitt asked Kennedy if he wanted makeup. Tanned andfit, Kennedy said no. Nixon followed his lead. Big mistake.
"As every student of politics knows, that debate - like a Miss America contest - turned onwho made the better appearance, not with what he said but with how he looked," Hewitt recalledlater. "Kennedy won hands down."
Hewitt did not retire completely. In 2007, he produced a televised version of the "Radio CityChristmas Spectacular," bringing the venerable show to a national TV audience for the first time -on NBC.
Donald Shepard Hewitt was born in New York City on Dec. 14, 1922, and grew up in the suburbof New Rochelle. He dropped out of New York University to become a copy boy at the New York HeraldTribune. He joined the Merchant Marines during World War II and worked as a correspondent posted toGen. Dwight Eisenhower's London headquarters.
After the war and a few brief journalism jobs, he took a job as an associate director at CBSNews in 1948.
During his tenure, "60 Minutes" was often a place where people came to make news.Presidential candidate Bill Clinton addressed questions of infidelity in 1992, and Al Gore used theshow to announce he wouldn't run for president in 2004.
Hewitt often said he was proud of his show's ability to exonerate innocent people throughinvestigations, such as when a Texas man sent to jail for life for robbery was freed after Saferdiscredited the evidence against him.
When "60 Minutes" showed a tape of Dr. Jack Kevorkian lethally injecting a patient in 1998,it ignited a debate on euthanasia and the proper role of a TV news show.
Hewitt was the subject of an unflattering portrait in the 1999 movie "The Insider," whichdepicted him caving to pressure from CBS lawyers and not airing a whistleblowing report from anex-tobacco executive. The full report eventually aired.
Although bitter at the former "60 Minutes" producer who became a hero of "The Insider" forfighting to air the story, Hewitt later said he wasn't proud of his actions.
Hewitt had said he wanted to "die at my desk," creating a delicate situation for CBS. Theshow's ratings were declining and it had the oldest audience in television, as well as some of theoldest correspondents.
Hewitt, then 80, was persuaded to announce in January 2003 that he would step down at theconclusion of the 2003-2004 season, which he did. In return, CBS gave him a contract that would payhim through age 90.
Hewitt and his wife, Marilyn, had four children.
