nation's top-ranked television program, an achievement it accomplished five times.[3] Hewitt produced the first televised presidential debate in 1960.[4]
copyboy for the Tribune, then worked for The Associated Press at a bureau in Memphis, Tennessee. However, his wife Mary Weaver—whom he married while working in Memphis—wanted to go to New York City, so he moved back.[1][8]
Back in New York City, Hewitt started working at the
television network, which was seeking someone who had "picture experience" to help with production of television broadcast.[8] He began working at its news division, CBS News, in 1948 and was producer-director of the network's evening-news broadcast with Douglas Edwards
Emmy Award-winning show 60 Minutes. Within ten years, the show reached the top 10 in viewership, a position it maintained for 21 of the following 22 seasons, until the 1999–2000 season.[3]
Hewitt was a primary figure in the televising of a 1996 60 Minutes documentary on the tobacco-industry scandal involving the tobacco company Brown & Williamson, in which the program eventually reported the allegations of whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand. Initially wary of a lawsuit, Hewitt sided with CBS News management and killed the Wigand story by censoring the interview.[12] After blowback, a more complete presentation of the story was allowed to air, but the handling of the issue remained "a dark, sorry period in the otherwise virtuous life of '60 Minutes.'"[13] The overall scandal was the inspiration for the 1999 film The Insider.[14] Hewitt was portrayed in the film by Philip Baker Hall.
Declining ratings at 60 Minutes—after decades of being in the top 10, the show had dropped in rankings to number 20—contributed to what became a public debate in 2002 about whether it was time for CBS to replace Hewitt at 60 Minutes. According to The New York Times, Jeff Fager, producer of 60 Minutes II, was being floated as a possible replacement,[3] speculation that proved to be accurate. The show was still generating an estimated profit of more than $20 million a year, but the decline in viewership and profit meant the show could no longer "operate as an island unto itself, often thumbing its nose at management while demanding huge salaries and perquisites."[3] Within a couple of years, Hewitt stepped aside as executive producer at the age of 81, signing a ten-year contract with CBS to be an executive producer-at-large for CBS News.[1]
In January 2010, 60 Minutes dedicated an entire show to the story and memory of Don Hewitt.[15]
In 2018, an internal CBS investigation found that in the 1990s Hewitt had been accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a former CBS employee over a period of years. CBS determined that the employee's allegations were credible and by 2018 had paid her over $5 million in settlements in exchange for her silence.[16]
Personal life and death
Hewitt was married three times:
Mary Weaver with whom he had two sons: Jeffrey and Steven.[17]
A Current Affair";[18] and he adopted her daughter Jilian Childers from a previous marriage.[17]
Marilyn Berger - American broadcast and newspaper journalist.[17] Through Berger, Hewitt is the great-uncle of Rob Fishman.
^The Insider (Motion picture). Touchstone Pictures. 1999. Event occurs at 2:33:32. Although based on a true story, certain elements in this motion picture have been fictionalized for dramatic effect.