Don Hewitt is a genius at what he does, and he does 60 Minutes. However, Hewitt has done more in his TV career than act as the founder and executive producer of that enormously successful program. It was Hewitt who directed Edward R. Murrow's early TV experiment of bridging the U.S. continent with television. It was Hewitt who, while producing and directing the first Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960, attempted to advise Nixon to use appropriate make-up to cover his wan appearance. Nixon did not listen, lost the debate, and lost the election. Thirty-three years later, Hewitt ventured (unsuccessfully) into cable-based home shopping.

     Hewitt began his work in the world of print journal­ism, but he quickly moved to CBS TV, where he has spent the entirety of his career. He not only produced and directed Douglas Edwards with the News from 1948 to 1962 but also the first year (1962-63) of the trendsetting CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. These two programs had a tremendous influence on the general development of television news programming, as well as on CBS's own nightly news. Hewitt was also responsible for CBS's coverage of the national political conventions between 1948 and 1980, and he directed Conversations with the President (with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson), programs that were pooled for all three networks. Among this significant body of work, however, his most notable, profitable, and successful venture was the creation of 60 Minutes in 1968.

     60 Minutes has been one of the premier programs produced by CBS, which counts the profits from this show to be significantly in excess of $1 billion. Such profits bring independence and power to Hewitt. He does not hesitate to attack network executives as being deficient in foresight and fortitude, and he reportedly has the most favorable employment contract in the history of U.S. network broadcasting.

     The unparalleled success of Hewitt's 60 Minutes has led to considerable speculation regarding the programming strategies that have allowed the series to achieve high ratings. Some surmise that the program benefited from following National Football League (NFL) games on CBS for so many years. However, when the NFL moved to the FOX television network in 1994, 60 Minutes continued to flourish (as it had in the seasons before it followed the games). Reuven Frank, formerly of NBC, who clearly suffered under the success of He­witt's 60 Minutes, called the show "star journalism," a form in which reporters such as Mike Wallace are the heroes whose questions are more important than the subsequent answers. The Prime Time Access Rule (PTAR) of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) has also been credited with contributing to 60 Minutes' success. The PTAR limited network offerings from 7:00 to 8:00 P.M. (EST) on Sunday to public affairs or children's programming. When Hewitt's program moved to this time slot in 1975, the argument goes, there was no real competition from entertainment programming, and CBS began raking in huge audiences, hungry advertisers, and giant profits. Most observers, however, give Hewitt the credit for the success of 60 Minutes. As Peter Jennings of ABC put it, the success of 60 Minutes is a "testimony to Don Hew­ itt's imagination and his editing."

     Hewitt has an extraordinary news judgment and editing ability. He creates stories in a manner that appeals to the average person. He admits he is not college educated, is not especially intellectual in his inclinations, and that he identifies with the middle-of­-the-road American. He knows what the average person likes to watch on TV. His formula for 60 Minutes stories is not complex. He simply understands that the audience wants the hero (for example, Mike Wallace) to drive the bad guys out of town. These people have been known in the TV industry as Hewitt's "anchor monsters."

     Despite these formidable skills, Hewitt is not always known as a nice or likable person. His handling of 60 Minutes producers and staff is, at best, volatile and heavy-handed. When Harry Reasoner, one of the first and best-liked anchors of the program, was dying of cancer, Hewitt reportedly removed him from the program with little apparent sensitivity to Reasoner or other staff. On the other hand, as Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes has observed of Hewitt, "I don't think the show would last without him."

     Hewitt's accomplishments have earned him countless honors and awards, including a place in the Television Hall of Fame. Perhaps the greatest recognition came from one of his colleagues, who said, Don Hewitt "invented the wheel" in the business of television news.