TV news pioneer Don Hewitt talks about what makes 60 Minutes tick as the show he created is handed over to a successor.
By ERIC DEGGANS
Published June 6, 2004
[AP photo]
Don Hewitt, 81, the outgoing executive producer of 60 Minutes, poses next to the show’s famous stop watch last month in New York.
One of the defining moments in television and U.S. politics: the first televised presidential debate. Don Hewitt, the producer, stands between seated candidates Sen. John F. Kennedy, left, and Vice President Richard Nixon as they prepare for the 1960 broadcast.
[Photo: CBS]
PREVIEW: 60 Minutes airs at 7 tonight on CBS, WTSP-Ch. 10.
NEW YORK - Well into the final lap of his most enduring career achievement yet, 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt takes time to note the two chairs.
Black, well-upholstered leather numbers, they're placed in front of Hewitt's desk in a corner office at the legendary newsmagazine's offices on W 57th Street. Look over his shoulder and you see a panorama of the city through a pair of wall-sized windows.
But Hewitt's focus is on the chairs.
Which, when sat upon, seem to deflate a bit, so anyone in them looks up at the man who invented the longest-running, most profitable and best-respected newsmagazine on network television.
"I got these from Bill Paley, and they don't ride low on purpose," cracks Hewitt, referencing the hard-nosed patriarch of CBS, the late William S. Paley. "Let's just say they've had a lot of use, kid."
At 81, almost everyone is a kid to Hewitt (except, perhaps 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace, nearly five years his senior). And even now, his pugnacious charisma - flavored by an old school, Sinatra-style attitude - is legend.
The list of seminal TV events attached to Hewitt's name is mind-boggling. In 1960, he produced the first televised presidential debate; a historic match between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in which the telegenic Kennedy trounced the more experienced Nixon and politics' infatuation with TV was born.
In the 1950s, he directed one of Edward R. Murrow's most respected programs, the news documentary showcase See It Now, and watched Murrow develop a popular-but-shallow celebrity interview program, Person to Person. While producing what would become the CBS Evening News, Hewitt basically invented the nightly news broadcast.
And in 1968, he got the idea of merging the concept of Murrow's two shows into a new type of program - a magazine on television - with the substance of the New York Times and the sizzle of Look magazine.
"Holy s--, I said, that's the answer," said Hewitt, laughing loudly. "If you put "high Murrow' (See It Now) and "low Murrow' (Person to Person) in the same broadcast, you've got something. You can look in Marilyn Monroe's closet, if you're also willing to look in Robert Oppenheimer's laboratory."
For 36 years, Hewitt guided 60 Minutes with passion and a hands-on involvement. So when CBS a few years ago floated a plan to ease him into retirement and turn the show over to his protege, 60 Minutes II executive producer Jeff Fager, Hewitt had a characteristic reaction.
"I had a temper tantrum," the producer says now, echoing a note of contrition he's invoked often since signing a contract that will keep him at CBS, he says, "until I go gaa-gaa."
"I went on Larry King Live and I blew my top," Hewitt said. "Then I stopped and said, "What the hell do you have to complain about?' To this day, I don't know why they made the change. No one has explained it to me. But to sit around and say "Poor me. What are they doing?' makes no sense."
On May 18, CBS aired its love letter to Hewitt, Tell Me a Story: The Man Who Made 60 Minutes. The next day, CBS TV president Les Moonves introduced Hewitt for a special ovation during the network's upfront presentation to advertisers.
And by the month's end, the last 60 Minutes installment to officially feature Hewitt as executive producer aired, though he will take a few more weeks to move into his new office - right below his old one.
"I'm going to be executive producer of CBS News," said Hewitt in mid-May. "What does that mean? I have no idea. But it's a nice title . . . good for getting tables in restaurants. You don't want to be an "I used to be.' "
Given Hewitt's age and concerns about 60 Minutes' rating among young viewers a few years ago, the network's move to ensure a smooth transition made sense. But Moonves, clearly pleased that Hewitt has accepted the change, wouldn't directly comment on why the change was made or whether Hewitt was adequately informed about why it happened.
"Don is still going to be around . . . he's already pitched us 24 ideas," said Moonves during a recent conference call.
"The (succession) plan came up a couple of years ago . . . it worked out to everyone's satisfaction," Moonves said. "You have a guy who is 35 years younger running the show, maybe his propensity to do stories that skew younger may come into play . . . (but) I don't look for a big change."
Fager, 49, said his objective is to provide a transition so seamless, viewers won't notice the change (besides one: both newsmagazines will now be called 60 Minutes).
"My goal is that the viewer sees what they've come to expect . . . interesting stories well told by the same familiar faces you've grown used to over the years," he said. "There's no pressure for me to come in and add bells and whistles. The pressure on me is to continue the grand tradition of the place."
An affable executive with a gift for tact and a nice-guy demeanor, Fager often seems the polar opposite of the volatile, blunt Hewitt. When we meet, he is watching a videotape of correspondent Lara Logan's recent appearance on The Late, Late Show with Craig Kilborn, chortling over the host's seeming infatuation with his reporter.
But Fager and Hewitt share a passion for chasing the big stories, using well-known correspondents to tell compelling stories through interesting people at the heart of the action.
Over the past few months, both 60 Minutes and 60 II have garnered attention for serious scoops. 60 Minutes had former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, former terrorism adviser Richard Clarke and journalist Bob Woodward offering damaging assessments of the Bush administration's Iraq policies. 60 Minutes II aired the first pictures of Iraqi prisoner abuse.
And on June 20, 60 Minutes will air an entire hour devoted to President Bill Clinton and his new memoir My Life (unlike books by Clarke, O'Neill and Woodward, it is not published by a company owned by CBS corporate parent Viacom). "It turns out, when people have something of importance to say, the first place they think of is 60 Minutes," said Hewitt.
In the case of the Iraqi prison scandal, Fager credits "old fashioned shoe-leather reporting" for the scoop that shook the war effort to its core.
"We got a tip from someone who had seen (the photos) and said, "This is outrageous, but you've got to get them on your own,"' said Fager. "So our producers chased down every single person in that unit. They put postings on Web sites, looking for everyone in that unit who'd come home and might have them. And when we finally got them . . . we knew it would be explosive."
The result: congressional hearings, an avalanche of media coverage, plunging poll numbers for President Bush and promises to revamp procedures for interrogating Iraqi prisoners.
Fager said viewer response was divided evenly between those who supported the story and those who didn't; conservative Web site Newsmax.com posted a letter reportedly from pop crooner Pat Boone comparing 60 Minutes to Benedict Arnold.
"That's one of the hard things about the story: We knew this was going to be one of the most negative stories to impact this effort . . . (where) real solid American citizens are fighting and dying over there," said Fager, who nevertheless held off broadcasting the story for two weeks at the request of military officials.
"I always think of the traditional definition of news: anything someone else is trying to hide," he said. "Everything else is advertising. And the more they don't want it out, the bigger the story is going to be."
Meanwhile, rival newsmagazines have focused more on celebrity news and human-interest stories.
Executives at NBC, which has been criticized for devoting five hours of Dateline NBC to Friends, Frasier and The Apprentice in recent weeks, strenuously deny any lack of commitment to hard news.
"When you look at the Friends and Frasier examples . . . I think a lot of that criticism was completely unwarranted," said Jeff Zucker, head of NBC Universal Television Group, noting that rival ABC interviewed several Friends stars for finale stories. "Why should we let ABC interview all of our stars and take advantage, just because we might get some criticism from the St. Petersburg Times?"
Certainly, CBS News has its weak spots, using its Early Show to shill for the network's reality series and turning its 48 Hours newsmagazine into a cavalcade of crime stories next season.
But Fager remains committed to keeping such corporate logrolling away from 60 Minutes, despite the initial failure to report that Clarke's book was published by Viacom-owned Simon & Schuster (their story on Woodward's book noted the corporate connection).
"We are not going to do the one-hour special for Everybody Loves Raymond's departure . . . (because) any viewers who tuned in and saw us doing that would leave in a heartbeat," Fager said.
Hewitt had a simple explanation for the success of 60 Minutes.
"Find (sources) who can tell the story better than you can, and hire the right people to help them tell it," said the producer, who has often said the show's focus can be summed up in four words: Tell me a story.
"You know what I compete with? Not Primetime or 20/20, but this," Hewitt said, holding up a TV remote control. "It's sitting on the couch next to every television viewer in America. . . . It's like a gun, (clicks remote) You're dead. (clicks again) You're dead. So many TV producers don't understand; that's what they're facing all the time."
