Don Hewitt Biography

Fast Facts

• His interest in reporting began when he was a boy and, in the seventh grade, he won a Best Editorial contest in an issue of Junior Scholastic
• Wrote a sports column for his school newspaper called Athlete's Footnotes
• In 1942, began his career by reporting for the Pelham Sun during the day and moonlighting as head copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune
• Met reporter Andy Rooney while in London as a merchant-marine correspondent during World War II
• Directed the first televised network newscast for CBS on May 3, 1948
• Produced the first 1960 Presidential debate between John F
• Kennedy and Richard Nixon
• Produced and directed news programs featuring Douglas Edwards, Edward R
• Murrow and Walter Cronkite
• Devised the use of cue cards for newscasters
• Was the executive producer and creator of the revolutionary newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which launched on September 24, 1968
• Was the subject of the 1999 movie The Insider, about his decision to not air a controversial whistle-blowing report on the tobacco industry
• Author of Minute by Minute (1985) and Tell Me a Story: 50 Years and 60 Minutes in Television (2001)
• Stepped down from 60 Minutes in 2004; during his tenure the show won more than 70 Emmys and nine Peabody Awards