’60 Minutes’ of fame
Respected journalist and creator/producer of the award-winning television show “60 Minutes” Don Hewitt will receive the 2002 Algur H. Meadows Award for Excellence in the Arts Saturday at the Meadows School of the Arts.
Hewitt, whose “career achievements place [him] at the pinnacle of [his] profession,” as Meadows Dean Carole Brandt put it, will be the 17th recipient of the award for Excellence in the Arts.
Hewitt participated in an open forum Wednesday evening at Caruth Auditorium titled “A Conversation with Don Hewitt.” Lee Cullum, a contributing columnist to The Dallas Morning News, opened the forum discussing Hewitt’s life and career and moderated while members of the audience questioned Hewitt.
Hewitt spoke briefly about Tuesday night’s elections, saying “the leadership [in America] is not up to the time we live in.”
“[I am] still waiting for another Roosevelt, Eisenhower or Truman,” Hewitt said. “There’s no way to run for office in the democratic country without having enough money to buy television time. It’s disgusting.”
With as much experience as Don Hewitt has had with politics, he is an authority on the subject. Hewitt has spent 54 years at CBS News and is credited with inventing many of television’s news-reporting methods. He produced and directed numerous broadcasts of the world’s major news events during television’s infancy, including the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, the installation of Pope John XXIII in 1958 and the first face-to-face television debate between presidential nominees John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon during the 1960 campaign. However, Hewitt is best known for “60 Minutes,” the groundbreaking news broadcast he created in 1968.
“60 Minutes” introduced the newsmagazine format to television and has been widely copied ever since. It was the first news program to break into the Nielsen Top 10, and it has remained the highest rated public news program for more than 30 years.
Born in 1922 in New York City, Hewitt attend New York University on a full scholarship for a year, before leaving to pursue a career in journalism. His first job was as a copy boy for The New York Herald-Tribune.
From 1943 to 1945, Hewitt worked as a war correspondent in both the European and Pacific theaters. After the war, he became an editor for the Associated Press’ Memphis bureau, and remained in publishing until 1948. It was then that Hewitt began his long-term association with CBS News.
Twenty years later, Hewitt created the first newsmagazine, “60 Minutes”. Using multiple anchors, each concentrating on a separate story, the program worked to provide in-depth coverage on a number of different topics. Unlike the nightly news, “60 Minutes” had the time to provide both the history and editorial commentary on the issues at hand.
Throughout the years, Hewitt has received every honor that can be given to a man in his position. The winner of eight Emmys, he was awarded the Founders Emmy by the International Council of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1995. He has also been honored by nearly every major university journalism program, including Columbia University, University of Missouri, Brandeis University and the University of California at Berkeley.
