E-mail a friendDon Hewitt
airdate April 1, 2005
Award-winning producer Don Hewitt is credited with creating the news magazine format. His groundbreaking 60 Minutes program is the most-watched news broadcast in TV history. Hewitt began his career in print journalism and started with CBS as an associate director. In his 50+ years with the net, he pioneered work in producing and directing broadcasts of the world's major news events, including the first televised presidential debate. Hewitt's accomplishments have earned him a place in the Television Academy Hall of Fame.
Don Hewitt
Tavis: Our first guest tonight is not only a New York icon, but certainly a giant in all of journalism. He is Don Hewitt, creator and long-time executive producer of '60 Minutes.' His 50-plus-year career in TV is one of the most impressive and has left an indelible imprint on this medium, a medium he helped define with groundbreaking events like the first televised presidential debate 45 years ago. The year was 1960. I wasn't even born yet. The candidates were Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy.
Narrator: Kennedy's greatest impact came from the medium he had now mastered. Nixon was vastly more experienced on television, but the cameras did not do him justice. Kennedy seemed a natural. With the first of an unprecedented series of debates, Nixon, who normally had excellent health, was in pain from an injured knee. Kennedy, so often ill, had never been better.
Tavis: Don Hewitt joins us tonight from New York City. Mr. Hewitt, nice to have you on the program. We're honored, sir.
Don Hewitt: Well, you're no more honored than I am.
Tavis: Well, that's awfully kind of you to say. We just saw a clip with you talking to Richard Nixon on the eve of that debate back in 1960. I want to start there. Because this time around, that is to say a few months ago in November, with all due respect to Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry, because the lines are so rehearsed, I got tired of seein' these guys after the first couple of debates, and we saw them 4 or 5 times this last time around, it seems like. How did that first televised presidential debate change presidential candidate politics as we know it?
Hewitt: Well, it's the first time America ever saw 2 candidates in their living room together.
Tavis: Mm-hmm.
Hewitt: And it was no contest. Nixon looked green, sallow, banged his knee on the car getting out of it, had had a staphylococcus infection, wasn't up to it. Jack Kennedy walked into that studio like he owned it. You know, he looked like a Harvard undergrad. He was perfectly tailored, perfectly groomed, tanned, tall, fit, and I think that night, I think we got the right candidate for the wrong reason. He looked better, and looking better is how you oughta pick Miss America, but not necessarily your president.
Tavis: Yeah.
Hewitt: But I think we got the right one.
Tavis: Let me ask you, 'cause what we're really talkin' about here, it seems to me, is symbolism versus substance. Tell me whether or not these debates these many years later, 45 years later, these presidential debates really do allow us to tap into the substance or are they still about symbolism?
Hewitt: They're still about symbolism. Let me tell you a terrible thing about debates. The first debate was the night that the people, the politicians looked at us and said, "Those guys are the only way to campaign," and we looked at them, and we said, "Those guys are a bottomless pit of advertising dollars," and from that day on, you cannot even think about running for office in the greatest democracy on earth unless you got money for television time, and you can't get money for television time unless you're doing something with a lobbyist you shouldn't be doing. It has always got marked down as a milestone in American politics. It wasn't a very good one. The symbiotic relationship between television and politicians has gotta end. You know the phrase "fundraiser"?
Tavis: Mm-hmm.
Hewitt: I never heard that before that first debate. Now the fundraisers are all about raising money for television time.
Tavis: Well, since you mentioned advertising, let me cut in right quick and ask you how advertising or the impetus, the demand, quite frankly, for news to raise more and more advertising dollars for the network, how has that changed news as we know it?
Hewitt: Well, in a crazy way, I think I did that. I think we--I, in particular, are responsible. I developed a broadcast called '60 Minutes' which took documentaries, took 'em down to their bare bones, had 'em broadcast by recognizable faces and voices and names. At that point, the documentaries were sort of--they were like holier-than-thou television. People watched documentaries for the same reason they went to church 'cause they thought they had to, and it changed television in such a way that '60 Minutes' made a profit of 3.2 million--billion. Start again.
Tavis: Ha ha ha.
Hewitt: We made a profit--
Tavis: That's a big difference, isn't it?
Hewitt: Yeah. $2.2 billion we put in the CBS coffers, and that was unheard of for a news broadcast. So from that day on, they assumed that the obligation--it all started when the only way you could get a license to broadcast was to do public service, and the Bill Paleys and the David Sarnoffs, the Leonard Goldensons came to the conclusion that if they ran a news division, they would be discharging their public service, and they never thought of it as anything other than the way they got licenses to broadcast, and after I came along, God help us, where they made money, they decided all the news shows had to make money to stay on the air, and I'm not sure that a day is not coming when all of news is gonna go over to all news stations. I mean, I know for a fact that CBS was talking about buying CNN, and I would think if they had, they would have moved all the news over there. I don't know if they really like being in the news business.
Tavis: Wow. Let me ask you since you were such an innovator back in the day, how it is that we get young people, no matter whether or not we get to that point, where all the news gets, for lack of a better phrase, downloaded onto cable to your point. No matter what the solution is long term, how do we get young people to watch, to care about news? CBS, your network, is trying to figure out now what they're gonna do post-Dan Rather. There's talk they're tryin' to reach out to a younger audience. Any ideas on how that might work successfully?
Hewitt: Sure. Sure. But they--somehow, they resist it. I think the way to reach a younger audience is to have 5 very good columnists. One Monday, one Tuesday, one Wednesday, one Thursday, one Friday. Suppose you did a 2-minute column at the end of the news and Jon Stewart did one and Ellen Degeneres did one and Chris Buckley did one, and then on Friday night, I'd get the editor of some college newspaper to do one. That's how you're gonna bring--
Tavis: I accept! I accept! I accept!
Hewitt: You got it.
Tavis: OK. Ha ha ha.
Hewitt: But that's the only way. Why do people read newspapers? To read columnists. They don't read it to find out what happened. They find out what happened on CNN. And the sooner television realizes that the Andy Rooney-type things that I did were gangbusters with college kids, they'll begin to lower the demographic.
Tavis: What is the enduring legacy of what you and the crew were able to do at '60 Minutes'?
Hewitt: Well, they're not building on it. The next thing is to take some of what I did and incorporate it into evening newscasts. You know, the evening newscasts were a popularity contest. There was no difference in any of 'em. It was like Miss America. Who do you like best? You like Rather, you like Brokaw, you like Jennings, that's who you watched. It wasn't the substance. It was the person. If you want to attract kids, you gotta start giving them outrageous opinions, not necessarily irresponsible, but responsible but slightly outrageous. That's where these kids spark to. Or else, forget about demographics.
Tavis: Let me ask you right quick. We got about 2 minutes to go here. Let me ask you right quick. I don't want to rehash what happened to Dan Rather, but I'm curious as to your thoughts. 'Cause I got my own, but that's not important. What did you make of the hullabaloo that was made over his stepping down? The independent investigative report found out that politics did not play a part in that story about President Bush not serving, when he served, et cetera, et cetera. The report finds out that politics did not play a role in that process, and yet, politics was made out of his stepping down. How did you view that?
Hewitt: Well, I have a very narrow view of that whole thing. I am outraged that 5 of Rather's underlings walked the plank and he never raised a finger to save them, and that's the only thing I have against--I would have bet big money that Dan Rather would not have allowed that to happen. I thought that was not part of his makeup, and when 5 people got fired for flawed reporting and the guy who did the flawed reporting didn't raise a finger to save them, I was shocked, 'cause I thought that was out of character.
Tavis: Well, I gotta get you to come out of your shell the next time you come on the show, and be a little bit more
Hewitt: You tell me when.
Tavis: I'll set it up. Mr. Hewitt, honored to have you on the program, sir.
Hewitt: See ya.
Tavis: All the best to you. Up next on this program, speaking of Brooklyn, New York, Emmy-winning actor Jimmy Smits. Stay with us.
Back to April 1, 2005