• The Washington Post, Wednesday, August 19, 2009 10:27 PM

The news yesterday was filled with notices about the death of "60 Minutes" creator Don Hewitt, 86, an industry pioneer. Hewitt transformed television journalism by showing that news programs could generate money. He also helped make TV an essential part of politics when he produced and directed the first televised debate between U.S. presidential candidates.

Hewitt spent his career at CBS News and directed programs of early TV news giants Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow. With the debut of "60 Minutes" in 1968, Hewitt merged elements of news and entertainment and shattered the traditional view that news divisions were run as a public trust with little concern for income. His key insight was to combine the prestige surrounding the network's documentary unit with the editorial and visual pacing of an entertainment show.

Hewitt also was a central voice in the 1990s debates over corporate censorship in journalism when network executives interfered with a "60 Minutes" segment on a tobacco industry whistleblower. Hewitt's impact on television was almost unparalleled, says Marvin Kalb, founding director of Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy and a former news reporter for CBS.

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