Don Hewitt (born December 14, 1922) is a Jewish-American television news producer and executive, associated since 1948 with CBS.
Hewitt is best known for inventing 60 Minutes, the CBS news magazine he created in 1968 and currently the longest-running prime time broadcast on American television.
Hewitt stepped aside as executive producer in 2004 at 81. He is an eight-time Emmy Award winner.
Hewitt attended New York University and started his journalism career in 1942 as head copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune. He started at CBS News in 1948 and served as producer-director of the network's evening news broadcast for 14 years. He was also the first director of the landmark documentary news program See It Now, coproduced by host Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly.
Hewitt later became executive producer of the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.
Hewitt is the author of Tell Me a Story: Fifty Years and 60 Minutes in Television, in which he chronicles his life as a newsman. He is also the author of the book Minute by Minute, a look at the history of 60 Minutes.
