Watchman

About a decade or so ago, a local news manager I was close to told me a story about Don Hewitt.

He said that when Hewitt and Mike Wallace -- the creator and executive producer of 60 Minutes and the show's legendary investigative reporter, respectively -- visited a meeting of CBS affiliate managers, they addressed the troops then made themselves available for a Q & A session. After a little perfunctory back-and-forth, someone asked a question that made perfect sense given that, to some extent, the future of CBS News could eventually hinge on its answer: "What's going to happen to 60 Minutes and CBS's news operation in general once you guys either retire or die?"

According to the story, Hewitt and Wallace stopped -- seemingly taken aback -- looked at each other, and then Hewitt leaned into the mic and said, "Well, to be honest we haven't really considered that."

That was Don Hewitt to a T: a man who was so strong in his convictions, so dedicated to his vision, such a force of goddamned nature, that he couldn't imagine a time that he and his hand-picked crew weren't at the helm of 60 Minutes -- let alone a time when he and guys like Wallace had actually succumbed to something as ephemeral as death.

A lot of people might chalk this up to arrogance, and in a lot of ways they'd be right. After all, Don Hewitt was the man who famously said that just about every television show in the last half-century has attempted to emulate 60 Minutes. That's not a far-fetched claim when it comes to news shows; most TV news programs would kill for the kind of audience, accolades and enduring legacy 60 Minutes has had. When it comes to quality of journalism, nothing really comes close -- and from the very beginning, Hewitt was the show's ringmaster.

And now he's gone.

That he leaves us so soon after the death of another CBS News legend, Walter Cronkite, seems like some cosmic joke -- although a strangely appropriate one, given that Hewitt and Cronkite represented two sides of the same gleaming coin. Cronkite was kindly and avuncular, even as he dodged bullets in Vietnam; Hewitt was tough as nails -- a brash and ballsy showman who somehow perfectly meshed journalism and entertainment, generally without tarnishing the former's standing. Both men, however, were consummate professionals -- dedicated first and foremost to living up the reputation of guys like Murrow and Sevareid and to furthering the Tiffany Network's prestige when it came to responsibility in broadcast news.

Hewitt was everything a good news producer is: smart, resourceful, clever, quick on his feet, a masochistic workaholic, a bit of a con-man, a referee, a politician, a major pain-in-the-ass, and a seemingly bottomless reservoir of ideas.

He'll be sorely missed.

But how many people get to leave behind a legacy like 60 Minutes?

AP: Don Hewitt, Inventor of 60 Minutes, Dead at 86/8.9.09