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Chapter 23

All Due Respect

Ever since the
1970
s, the staff of
60 Minutes
had enjoyed a peculiar perk not shared by anyone else at CBS News or anywhere else in the world of television news. It was one treasured by all those who worked there, described in hushed, reverent tones as perhaps the single best thing about the job: the July vacation. Instead of everyone juggling to squeeze rest into the tiny gaps between the constant editing, reporting, and traveling that came with producing
30
fresh episodes of
60 Minutes
every season, they all waited until the season ended in June, then shut down the office completely and took off. After three decades of this, the vacation period had recently begun to slide backward, extending into late June. By mid-June of
2002
, many
60 Minutes
employees were already taking long lunches, going shopping in the afternoons, and solidifying travel plans. By July
1
, the office was completely shut down except for a skeleton crew in place for emergencies. Otherwise, everyone had disappeared.

But on July
6
,
2002
, an article appeared in
TV Guide
that disrupted the vacations of several members of the
60 Minutes
team. The article, headlined “The Clock's Ticking,” carried a telling subtitle: “CBS Insiders Suggest
60 Minutes
Has Lost the Old Hewitt Edge.” The piece, written by J. Max Robins, contended (based on anonymous quotes from a “CBS insider,” a “
60 Minutes
insider,” and a “Hewitt supporter”) that
60 Minutes II
was “journalistically sharper” and speculated that its executive producer, Jeffrey Fager, would have control of both shows by the
2003
–
2004
season. This marked the first time Heyward's plan for an eventual transition had made it into print. Despite vehement denials from CBS management, it was clear that someone with a lot of inside information—someone who wanted Hewitt out—had talked to Robins.

The most explosive elements of the story were the news that the Fager succession plan was already in place and the suggestion that Hewitt would not accept a forced retirement from his job without a fight. “Everybody would like an orderly transition, but Don may not make that so easy,” Robins quoted his ubiquitous “CBS insider” source, characterized as neither a friend nor a foe of Hewitt. “[CBS News president Andrew] Heyward knows this all too well, so he's been tiptoeing around the situation for months.” The article even mentioned the specifics of Heyward's plan to put
60 Minutes II
senior producer Patti Hassler in charge of day-to-day operations for that show, while
60 Minutes
senior producer Josh Howard would handle similar duties for the flagship show. It even reported Scheffler's imminent retirement—which had been pushed back, after all the protest, until June
2003
.

 

Months later, after constant steaming to colleagues and friends about the
TV Guide
article and Heyward's plans to remove him as executive producer, Hewitt at last decided to go public with his campaign to keep his job. He invited Jim Rutenberg, a television reporter for the
New York Times
, to his office on November
19
,
2002
, for an interview in which he handed the reporter a blueprint for his planned defense strategy. He was hoping to garner public outrage of the sort that surfaced a year earlier, after the
Times
reported that ABC was considering the possibility of replacing its beloved
Nightline
and Ted Koppel with late-night comedy host David Letterman.

“CBS Wants
60 Minutes
Chief to Hand Over Stopwatch,” read the headline of the Rutenberg piece, which ran across the top of the business section the next Monday, right before Thanksgiving. Not exactly the story Hewitt had counted on, it portrayed Hewitt as a difficult manager who “sometimes has trouble hearing in the screening room” and was not yet willing to consider an orderly transition to a new team. It quoted correspondent Ed Bradley as advocating more flexibility from Hewitt: “Whoever the successor to Don is,” Bradley told the
Times
, “maybe Don could walk with him part of the way. . . . I'd like to see Don welcome somebody. Is that going to happen? I don't know, that's up to Don.”

While the story went to some length to note Hewitt's considerable achievements, its ambivalent tone ended up leaving both sides unhappy. CBS in particular wasn't pleased with the chart on the front page of the
Times
business section that illustrated the steady decline of the show's ratings in recent years. Josh Howard told colleagues he was annoyed that Heyward hadn't given any quotes at all in support of
60 Minutes,
let alone Hewitt. It's likely that those complaints led to Betsy West's letter to the editor published in the
Times
a few days later, filled with praise of
60 Minutes
and, specifically, its coverage of the World Trade Center attacks.

Hewitt professed to be happy with the piece, but, ever mindful of the importance of spin, realized he needed to provoke a second burst of media interest to keep his campaign afloat. He arranged to go on
Larry King Live
for the full hour on the night of December
2
,
2002
. Hewitt had been on Larry King's show before, of course; all the
60 Minutes
correspondents gathered, with Hewitt, for a
1998
appearance in connection with the show's thirtieth anniversary. And from time to time, correspondents appeared individually as guests, as did Andy Rooney. But this would mark the first time Hewitt by himself had ever commanded the entire hour.

King launched the interview (on a split screen from Los Angeles) by reading a quote from the
Times
story:

 

K
ING
: “Mr. Hewitt likes to say that he would die at his desk before relinquishing his position, and that he really means it. But CBS executives are insisting that he prepare to step aside, seeking to put new zest on the venerable program. They want to replace him most probably with the
47
-year-old Jeffrey Fager, a former Hewitt protégé and the producer of
60 Minutes II
.”

Mr. Hewitt, the stage is yours. What about this?

H
EWITT
: Well, I still intend to die at my desk. I never said where that was. I would like it to be at CBS.

 

Later in the interview he told King that he'd “already had two job offers.” One of them, it was suggested later, was an offer from Fox News executive Roger Ailes, for the
7
:
00
P.M.
Sunday night time slot on Fox. The nature of the second offer was never made clear.

 

H
EWITT
: I think the problem is that they don't know that I'm not the ordinary, run-of-the-mill, everyday
80
-year-old. . . .

K
ING
: Knowing you, you must have picked up a phone when the story ran and called the powers that be and said, “What's the story?”

H
EWITT
: Well, I know what the story is, but I have a feeling that whatever they've sort of decreed, I think they're having some second thoughts. I mean, that may be wishful thinking and I may find out tomorrow morning that I was kidding myself, but I got a feeling that—I can't believe Mel Karmazin and Leslie Moonves are going to run a network based on not how good you are, but how old you are.

 

Hewitt then launched into his standard defense of the show, citing ratings, demographics, and his endlessly repeated hunch that the emphasis of advertisers on the
18
–
49
age group is the result of “a bunch of kids in advertising agencies getting even with their parents” for not letting them watch TV on a school night.

As King pressed him on his reaction to the
New York Times
piece, Hewitt implied that the story was planted by CBS News—and revived the J. Max Robins
TV Guide
piece as evidence that someone in the news division was out to make him look bad. As for the
Times
report that his hearing has suffered, Hewitt declared testily, “That's absolutely untrue.”

Even King's callers seemed fascinated by the succession issue, with questions like this one from a viewer in Birmingham, Michigan.

 

C
ALLER
: Mr. Hewitt, with all due respect to your fabulous career—hello?

H
EWITT
: Anything that starts with all due respect, look out.

C
ALLER
: O.K. With all due respect to your fabulous career, don't you think it's time for you, Morley Safer, Mike Wallace, and Ed Bradley to step aside and let a younger group come in and take over where you left off in such great grace?

H
EWITT
: Why do you want a younger group to take over? Are you dissatisfied with what you see on
60 Minutes
?

C
ALLER
: A little bit.

H
EWITT
: Well, I'm sorry to hear that.

K
ING
: How about the old adage, which is what she's calling about, hey, sometimes it's time to move aside?

H
EWITT
: Yeah. And what, and let them do to you what the network did to Ted Turner? I mean, it wasn't time for Ted Turner to move aside, but somebody decided that maybe they ought to move him out of here. That guy was as close to being a broadcasting genius as there ever was and he's not around anymore.

No, I think the part—why doesn't somebody start a younger
60 Minutes?
Go ahead. Take a
60 Minutes
and find a whole bunch of young guys and program it for younger people.

K
ING
: Is that what
60 Minutes II
is?

H
EWITT
: No,
60 Minutes II
is a carbon copy of us. Now, if they are unhappy with the demographics that we reach, why do they make a carbon copy? Why didn't they do a different show? I don't understand that.

 

Andrew Heyward, watching the show, didn't agree at all with Hewitt's contention that CBS wanted him out because of his age; he had great respect for Hewitt and the show he'd created. But he just needed to ensure its longevity by lining up a successor. Why couldn't Hewitt understand that? It was clear to Heyward that Hewitt wanted a battle and would continue to play it out in public in the worst possible way.

But for fun, Heyward was contradicting Hewitt's answers in his head—imagining what Hewitt would say if he were being completely honest. He was especially amused when King asked Hewitt about his reaction to the
New York Times
article. King presumed that Hewitt would immediately call his bosses to ask them if the story were true. “But you did not pick up a phone,” King asked Hewitt, sounding incredulous, “and call and say, ‘What's the story?' You did not do that?”

Of course he did not do that, Larry, shouted the voice in Heyward's head, laughing. Because he planted the story himself!

 

On the night of December
14
,
2002
, less than two weeks later, Heyward headed downtown for what promised to be the most awkward social event of the season: Don Hewitt's
80
th birthday party.

It had been decided by management that the event should take place in public, not in some private room somewhere; and so several tables had been reserved in a private alcove at Eleven Madison Park, an elegant East Side restaurant with high ceilings, strong drinks, and rich desserts. The guest list included all the correspondents of
60 Minutes,
of course, as well as the senior producing staff of the show—Phil Scheffler, Esther Kartiganer, Merri Lieberthal, and Josh Howard. The CBS contingent included not only Heyward and Betsy West but also CBS chairman Leslie Moonves and his boss, Viacom vice chairman Mel Karmazin. Hewitt was seated with the CBS honchos, while the rest of the correspondents were scattered at smaller adjacent tables.

Much time was devoted to a series of gifts and toasts that deflected attention from the acrimony between Hewitt and the network that was paying for his party tonight. Foremost among the gifts was a large pink elephant brought to the restaurant by Betsy West, meant to symbolize the proverbial unseen
800
-pound elephant that was filling the cavernous restaurant. West had neatly captured the spirit of the dinner, a boisterous and friendly affair of drinking and toasting and celebration—albeit with an undertone of odd discomfort. A signed
60 Minutes
cover from Heyward included the inscription “Let's celebrate your
85
th together”—a statement that could have been construed as wishful thinking in light of Hewitt's threat on
Larry King Live
to leave CBS if he was removed from his job at
60 Minutes.