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Hewitt was born in the city and was raised in New Rochelle, N.Y. After dropping out of New York University, Hewitt began his journalism career as a copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune.

He joined CBS News in 1948, where he worked for the next 56 years. A pioneer in television news, he worked on the first network television newscast in 1948 with Douglas Edwards, the landmark series "See It Now" with Edward R. Murrow and the first 30-minute newscast in 1963 with Walter Cronkite.

Hewitt also produced the first televised presidential election debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960.

His greatest work came in 1968, when Hewitt created "60 Minutes," a pioneer hour-long newsmagazine program that mixed hard news with feature stories and profiles. He called the result a "Life Magazine of the airwaves."

He stepped down as the show's executive editor in 2004, and in a NY1 interview from that year he likened his career to a fantasy land.

"Sometimes I have difficulty realizing I was at Queen Elizabeth's coronation. That's 50 years ago. I was at Grace Kelly's wedding, I went to India with [President Dwight D.] Eisenhower when he went to see [India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal] Nehru," said Hewitt. "I was at [Pope] John XXIII's coronation, I was at [Winston] Churchill's funeral. I sat in a box at Ebbets Field with [sportscaster] Red Barber when Jackie Robinson was breaking into baseball. And I keep saying to myself, 'Did all that happen or did I dream it?' Sometimes I don't know."

CBS Corporation President Leslie Moonves said in a statement, "In the history of journalism, there have been few who were as creative, dynamic and versatile as Don Hewitt."

Hewitt is survived by his wife Marilyn and four children. He died in his home in Bridgehampton, N.Y., one month after the passing of Cronkite, another giant of CBS News.