(cbs) Don Hewitt, recognized as a father of modern television news and the creator of the medium's most successful broadcast, 60 Minutes, died of pancreatic cancer Wednesday. He was 86 and had homes in Manhattan and Bridgehampton, New York, where was with family at the time of death. Hewitt was executive producer of CBS News, the title he took when he stepped down from his post as executive producer of 60 Minutes in 2004. Hewitt's remarkable career in journalism spanned over 60 years, virtually all of it at CBS. As a young producer/director assisting at the birth of television news, it was usually Hewitt behind the scenes directing legendary CBS News reporters like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, using a playbook he had to write himself. He played an integral role in all of CBS News' coverage of major news events from the late 1940s through the 1960s, putting him in the middle of some of history's biggest events, including one of politics' seminal moments: the first televised presidential debate in 1960.

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