60 Minutes Creator, CBS News Executive Producer, Highlights 2008 Symposium
The Thirty-fourth Edward R. Murrow Symposium at Washington State University honored Don Hewitt, creator of 60 Minutes and CBS News executive producer, with the 2008 Edward R. Murrow Award for Lifetime Achievement in Broadcast Journalism.
Hewitt directed and produced numerous news broadcasts and the first televised presidential debates in 1960 between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. He has received many accolades for his work, including eight Emmy Awards, two George Foster Peabody Awards, and, most recently, the American Federation of Television and Radio Actors George Heller Lifetime Achievement Award.
Despite his extensive career, Hewitt is best known for creating the most successful and longest-running prime time broadcast in history, the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes. Currently in its fortieth season, 60 Minutes offers investigative reports, interviews, and features about people in the news.
Previous winners of Murrow Awards include David Fanning, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Daniel Schorr, Walter Cronkite, Sam Donaldson, and Bernard Shaw.
Complementing the Edward R. Murrow Symposium are an annual scholarship banquet hosted the evening of the symposium, panels and workshops held throughout the day for students of WSU, the University of Idaho, and high schools nationwide, and the annual Edward R. Murrow High School Journalism Awards Competition.
For more information about any of the Murrow Symposium activities, contact the Murrow Symposium.