Mr. Hewitt, who spent more than a half century at CBS News, helped create 60 Minutes, and worked extensively with the late Walter Cronkite, who recently passed away.

Earlier this year, Mr. Hewitt had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

More from CBS News:

Hewitt also directed the first network television newscast, featuring Douglas Edwards, on May 3, 1948. He was the executive producer of the first half-hour network newscast when the CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite became the first to go to a 30-minute format on Sept. 2, 1963. Among Hewitt's innovations was the use of cue cards for newsreaders, the electronic version of which, the TelePrompTer, is still used today. He was the first to use "supers" - putting type in the lower third of the television screen. Another invention of Hewitt's was the film "double" - cutting back and forth between two projectors - an editing breakthrough that re-shaped television news. Hewitt also helped develop the positioning of cameras and reporters still used to cover news events, especially political conventions.

Hewitt had seemingly done it all for broadcast news when he topped those achievements by producing his magnum opus, the television news magazine 60 Minutes - a new concept that changed television news forever and became the biggest hit in the medium’s history. "His real monument is 60 Minutes," said another broadcasting legend, the late Roone Arledge, when he presented Hewitt with the Founder’s Emmy in 1995. "He is truly an innovator in this business…[the news magazine] is an innovative format no one had done before. It's been copied all over the world…He's been a leader in our industry. He has inspired all sorts of people," said Arledge.

So it came as no surprise when, on Friday, Oct. 24, producers at 60 Minutes began mumbling about a letter the TV legend had allegedly typed up--and some said circulated--in which Mr. Hewitt criticized CBS News as a broken organization littered with failing news programs and proposed that CBS News reconsider his forced retirement in June 2004.

After all, Don Hewitt was just being honest. He had invented the best thing CBS News ever had, and he knew best how to run it.

Reached for comment, Mr. Hewitt admitted the letter existed, but he said he never actually sent it to management.

“I was talking about doing it and never did and decided it wasn’t called for and I’m happier than hell,” he said. “If it’s written, then somebody stole it off my word processor. I’m happier than hell. I could not be happier.

“I don’t know of any news organization that couldn’t use some work,” he said of his criticism of CBS News, “from The New York Times on down--including The New York Observer.”

Nobody could disagree with that, and if he could do for this newspaper what he did for CBS News, whoa! Retirement … never! But for one of the cockiest kids in the history of TV, Mr. Hewitt sounded self-deprecating and grateful to the company that has agreed to let him hang around as an executive producer until the year 2013, when he’ll be 90, a stripling compared with some of the yogurt-guzzling supergeezers you see on the air, namely his 60 Minutes co-workers. He is four years younger than Andy Rooney and five younger than Mike Wallace, two bristling journalists who seem about ready to start grappling with their midlife crises.

One CBS executive said Mr. Hewitt often drafted memos and shared them with colleagues to feel out ideas before executing them, but a number of executives also told The Observer that these are difficult days for Mr. Hewitt, who must face separation from his 35-year-old creation, a show that revolutionized TV journalism, and bequeath his duties to the current 60 Minutes II executive producer, 47-year-old Jeffrey Fager. Mr. Hewitt may not be learning the art of the graceful exit, but he’s not doing the opposite.

Nevertheless, the existence--and near public fact--of Mr. Hewitt’s letter only served to underscore the blunt issues surrounding his eventual departure, not only for Mr. Hewitt personally, or even for Mr. Fager, but for the entire 60 Minutes franchise and its particular place in the American culture. For in the vast gloppy landscape of TV, 60 Minutes has held onto its Rooster Cogburn–ish true grit, gristle and stuff. Its integrity and hormonal, jostling personality--pure extensions of Mr. Hewitt’s persona--have not diminished. And when Mr. Hewitt begins his executive departure next summer--and with him, perhaps one or all of the downshifting Big Three correspondents, Ed Bradley, Mike Wallace and Morley Safer--his absence will bring to bear an unavoidable question: Can 60 Minutes, a fundamental function and extension of Don Hewitt’s drive, remain the rough-and-tumble, sentimental, hard-nosed operation it has been?

When Mr. Hewitt leaves, there’s a prospect of 60 Minutes becoming like the competition--a replicant, a kind of Primetime Sunday Dateline U.S.A. III. Don Hewitt is a rarity in TV, an auteur. And they’re not so common. After all, The Tonight Show without Johnny Carson is still on, but it’s just TV, and ABC News without Roone Arledge is just ABC News. But where’s the jet fuel? It’s true that all things must change, but what if they don’t really have to so quickly?

Can Mr. Hewitt’s legacy hover long enough to keep it vital, familiar, needed, protected, the last network appointment news program?

A CBS spokesman said neither Mr. Fager nor CBS News president Andrew Heyward were prepared to talk about it until next year. But a number of CBS employees said that if Mr. Hewitt was suggesting that he’s the Gandalf of West 57th Street, it was a little scary because … it might be true.

And if it were up to many staffers at 60 Minutes, Mr. Hewitt would remain executive producer until his final tick … tick … tick .

“It ain’t broken, we don’t want to fix it,” said one 60 Minutes producer, who, of course, declined to be named. “I’m not anxious to move forward. If it needs new life, new spark, I think Don can provide that himself. Thank God it’s Jeff”--he meant Jeff Fager--“and not somebody from the outside.”

There is widespread belief--let’s call it hope--throughout both 60 Minutes I and II that Mr. Hewitt’s legacy--the brand, the institution--can sustain 60 Minutes without Mr. Hewitt. But that’s mainly because the show won’t be changing much.

“60 Minutes does not condescend to its audience and that’s largely because Don has made it a standard not to do that,” said David Gelber, a producer at the show. “60 Minutes is a haven where you can still respect the audience. You look at stuff like that Elizabeth Smart interview on Sunday”--Katie Couric’s Dateline NBC exclusive that aired Oct. 26--“that’s embarrassing shit. And we don’t do that.”

Mr. Gelber was confident that Mr. Fager would be able to protect the integrity of 60 Minutes. “I think people feel that Fager’s sense is close enough to Don’s sensibility that the quality will be maintained,” he said. “Look at 60 Minutes II. There’s no reason to think that sensibility is going to be lost.”

“I think Don has protected it through its success,” said George Crile, a former producer at 60 Minutes who now produces for Dan Rather at 60 Minutes II, “through his constant capacity to reinvigorate it when it looked like it was going down. I think he will continue to protect it, oddly enough, by the foundation he created. I think there is tremendous opportunity if it’s seized. If Don were younger and intact, the same challenges apply.” Mr. Fager, he said, “has to create a certain sense of excitement and a sense of mission.”

Morley Safer did not expect “volcanic” changes at the newsmagazine under Mr. Fager’s tenure. “I don’t see any eruptive change at all,” said Mr. Safer. “Partly because Jeff is not going to go and prove something. He’s proven what he has to prove already. I’m sure there’s going to be the usual grumbling, and people do that.”

So far, the management philosophy at CBS News is to not rock the barge, to bring in new employees over time, bring co-editor Lesley Stahl and correspondent Bob Simon up front as Mr. Safer and Mr. Wallace scale back, and possibly return Dan Rather to the show he worked on from 1975 to 1981 as a permanent member, should he ever release his own grip on the CBS Evening News desk. The essential format will remain as long as people love it: the ticking clock, the introductions, the three segments--one hard, one semi-hard, one soft--with some Andy Rooney type (someday it’ll probably be old Sarah Vowell) as the after-dinner lecture.

But right now, with the familiar faces, the formula still has a good kick: On Sunday, Oct. 26, the show scored a 10.7--16.2 million viewers--in the Nielsen ratings, broadcasting Ed Bradley’s piece on the Moscow theater hostage crisis, Steve Kroft’s segment on radioactive dumping at Yucca Mountain and Mr. Safer’s look at undercover marketing. Good show; great stories. 60 Minutes is still 60 Minutes.

With ratings for network news descending as the cable supermarket exploded--and 60 Minutes has, despite holding its relative ground, suffered ratings declines in the last five years--one CBS News producer said that CBS News president Andrew Heyward and the rest of CBS management had badly stumbled in coping with the transition, allowing old correspondents to become pretty ancient while not going to the minors to develop new talent.

“As a manager, how could you take that kind of a trademark and allow yourself to get this point?” the producer asked. “Imagine you were running the world and you suddenly discovered everybody was 85 and you hadn’t made plans for next year? Everybody’s taking their long summer vacation and pretending it’s business as usual.”

There seems to be a hunkered-down, change-averse fatalism among some 60 Minutes producers concerning Mr. Hewitt’s departure. Asked if the show would wobble when Mr. Hewitt left, one CBS News producer said, “I can’t buy that. Don is a genius and he’s one of a kind. Whether we like it or not, things change. God willing, it could stay exactly as it was forever. But that’s not an option.”

“The thrust of it is, any news broadcast is going to be better with Don Hewitt than without Don Hewitt,” said another 60 Minutes producer. “That’s a given. This is going to be without Don Hewitt and that’s too bad. But that’s life.”

“In many ways, Don’s dynamism and his enthusiasm were the things that kept 60 Minutes so charged,” said Joel Bernstein, a producer for Bob Simon at 60 Minutes II, who called him “an inspirational kind of guy. You went out and you wanted to please Don. But Don grew into that role. Jeff in a way has a much tougher challenge--how to keep it up. Don was inventing the wheel and just about anything he would put on, people would watch. People tuned in to see what Mike and Morley were doing. That’s not the case now. Because you have so many more choices. I think more people than not will think that’s Jeff’s the guy to do it. You just have to keep the wheel moving.”

Weirdly, what producers at 60 Minutes don’t want is the hiring of some larger-than-life personality who will screw around with the formula: a young Don Hewitt, or Roone Arledge, or--in a Bizzaro CBS universe--a Roger Ailes. They don’t want someone to reconfigure the program in new, risky ways. They want Don’s show.

But life doesn’t necessarily work that way.

In 1998, Chris Wallace, the son of Mike Wallace and a longtime ABC News correspondent, was invited to join 60 Minutes II, but ABC prevented him. With his contract up again this season, Mr. Wallace announced on Monday, Oct. 27, that he would anchor Fox News Sunday . Describing his new boss to The Observer, Chris Wallace sounded a lot like what his father sounded like describing Mr. Hewitt many years ago. “He thinks big and he takes chances,” he said. “In an era of so-called decline in the news business, he’s always thinking of ways to grow his network.”

He was talking about Roger Ailes.

Mr. Wallace said Mr. Hewitt and his father were giants. Whether they were replaceable remained to be seen, but he seemed skeptical.

“As time goes on and you will start to see Scott Pelley and Bob Simon move into those positions,” he said. “Are they giants? Time will tell. They don’t come along very often. Do I have any doubts of their ability to put on a serious, thoughtful, first-rate broadcast? No. Can you capture that lightning in a bottle again? That’s a good question.”

Chris Wallace said that the old guard had protected the franchise from deteriorating under the pressures of demographics, costs and ratings, the stuff often scrutinized by company stockholders. But once that old guard is gone, all bets are off.

“I’m amazed they’re getting those audiences with stories we’d never dream of doing,” he said. “Whether they’ll still watch those kinds of stories just because they’re attached to 60 Minutes, if it’s not Ed and Mike and Morley telling them--they may say this is way too serious and where is Jennifer and Ben? I think 60 Minutes, because of its enormous success, is the most untouchable program in TV news and maybe in all of TV. With a new cast of characters, will it still be untouchable?”

Mr. Wallace didn’t attempt an answer.

“Every program needs a driving force,” said David Corvo, the executive producer of Dateline NBC and a former executive at CBS News. He suggested that 60 Minutes would need someone willing to invigorate the show, as Mr. Hewitt had done many times in his career there. “Don was always quietly reinventing the show,” he said. “It’s not the same show it was 35 years ago. They used to do all the ambush stuff and he decided it had worn out its welcome. When he hadn’t been doing much news and the Gulf War broke out in the early 90’s, he went big time into investigative stuff. The ratings went up, but the quality of the show went up, too.”

For now, Mr. Heyward and CBS News want to maintain and prune 60 Minutes like any other high-quality brand, which means doing everything very slowly and cautiously: introducing new talent, trying to develop flagship correspondents on 60 Minutes II, hoping the viewing public doesn’t flee as Mount Rushmore--Mr. Wallace, Mr. Safer, Mr. Rooney, Mr. Bradley--crumbles and gets replaced by the John Roberts generation. CBS News employees are enthusiastic about Mr. Fager--and insiders point to 60 Minutes senior producer Josh Howard as his likely successor at 60 Minutes II--because he promises to maintain the historic integrity created by Mr. Hewitt.

“They could have gone outside the company and brought in somebody like a former Dateline NBC executive producer,” said Mr. Bernstein. “The fact that they appointed Jeff and are leaning toward Josh is a good sign--even if there are people who believe that Jeff can’t measure up to Hewitt’s size.”

Meanwhile, Morley Safer, 71, wasn’t convinced that he’ll be able to cut back his working time to half time as he had planned on doing earlier next year. “We’ll see if that happens!” Mr. Safer said. “It’s supposed to happen in December, but it may take a little while before it kicks in.”

Tick.

Nearly a year after his retirement, Don Hewitt, the 83-year-old inventor of 60 Minutes, is talking with PBS about creating a new project-an hour-long program consisting of three separate documentary segments.

In other words, Mr. Hewitt's new idea is … 60 Minutes.

"With general reality being shoved aside by NBC, ABC and CBS for contrived reality TV, public television is in a position to bring back CBS-style news," Mr. Hewitt said by phone from his office at West 57th Street. "In that regard, I think an hour of television a week, devoted to two, three or four well-crafted, judiciously edited documentaries on a variety of subjects would be a winner."

Technically, Mr. Hewitt can't pull the trigger on any new projects until his CBS contract expires in June, and he said he doesn't intend to.

But he's ready to dream. And so, he said, he's taken three existing documentaries-"one shocking, one entertaining, one poignant," he said, declining to elaborate-and edited them into an hour-long test pilot. Mr. Hewitt said he gave CBS parent Viacom a first look at his project, in keeping with the terms of his contract. They passed on it, he said.

"I want to do it 60 Minutes–style," said Mr. Hewitt. "I want to take the great moments from documentaries, just like we took great moments from our documentaries and made them 60 Minutes pieces. And I think there's a world of that stuff out there."

As the network newsmagazines fight for air time and the cable-news outlets go on 24-hour tabloid chimney alert, where's well-meaning documentary news to go? Well, PBS. Considering the shrinking air time for network news, PBS could find a huge infusion of available talent in the coming years-for instance, Nightline host Ted Koppel and his longtime executive producer Tom Bettag, who will depart ABC News in December. No, they're not announcing anything, but Mr. Bettag did say PBS had great potential to make up for what's been lost at the networks.

"There is a real opportunity for PBS, in that the networks are under enormous pressure from advertisers to deliver an 18-to-49 audience," said Mr. Bettag, "which is not the easiest news audience to have. If PBS could find a way to deliver news to the 49-plus audience, it would be a real service to the citizenry."

But anyone who wants to create a news show for PBS faces byzantine issues: inconsistent time slots across member stations; in-fighting over political bias; and the need to constantly kiss up to corporate sponsors, who aren't exactly in huge supply right now. Just ask Pat Mitchell, PBS' chief executive, who announced she would step down next year, after suffering the feudal system for five years. That included political heat from Bush Education Secretary Margaret Spellings over the appearance of some lesbian moms who were set to appear in passing on the kids' show Postcards from Buster. (The show was never aired, angering liberals in turn.)

And as it stands, PBS already features a slew of public-affairs programs, including NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Tavis Smiley, Washington Week, Frontline and Wide Angle.

Also: Does anyone really care to watch quality news?

Jim Lehrer, host of NewsHour, attempted to answer that question at a PBS Showcase Meeting in Las Vegas on April 12.

"I hear what some people are saying," he said to an audience of 800 public-television employees. "With all of these other outlets, broadcast and otherwise, who needs public television?"

Mr. Lehrer argued that there was "an increasing need-and demand-within the public for assistance in sorting through it all."

As it stands, he observed, News Hour had three million viewers, "significantly outdrawing CNN, Fox News and MSNBC in our time period."

In July 2003, this incarnation of NYTV began with a story about the future of 60 Minutes, the great ticker of TV news. So it ends with another.

We want to believe, we really do. In fact, we'd like to officially declare long-form investigative journalism narrated by newscasters who add ponderous weight to subjects worthy of ponderous weight the new black. But it's probably more like the new burnt umber.

Close enough. Tonight, Dan Rather puts his reporter's cap back on and investigates celebrity poker on 60 Minutes Wednesday. [WCBS, 2, 8 p.m.]

Thursday, April 21

% What does the future of television hold for Triumph the Insult Comic Dog? Where can we envision his career 10 years from now?

It's a question that only his stage hand can answer.

"For Triumph, he ends up in Branson when he gets tired of touring," Robert Smigel said by phone on Tuesday, April 19. "He wants to get away from the camera, become more of an entrepreneur, produce game shows and salad dressing."

For charity, like Paul Newman?

"A little of it for charity. A small portion," he said. "Hopefully he'll be stinking up someone else's hand."

As for himself, Mr. Smigel had great dreams for the future of television.

"I just want a wider screen," he said. "I don't think the screen is wide enough."

Tonight, no screen is wide enough to capture the unbridled joy of The O.C.'s Seth Cohen (actor Adam Brody) when indie-rockers Death Cab for Cutie make an appearance. It's his dream come true to see those guys!

We don't even know what we're talking about. [Fox, 5, 8 p.m.]

Friday, April 22

& Now that we think about it, PBS has always been kind of punk rock. We recall some lyrics from our favorite song by late 80's punk band the Mice, out of Cleveland, Ohio. It's called "Public Television":

The White House calls it a communist threat

But they ain't seen the last of it yet

Cuz I got this goddamn cerebral contraction

And I can't get no satisfaction

I need public television …

Unfortunately for Mr. Lehrer, The Mice broke up. But maybe he can get Death Cab for Cutie to cover it for the NewsHour theme song. Tonight, the most subversive documentary programming on network TV: America's Funniest Home Videos. [WABC, 7, 8 p.m.]

Saturday, April 23

* To the future captain of the NYTV column, we bequeath the 12-inch Sanyo TV set with an old episode of Tucker Carlson Unfiltered in the VHS player.

Sorry about that. [WNET, 13, 12:30 a.m.]

Sunday, April 24

o Enough about white men who read news off teleprompters!

Let's move on to white men directing lesbian TV sex dramas, as reported by special correspondent Suzy Hansen. [Warning: If you're Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, DO NOT READ THIS!]

The nationwide sexual enlightenment thanks to Showtime's The L Word continues.

In the April 17 episode, fans watched as Latina character Carmen (Sarah Shahi) got out of the shower and straddled her recovering-straight lover Jenny (Mia Kirshner), who was sitting on the toilet. "I need to pee, too," Carmen whispered. And so she did.

Shower scenes are nothing new for premium-cable drama. But a golden-shower scene?

"That was sooooo gross," one poster wrote, alarmed, on Showtime's official message board, which was inundated with postings on the subject. Other viewers were mystified. "I guess that I am a total loser because I don't understand the bathroom scene," another thread began. On Afterellen.com, a commentary site for lesbian and bisexual women, the recap of the scene read: "Either Carmen is fucking Jenny while Jenny pees, or Carmen is peeing while Jenny pees."

According to Ilene Chaiken, the show's creator, there was no either/or about it. "I'm not all that well-versed in water sports," Ms. Chaiken said. "But this is a uniquely lesbian sex act. First, [the director Tony Goldwyn] thought, 'O.K., she's peeing between her legs and that's sexy.' Then, when he realized that she was using the peeing as part of the sex act-that it was direct stimulation-that blew him away."

Besides being directed by Mr. Goldwyn, the episode was written by another man, David Stenn. Both have worked on L Word episodes before. But viewers prone to broad generalizations and gross stereotypes could have been forgiven for suspecting the influence of Y chromosomes on the show: Besides the two-on-the-toilet business, the other sex scenes were unusually long, glowy and beatific in that late-night soft-core way. Phalluses figured prominently in the plot-the bisexual character, Alice, begged her partner, Dana, to wear a strap-on, and a sex-store owner rhapsodized about the many variations of dildos. And a pregnant character had an irrational breakdown that was later attributed to "hormones."

Ms Chaiken said that many women, including herself, had a hand in shaping the golden-shower show. She wouldn't say who had come up with the idea for the toilet scene.

She did, however, note Mr. Goldwyn's curiosity about the act.

"There is a thing that happens when straight men direct the show," Ms. Chaiken said. "Straight men take an approach to it that's different than women. They get really fascinated by the nuances of lesbian sex. They say, 'Oh my god, is that possible?' That's happened with Tony, and it's happened with Burr Steers, another director. Tony just gets kind of thrilled and delighted-but not in a salacious way."

(Mr. Goldwyn referred all questions about the episode to Ms. Chaiken.)

Ms. Chaiken laughed dismissively at the idea that a masculine viewpoint had affected the scene or the show. "I don't ascribe it to a particular male sensibility," she said. "And the hormonal breakdown scene was a lesbian conception."

-Suzy Hansen

[Showtime, 48, 9 p.m.]

Monday, April 25

$ These are godawful times for the TV news business-we were always so depressed at NYTV!-so it's easy to conclude that it's all downhill from here. Looking for answers-for closure, really-we turned to former NBC News anchor and all-around TV legend Tom Brokaw for some wisdom.

"For all of the complaints about Fox, cable-news feeding frenzies, reality overload, remember this: There's also Discovery, History, the Beeb, more Sunday talk, Lehrer, Frontline, C-Span, etc.," said Mr. Brokaw, via e-mail on Monday, April 18. "The viewer also has a role. Remote controls have channel selection and off-on switches."

Mr. Brokaw added that he was currently working on three documentaries, but he couldn't talk about them yet. However, he was departing this week for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Thanks for that report, Mr. Brokaw.

Tonight on NBC, the original Apprentice-that is, Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News. Is it just us, or does Mr. Williams seem like the genetic result of crossing Jimmy Stewart, Paul Lynde and a tangerine? [WNBC, 4, 6:30 p.m.]

Tuesday, April 26

$ Tonight, you can turn on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and just let the laughter and tears come pouring out. We know we will. [WNBC, 4, 11:35 p.m.]

And with that, our time at NYTV is up. We're folding up the bunny ears, packing up the Roone Arledge autobiography and skedaddling. Godspeed, Peter Jennings.

A good deal less has been written about another made-in–New York rivalry, this one between two Democrats: State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and U.S. Senator Charles Schumer may be on a collision course in pursuit of Mr. Pataki’s job in 2006. Mr. Spitzer has made no secret about his ambition to become New York’s next Governor. Mr. Schumer has been a good deal more circumspect—but he has done nothing to dampen speculation that after nearly a quarter-century in Washington, he has his gaze fixed on Albany.

If Mr. Schumer does, in fact, decide he’d rather be Governor of New York than a United States Senator—a curious move in any case—you can be sure that Mr. Spitzer won’t simply fold up and choose to run for re-election as Attorney General. Mr. Spitzer is at the top of his game right now, the most famous state Attorney General in the nation, the scourge of Wall Street’s white-collar crooks and thieving C.E.O.’s. It is impossible to imagine that he’d pass up the chance to capitalize on his well-received crusades against corporate chicanery.

And so New Yorkers face the prospect of a battle of the titans in 2006, with Mr. Schumer and Mr. Spitzer facing off against each other in an expensive Democratic primary. On one hand, such a battle would be reminiscent of some of the state Democratic Party’s epic intra-party battles: Daniel Patrick Moynihan against Bella Abzug in the 1976 U.S. Senate campaign; Ed Koch against Mario Cuomo in the 1982 gubernatorial race; Carl McCall against Andrew Cuomo in the 2002 … well, scratch that last one.

While a Schumer-Spitzer primary would be a truly memorable campaign, in reality, the match-up makes no sense. The two men are mainstream New York Democrats—it’s not as though they disagree on many issues. And let’s bear in mind that both are extremely capable public servants. Mr. Schumer is running for re-election this year against just token opposition, certain proof that he is doing his job well. Mr. Spitzer likewise has demonstrated his skill and leadership in an office not known—until recently—as a highly visible platform.

If the Senator and the Attorney General fight each other in 2006, both are certain to emerge bloodied and perhaps even bowed. If Mr. Schumer loses, he would return to Washington bearing the scars of defeat. If Mr. Spitzer loses, he will be out of office, his promising political career cut short.

The two Democrats have some time before the Governor’s race begins in earnest. Maybe they might try talking to each other in person, instead of through hints and leaks in the press.

60 Minutes Meltdown

It’s hard to believe CBS and 60 Minutes would be in the mess they’re in if Don Hewitt were still running the show. But the 81-year-old Mr. Hewitt hadn’t been out of the executive producer’s chair for more than a few months when 60 Minutes, relying on a highly suspect source, broadcast its now-discredited report on George W. Bush’s National Guard service. The blunder was inflated by the fumes of Dan Rather’s arrogance as he stonewalled for almost two weeks, long after reasonable men and women had concluded that CBS had been hoaxed.

Now comes the latest taint on 60 Minutes ’ legacy: Last week, the news magazine announced that it will withhold broadcasting a story critical of the Bush administration’s rationale for the Iraq war until after the Nov. 2 Presidential election. The segment—which reportedly shows how the Bush administration relied on fake documents to claim that Iraq was trying to buy processed uranium from Niger—has been ready to go since Sept. 8. But CBS got cold feet: "We now believe it would be inappropriate to air the report so close to the Presidential election," said CBS spokeswoman Kelli Edwards.

This can only mean one of two things: The report is full of holes, in which case CBS should never run the story, either before or after the election. Or, more likely, the report is solid and 60 Minutes ’ current executive producer, Jeffrey Fager, is putting the comfort of the Bush administration ahead of 60 Minutes ’ responsibility to its viewers. Indeed, there are indications that CBS is dancing to the tune of a partisan agenda. Sumner Redstone, the chairman of CBS parent company Viacom, recently and crassly announced that he’d be voting for President Bush because "from a Viacom standpoint, the election of a Republican administration is a better deal." Connect the dots, and one could conclude that Mr. Redstone pressured the CBS power elite to delay the uranium story until his man was safely re-elected. Does anyone think Mr. Redstone would have played the thug with Don Hewitt? And even if Mr. Redstone applied no pressure, his publicly proclaiming his vote for Bush was an absurd, narcissistic gesture.

It’s ironic that CBS, without Don Hewitt, finds itself rapidly losing credibility the week of the Presidential debates. It was Mr. Hewitt who directed the first televised debate in 1960. Last year, CBS made clear to Mr. Hewitt that the network had decided to ease him into a comfortable and dignified retirement, though Mr. Hewitt vigorously insisted he’d prefer to remain at his desk until his last breath. CBS persisted, and is now paying the price.

The Anti-Terror Economy: Helping New York Helps the U.S.A.

The numbers are so lopsided, they sound like a joke: Currently, New York State receives $5.47 per resident in federal anti-terrorism funds, while Wyoming receives $38.31 per resident. As has been amply documented, the dispersal of anti-terror money by Congress has little or nothing to do with real threats and everything to do with pork-barrel politics. The so-called Homeland Security director, Tom Ridge, has turned homeland security into just another government-entitlement program. New York and other high-profile targets such as Washington, D.C., deserve not just a fair share of federal anti-terror money—they deserve most of it.

Thanks in part to the 9/11 commission’s report, Republican leaders of Congress are slowly coming around to see that the funding should be tied to the threat of attack. There’s been talk of creating a panel to determine where the money should go—a bureaucratic approach which drew the ire of Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently on his radio show. "Enough with the panels," he said. "We’ve had them. We know who is the target."

The Mayor went on to make the point that more aid to the city would protect the entire country, since New York is the "economic engine of the country, to a great extent." In other words, with the city now spending $500 million per year on security, higher taxes and fewer services are inevitable, which in turn will impact New York’s ability to service our cultural epicenter. And of course, the repercussions—both symbolic and financial—of another massive terror strike on New York would be felt nationwide.

New Yorkers may be guilty of too often thinking that we live at the center of the universe—but when it comes to the economy, we’re not far off. George Bush should understand that an investment in New York would pay off from Miami to Maui.

I know, I know!

But I still can't help feeling sympathy for the old codger. How sad it is to see him looking disheveled and out of it, like King Lear. I know I'm not the only one who feels sorry for him now-stuck in that prison, no more 78 palaces, no more dips in the pool every morning, no more fresh food flown in and prepared by fancy, European-trained chefs.

Fact is, I'm going to miss the guy. After all, he's been in my life for nearly half of it, and he's been America's chief Bad Guy since 1990. I miss the Bond villain Saddam, the guy who listened to Frank Sinatra, adored The Godfather and The Old Man and the Sea , dug Winston Churchill and had a whole library filled with books about Stalin.

And lately, I've been wondering: Surely Saddam has some redeeming qualities.

I decided to ask New Yorkers if they felt the same way. Could they think of anything positive to say about him? I was startled by some of the responses, such as those from liberals who seemed to feel that Saddam would make a far peachier President than George W. Bush, and from New York women who admired him, without irony, for his ability to commit. Nothing, however, surprised me more than the general impression many of the New Yorkers I spoke with had, that Iraqis had submitted to Saddam because of his "communication skills," as opposed to his armed-to-the-teeth private army. As if Saddam was just a very good motivational speaker.

Me, I just know I'll miss the guy.

First stop, an artsy party celebrating a 12,000-square-foot carpet "installation" inside Grand Central Terminal.

"Apparently he wrote some good short stories," said writer Valerie Shields, who recalled reading one of his romantic fables in Harper's . "I actually enjoyed reading that short story."

"I think he takes male bonding to another level," said her friend Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, an editor at Parkett , a contemporary arts magazine. "And he's committed . Actually, he's not duplicitous. I think he's very much open about what he believes and what he will do with his power, which is actually unlike Bush, who is incredibly duplicitous and lies ."

Ms. Rabinowitz went on, saying there was no false advertising with Saddam. "The package is the product," she said. "I mean, it is what it is. What else? He doesn't mind being alone-I mean, strength of conviction is a powerful thing, and so he has stamina. I suppose he's a very successful dictator."

Next, I met a man who said he was a "media artist" named Gunther Selichar.

"He was able to at least somehow keep his country together," he said. "The question is raised, actually, if the situation like it is now is really so much better than it was before."

"He gave work to many, many sculptors," said photographer and author Rose Hartman. "He's a larger-than-life character. He was quite motivated, and accomplished what he needed to accomplish. Unfortunately his desire for power, I think, took over, and that then lessened his ability to lead. Because too many people had to die in the process so that he could maintain his power.

"I don't think I would say he thought he was a good man," she continued. "But I think he thought he was a very powerful leader who had the country in check , in a way. Like a Mussolini."

And Bush?

"Bush should stay on his ranch."

"You know what really bummed me out?" said photographer Todd Eberle. "One of my favorite lines to quote is from To Sir, With Love : 'How can you thank someone who's taken you from crayons to perfume?' Saddam went from perfume to crayons, from those palaces to that bunker. It was the fact that he had known that extreme in lifestyle. He had all those statues to himself, and then he's in a hole in the ground? He just looks so feeble and sad. He seems pathetic to me, as pathetic as Bush. It's all sad. It makes me so sad, all of it."

Mr. Eberle said he was almost sent to Iraq to photograph Saddam's palaces. "How I coveted to photograph them, and they were all destroyed."

Next stop, the Maritime Hotel's outdoor cabanas. Two girls were drinking mojitos.

"I mean, for what he did, he did it well," said Laura. "Like taking a country like that and totally controlling it and like, mind power. Like Hitler!"

Her friend Amy agreed. "He knew how to take advantage of a situation, he knew how to manipulate people, and he knew how to skew the public opinion to make him powerful."

"For doing evil, Saddam did it great," Laura said. "It takes a certain type of person to be a dictator-not everyone can be a dictator and run a country."

"George Bush sucks!" said Amy.

"He effectively bilked the U.N.," said Jim Horowitz, a 46-year-old investor. "I envy his interior decorator. He managed his interview with Dan Rather very well-he's a monster."

"He's clever," said a singer named Wendy, wearing a blue sundress. "Extremely clever . Obviously he outwitted us in terms of finding a way to bring down the Twin Towers-and I hate that, but you gotta give him credit."

I didn't have the energy to explain to her that Saddam has nothing to do with 9/11. I mean, would you?

"The fact of the matter is, he's an intense and crazy dictator," said a 29-year-old Brooklyn screenwriter who gave his name as Ryan. " However , because he's been in power for so long, he's able to play his country people like pawns, and he controls them. You know how many people sat in their coffee shops, restaurants, living rooms waiting to hear him speak ? They just wanted to listen to his voice. Because you know, they've been listening to it for 25 years, and I'm sorry, our country, France, England, Germany-they don't have people that are in power for that long. Therefore, there must be something that is right with him. He knows how to influence people, and that is his power …. It takes nerve to be able to kill people, nerve to be able to feel like they're playing God, and that is what he's doing. Hey, you know what? You have to respect an individual for doing that. Look, I don't agree with him, I think he's evil. He's a monster. But you know, he did it. And on some level, you have to say: 'That takes an incredible human being to rise to that power and sustain it.'"

The next day, at a cigar store in East Hampton, I spotted Alec Baldwin and asked him the question. He paused. "He survived a spider hole," Mr. Baldwin said, then scampered away.

That evening, I attended a Fourth of July party thrown by literary agent Ed Victor. When it began pouring rain, his guests-among them Candice Bergen, Jerry Della Femina, Judith Miller, Jason Epstein, Ken Auletta and Patricia Duff-crammed into the living room. I asked Mel Brooks about Saddam.

"The way he looks, he looks so tired and he looks troubled," he said. "He would be a great poster boy for NyQuil. NyQuil should get him, pay him whatever he wants, and he should say, 'Had I taken NyQuil, I would have looked a lot better.'"

Don Hewitt, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, said he'd recently seen something on a Middle East Web site. "They claim that a couple of guys had their eye on the ransom money," Mr. Hewitt said. "They stashed him down there-he didn't voluntarily go down there. They called up the Americans, they said, 'You know that $10 million? You want to double that to 20, we'll tell you where he is.' It makes a lot of sense to me. It made no sense to me that Saddam Hussein voluntarily was living down there with the spiders and the ants and God knows what else. They put him down there for safekeeping, called up the Americans and said, 'We know where he is.'

"The fact that we screwed up badly does not mean that Saddam Hussein was any kind of a humanitarian," Mr. Hewitt continued. "He was a terrible, awful man. But there were a lot of terrible, awful men in the world, and we picked the one guy who could hold us at bay, the one guy who has probably increased the terror threat for America by our going there, and I just don't think we handled it very well. I'm glad the guy's going to go to trial. I hate the sonofabitch, but I don't think we handled it very well."

Later on, at the Sony PlayStation 2 house in Bridgehampton, there was a party for Paris Hilton's new record label, Heiress. By the pool were some Paris wannabes-go-go dancers, socialites, publicists. I asked about Saddam.

"He's obviously a good leader who can motivate people," said a skinny blonde.

"He gave it his best shot, stuck it out to the end," said publicist Norah Lawlor. "Other people would have given in; he went right to the end."

Singer Samantha Cole, 27, was wearing a white, lacy baby-doll dress.

"He dresses nice," she said. "I think he has a really nice smile , but I don't think he's a very nice person . He reminds me of Hitler in a way, but like a darker version."

"He ruled with an iron fist," said nightclub promoter Josh Sagman, who was sitting on a white bed next to a big-screen TV. "Which means if you stole, you robbed, you raped, you were executed. In our country, you go through the legal system and after five years, 10 years, one year with a good lawyer, you get out. So my feeling is maybe you need to be a little bit more strict when it comes to things that shouldn't be allowed to happen."

Mr. Sagman said he didn't admire Saddam, but "if I had to say something positive, he could go to a nightclub, point to a girl, and you know he's getting laid that night."

Mike Heller, a 26-year-old lawyer, said Saddam was one of the best liars ever.

"I definitely think he's hiding chemicals up his ass, for sure," he said. "Although people are supposed to look at him as larger than life, I look at him as the smallest thing in this world. At least he's got a good tan. I think he's got big balls, but I also think he's delusional."

By midnight, everyone had left for the afterparty at a nightclub named Boutique Lounge in Bridgehampton.

"It's very simple: He kept millions of people from killing each other," said Boutique's attorney, Peter Marinis. "Unfortunately, history has taught us that you need monsters like that-otherwise the North would have been killing the South and everything in between."

Three tables away, Paris Hilton was sitting with her boyfriend from the Backstreet Boys. I thought I'd give it a shot.

"I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about politics," she said. "It gets me into trouble."

-George Gurley

Don Hewitt, the 80-year-old executive producer, inventor, backbone and spiritual stiff upper lip of CBS' 60 Minutes , has always been a man who valued the blunt truth. As Mr. Hewitt told Larry King on CNN last year, he preferred the days when politicians called each other "a son of a bitch instead of a dirty liberal or a dirty Republican." Don Hewitt likes honesty.

So it came as no surprise when, on Friday, Oct. 24, producers at 60 Minutes began mumbling about a letter the TV legend had allegedly typed up-and some said circulated-in which Mr. Hewitt criticized CBS News as a broken organization littered with failing news programs and proposed that CBS News reconsider his forced retirement in June 2004.

After all, Don Hewitt was just being honest. He had invented the best thing CBS News ever had, and he knew best how to run it.

Reached for comment, Mr. Hewitt admitted the letter existed, but he said he never actually sent it to management.

"I was talking about doing it and never did and decided it wasn't called for and I'm happier than hell," he said. "If it's written, then somebody stole it off my word processor. I'm happier than hell. I could not be happier.

"I don't know of any news organization that couldn't use some work," he said of his criticism of CBS News, "from The New York Times on down-including The New York Observer ."

Nobody could disagree with that, and if he could do for this newspaper what he did for CBS News, whoa! Retirement … never! But for one of the cockiest kids in the history of TV, Mr. Hewitt sounded self-deprecating and grateful to the company that has agreed to let him hang around as an executive producer until the year 2013, when he'll be 90, a stripling compared with some of the yogurt-guzzling supergeezers you see on the air, namely his 60 Minutes co-workers. He is four years younger than Andy Rooney and five younger than Mike Wallace, two bristling journalists who seem about ready to start grappling with their midlife crises.

One CBS executive said Mr. Hewitt often drafted memos and shared them with colleagues to feel out ideas before executing them, but a number of executives also told The Observer that these are difficult days for Mr. Hewitt, who must face separation from his 35-year-old creation, a show that revolutionized TV journalism, and bequeath his duties to the current 60 Minutes II executive producer, 47-year-old Jeffrey Fager. Mr. Hewitt may not be learning the art of the graceful exit, but he's not doing the opposite.

Nevertheless, the existence-and near public fact-of Mr. Hewitt's letter only served to underscore the blunt issues surrounding his eventual departure, not only for Mr. Hewitt personally, or even for Mr. Fager, but for the entire 60 Minutes franchise and its particular place in the American culture. For in the vast gloppy landscape of TV, 60 Minutes has held onto its Rooster Cogburn–ish true grit, gristle and stuff. Its integrity and hormonal, jostling personality-pure extensions of Mr. Hewitt's persona-have not diminished. And when Mr. Hewitt begins his executive departure next summer-and with him, perhaps one or all of the downshifting Big Three correspondents, Ed Bradley, Mike Wallace and Morley Safer-his absence will bring to bear an unavoidable question: Can 60 Minutes , a fundamental function and extension of Don Hewitt's drive, remain the rough-and-tumble, sentimental, hard-nosed operation it has been?

When Mr. Hewitt leaves, there's a prospect of 60 Minutes becoming like the competition-a replicant, a kind of Primetime Sunday Dateline U.S.A. III . Don Hewitt is a rarity in TV, an auteur. And they're not so common. After all, The Tonight Show without Johnny Carson is still on, but it's just TV, and ABC News without Roone Arledge is just ABC News. But where's the jet fuel? It's true that all things must change, but what if they don't really have to so quickly?

Can Mr. Hewitt's legacy hover long enough to keep it vital, familiar, needed, protected, the last network appointment news program?

A CBS spokesman said neither Mr. Fager nor CBS News president Andrew Heyward were prepared to talk about it until next year. But a number of CBS employees said that if Mr. Hewitt was suggesting that he's the Gandalf of West 57th Street, it was a little scary because … it might be true.

And if it were up to many staffers at 60 Minutes , Mr. Hewitt would remain executive producer until his final tick … tick … tick .

"It ain't broken, we don't want to fix it," said one 60 Minutes producer, who, of course, declined to be named. "I'm not anxious to move forward. If it needs new life, new spark, I think Don can provide that himself. Thank God it's Jeff"-he meant Jeff Fager-"and not somebody from the outside."

There is widespread belief-let's call it hope-throughout both 60 Minutes I and II that Mr. Hewitt's legacy-the brand, the institution-can sustain 60 Minutes without Mr. Hewitt. But that's mainly because the show won't be changing much.

" 60 Minutes does not condescend to its audience and that's largely because Don has made it a standard not to do that," said David Gelber, a producer at the show. " 60 Minutes is a haven where you can still respect the audience. You look at stuff like that Elizabeth Smart interview on Sunday"-Katie Couric's Dateline NBC exclusive that aired Oct. 26-"that's embarrassing shit. And we don't do that."

Mr. Gelber was confident that Mr. Fager would be able to protect the integrity of 60 Minutes . "I think people feel that Fager's sense is close enough to Don's sensibility that the quality will be maintained," he said. "Look at 60 Minutes II . There's no reason to think that sensibility is going to be lost."

"I think Don has protected it through its success," said George Crile, a former producer at 60 Minutes who now produces for Dan Rather at 60 Minutes II , "through his constant capacity to reinvigorate it when it looked like it was going down. I think he will continue to protect it, oddly enough, by the foundation he created. I think there is tremendous opportunity if it's seized. If Don were younger and intact, the same challenges apply." Mr. Fager, he said, "has to create a certain sense of excitement and a sense of mission."

Morley Safer did not expect "volcanic" changes at the newsmagazine under Mr. Fager's tenure. "I don't see any eruptive change at all," said Mr. Safer. "Partly because Jeff is not going to go and prove something. He's proven what he has to prove already. I'm sure there's going to be the usual grumbling, and people do that."

So far, the management philosophy at CBS News is to not rock the barge, to bring in new employees over time, bring co-editor Lesley Stahl and correspondent Bob Simon up front as Mr. Safer and Mr. Wallace scale back, and possibly return Dan Rather to the show he worked on from 1975 to 1981 as a permanent member, should he ever release his own grip on the CBS Evening News desk. The essential format will remain as long as people love it: the ticking clock, the introductions, the three segments-one hard, one semi-hard, one soft-with some Andy Rooney type (someday it'll probably be old Sarah Vowell) as the after-dinner lecture.

But right now, with the familiar faces, the formula still has a good kick: On Sunday, Oct. 26, the show scored a 10.7-16.2 million viewers-in the Nielsen ratings, broadcasting Ed Bradley's piece on the Moscow theater hostage crisis, Steve Kroft's segment on radioactive dumping at Yucca Mountain and Mr. Safer's look at undercover marketing. Good show; great stories. 60 Minutes is still 60 Minutes .

With ratings for network news descending as the cable supermarket exploded-and 60 Minutes has, despite holding its relative ground, suffered ratings declines in the last five years-one CBS News producer said that CBS News president Andrew Heyward and the rest of CBS management had badly stumbled in coping with the transition, allowing old correspondents to become pretty ancient while not going to the minors to develop new talent.

"As a manager, how could you take that kind of a trademark and allow yourself to get this point?" the producer asked. "Imagine you were running the world and you suddenly discovered everybody was 85 and you hadn't made plans for next year? Everybody's taking their long summer vacation and pretending it's business as usual."

There seems to be a hunkered-down, change-averse fatalism among some 60 Minutes producers concerning Mr. Hewitt's departure. Asked if the show would wobble when Mr. Hewitt left, one CBS News producer said, "I can't buy that. Don is a genius and he's one of a kind. Whether we like it or not, things change. God willing, it could stay exactly as it was forever. But that's not an option."

"The thrust of it is, any news broadcast is going to be better with Don Hewitt than without Don Hewitt," said another 60 Minutes producer. "That's a given. This is going to be without Don Hewitt and that's too bad. But that's life."

"In many ways, Don's dynamism and his enthusiasm were the things that kept 60 Minutes so charged," said Joel Bernstein, a producer for Bob Simon at 60 Minutes II , who called him "an inspirational kind of guy. You went out and you wanted to please Don. But Don grew into that role. Jeff in a way has a much tougher challenge-how to keep it up. Don was inventing the wheel and just about anything he would put on, people would watch. People tuned in to see what Mike and Morley were doing. That's not the case now. Because you have so many more choices. I think more people than not will think that's Jeff's the guy to do it. You just have to keep the wheel moving."

Weirdly, what producers at 60 Minutes don't want is the hiring of some larger-than-life personality who will screw around with the formula: a young Don Hewitt, or Roone Arledge, or-in a Bizzaro CBS universe-a Roger Ailes. They don't want someone to reconfigure the program in new, risky ways. They want Don's show.

But life doesn't necessarily work that way.

In 1998, Chris Wallace, the son of Mike Wallace and a longtime ABC News correspondent, was invited to join 60 Minutes II , but ABC prevented him. With his contract up again this season, Mr. Wallace announced on Monday, Oct. 27, that he would anchor Fox News Sunday . Describing his new boss to The Observer , Chris Wallace sounded a lot like what his father sounded like describing Mr. Hewitt many years ago. "He thinks big and he takes chances," he said. "In an era of so-called decline in the news business, he's always thinking of ways to grow his network."

He was talking about Roger Ailes.

Mr. Wallace said Mr. Hewitt and his father were giants. Whether they were replaceable remained to be seen, but he seemed skeptical.

"As time goes on and you will start to see Scott Pelley and Bob Simon move into those positions," he said. "Are they giants? Time will tell. They don't come along very often. Do I have any doubts of their ability to put on a serious, thoughtful, first-rate broadcast? No. Can you capture that lightning in a bottle again? That's a good question."

Chris Wallace said that the old guard had protected the franchise from deteriorating under the pressures of demographics, costs and ratings, the stuff often scrutinized by company stockholders. But once that old guard is gone, all bets are off.

"I'm amazed they're getting those audiences with stories we'd never dream of doing," he said. "Whether they'll still watch those kinds of stories just because they're attached to 60 Minutes , if it's not Ed and Mike and Morley telling them-they may say this is way too serious and where is Jennifer and Ben? I think 60 Minutes , because of its enormous success, is the most untouchable program in TV news and maybe in all of TV. With a new cast of characters, will it still be untouchable?"

Mr. Wallace didn't attempt an answer.

"Every program needs a driving force," said David Corvo, the executive producer of Dateline NBC and a former executive at CBS News. He suggested that 60 Minutes would need someone willing to invigorate the show, as Mr. Hewitt had done many times in his career there. "Don was always quietly reinventing the show," he said. "It's not the same show it was 35 years ago. They used to do all the ambush stuff and he decided it had worn out its welcome. When he hadn't been doing much news and the Gulf War broke out in the early 90's, he went big time into investigative stuff. The ratings went up, but the quality of the show went up, too."

For now, Mr. Heyward and CBS News want to maintain and prune 60 Minutes like any other high-quality brand, which means doing everything very slowly and cautiously: introducing new talent, trying to develop flagship correspondents on 60 Minutes II , hoping the viewing public doesn't flee as Mount Rushmore-Mr. Wallace, Mr. Safer, Mr. Rooney, Mr. Bradley-crumbles and gets replaced by the John Roberts generation. CBS News employees are enthusiastic about Mr. Fager-and insiders point to 60 Minutes senior producer Josh Howard as his likely successor at 60 Minutes II -because he promises to maintain the historic integrity created by Mr. Hewitt.

"They could have gone outside the company and brought in somebody like a former Dateline NBC executive producer," said Mr. Bernstein. "The fact that they appointed Jeff and are leaning toward Josh is a good sign-even if there are people who believe that Jeff can't measure up to Hewitt's size."

Meanwhile, Morley Safer, 71, wasn't convinced that he'll be able to cut back his working time to half time as he had planned on doing earlier next year. "We'll see if that happens!" Mr. Safer said. "It's supposed to happen in December, but it may take a little while before it kicks in."

"I'm sitting there with writers, saying, ' Please give me this assignment so I can do this.' I hope I can get into Dean, because he's so bloody-he's so himself ," he said. "What's so interesting about Dean is he appears to be an impassioned man and says, 'Damn the theatrics of the whole thing, I've got something to say to you.' It seems like he was compelled to come here and do a job."

He said inhabiting Dr. Dean-a character that producer Lorne Michaels has not yet assigned-wouldn't be a far cry from doing President George W. Bush. Like Mr. Bush, he said, "sometimes he switches sentences in midstream. He sputters and sometimes he seems too angry-he seems like a person . That's something that's been successful."

What was true in the 2000 election appears to be true today: Having a shaky, hand-held, what's-he-going-to-say-next? quality on TV is a plus. Mr. Bush, even with his linguistic impediments and squinty, timorous concentration on the teleprompter, exuded something ineffably believable that Al Gore simply did not-a certain telegenic quality, if not-in the case of Dr. Dean's K Street appearance-a kind of telegeni-cynicism. And while the current lineup of Democratic contenders adopt the contours of their TV personas on Sunday-morning talk shows and in buzzer-happy Jeopardy debates like the one at Pace University on Sept. 25., they appear, all 10 of them, fascinatingly bad. But in a few cases, so bad it works.

Those in the business of making TV are observing in Dr. Dean's success the rise of what might be called the New Telegenic, a kind of warts-and-all reality-show "real" that has little to do with the buffed, Hollywood telegenic quality that sent Ronald Reagan into the history books.

Case in point: The tallest, toothiest, most-handsome, hangdog-sexy, most–Mel Gibsonian made-for-TV candidate can't seem to get any traction in the polls.

"If you're looking for a guy who can star in a movie as President," said Don Hewitt, the executive producer of 60 Minutes who produced the first 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debate, "John Kerry is the most telegenic, and he doesn't seem to be going anywhere. America is smart enough to discern showbiz from reality."

How political substance and telegenic charisma will combine to deliver a formidable Democratic candidate is no longer clear. Ever since 1960, when a navy-suited, tanned John F. Kennedy stood across from an underweight, gray-suited Richard M. Nixon mopping Lazy Shave and sweat on national television, it showed that a certain on-air flair has helped win elections. President Reagan was the embodiment of the rule, and so was Bill Clinton. But Mr. Gore-starting with his weird carrot-tinged makeup in the first debate-tried to reinvent himself from debate to debate, and broke up in the atmosphere as this new kind of reality-show reality unfolded. In 1960, John F. Kennedy was smart-cool; in 2000, George W. Bush established a new winning formula: dumb-cool.

It's little wonder why friends of NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw thought he had the right stuff to run for President in June of this year. The man just looked cool on TV, no matter his politics. But Mr. Brokaw knew that a well-burnished image could be crumpled up like tin foil with a single sound bite, like General Wesley Clark's assertion Saturday that he believed in … time travel! (So, by the way, do we, but we're not doing New Hampshire.) "The only thing I'm running for is cover," Mr. Brokaw kept saying.

"We've seen so many people in all walks of life exposed to the camera," observed Walter Cronkite, the former CBS anchor, who has been asked to run for office numerous times over the years, " au naturel , without makeup, with many of them in all kinds of postures and circumstance, so that I don't think one needs to be telegenic today. I think people are inclined to listen to what they say rather than talking about what they look like. We've seen them with their hair mussed up, or no hair at all-I just don't think it's a major issue with people these days."

As Mr. Hammond said of the Kennedy-esque rhythms that so many politicians had been trained to ape in their vocal delivery over the years, "That's grand and wonderful theater in another time in history."

Still, Mr. Hewitt, a man who has gripped hands with every U.S. President since Eisenhower-and put many of them in front of a camera for CBS-said he saw a certain telegenic flair in General Clark. "So far, I think he would hold up better than anybody else," he said.

Many TV executives with whom The Observer spoke agreed. Sure, no one yet knew where Mr. Clark stood on issues-except the time-space continuum-but so what? He has an authentic presence. As one network news executive observed:

"This is why Wes Clark jumped right to the front-he's cute, telegenic, smart, a good talker. The bio helps, of course, but the truth is that Kerry, Lieberman, Edwards and the rest all come off as either stiffs or actors …. You want to have a beer with Wes Clark, like you do with George W. and like you did with Bill Clinton."

Mr. Hammond said Gen. Clark could transform himself quickly, especially if he could do what Dr. Dean does: "If he would get a little passionate, and show a little redness around the eyes when he speaks, stammer in anger, he would just be devastating ," he said.

But what about the rest of the pack?

"There's two kinds of people on TV," said Steve Friedman, the former executive producer of NBC's Today Show and CBS' Early Show . "Those who get smaller, and those who get bigger." Most, said Mr. Friedman, are doing the former. Senator Joseph Lieberman, said Mr. Friedman, "doesn't jump out at you on the screen. With 10 people and counting, television's a tough road for him."

Congressman Richard Gephardt also seemed to shrink on a crowded screen. Having appeared on Meet the Press 40 times since 1983-more than anyone but Bob Dole-Mr. Gephardt is challenged to transform his shopworn talking head into something believable and compelling. On Sept. 25, at Pace University, he was coifed, confident and well-spoken, but he was also typical, a little bit Ford Taurus next to Mr. Kerry's Range Rover and Dr. Dean's Subaru Outback. Rep. Gephardt tried to break out of it by attacking Dr. Dean, but it backfired.

"Gephardt has this business of pointing the finger to make a point," observed Mr. Cronkite, "which is a form of emphasis that probably impresses some people and may offend others."

When Mr. Gephardt tried his angry Gephardt routine, tying Dr. Dean to Newt Gingrich, Dr. Dean transformed: His bottom row of teeth started to extrude, he looked down at his papers, fuming, fur tufts practically sprouting on his hands. When he gave his retort-"Nobody up here should be com-com-compared to Newt Gingrich!"-he stumbled over the sentence. But it still stuck out as one of the freshest moments in the debate. This guy is the freshest madman since Richard Widmark.

"As a comic on stage," said Mr. Hammond, "when I speak the most honestly and most revealing, its always the most powerful. So what's most personal is most general. The theatrical possibilities are greater." He said he would call Dr. Dean "a coiled spring. People can't take their eyes off him."

"I do think one of the keys to success in selling anything on television is honesty and sincerity," said Mr. Cronkite, "and being one's self. If you try and invent a personality that you think will be successful, you're immediately dealing with a form of subterfuge."

Which is exactly why Senator Kerry may be challenged as a candidate. The mannerisms of the professional politician are now sniffed out by audiences as inherently false. "He has the look, the feel, the voice, he's good-looking, but for some reason he isn't connecting," said Mr. Friedman. "He should be the commanding figure on the stage, and he isn't. And when he doesn't become that, he sort of shrinks."

The rest of the pack seem to toggle between New Telegenic and Old Telegenic. While each grabs spontaneous moments with one-liners-like the one James Carville scripted for Dr. Dean-or an impassioned flush in their cheeks, they seem to spend most of their time fighting to increase their quarter-inch of TV screen. Senator John Edwards is the young, handsome Southern politician in the mold of Bill Clinton, and yet, said Mr. Hewitt, "He looks like the handsome second lead in a movie." Yes, that's right: James Spader. Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, said Mr. Hewitt, "doesn't look like a President. There's something to be said for looking like a President." Florida Senator Bob Graham was affable and earnest-and nearly invisible. Time for a handlebar mustache, Senator! And Carol Moseley Braun, an ambassador to New Zealand with almost no hope of getting elected, was exceedingly telegenic during the Sept. 25 debate, mainly because she had nothing to lose. She's a Disney TV movie, waiting to happen.

And, said Mr. Hewitt, "you know who's the most telegenic of them all?" said Mr. Hewitt. "Al Sharpton! He's a comedian."

Which means he might succeed where former President Bill Clinton couldn't: on 60 Minutes . With Tom McClintock taking over for Bob Dole.

Rarely in the history of journalism has there been as vivid an evidence of one of social nature's terrible laws: No good deed goes unpunished.

But it's worth asking at this point, as the scandal threatens to consume Mr. Raines' tenure at The Times , what lesson would Mr. Blair, and the inflamed staff asking for the editor's head, have him learn? That the truth is only to be trusted in the hands of true professionals? That racial sensitivity and the encouragement of the young, the smooth and the gifted is a dangerous game?

Mr. Raines-a supremely talented editor with a reportedly unfortunate management style of embracing power tightly, coddling favorites and confusing the locker room with the newsroom-gave Jayson Blair his big chance as part of his campaign to bring youth, diversity and good writing to the pages of The Times . He wanted to shake up the place, much as his predecessor, A.M. Rosenthal, had in the mid-1960's-by fomenting a small revolution of good writing and youthful reporting within the arteriosclerotic Grey Lady. Much of The Times ' staff-with the intractability of civil servants everywhere-resented it.

Mr. Raines also apparently acted the tyrant. Few in journalism are as susceptible to the axiom that absolute power corrupts absolutely as the executive editor of The New York Times . And his arrogance made him easy fodder to be broken by Mr. Blair's malfeasances. But when the scandal broke, Mr. Raines immediately showed what he was made of: He did not dive for cover or serve up scapegoats. The Times ' May 11, 2003, 14,000-word internal investigation exposed Mr. Blair and the management of the newspaper in a brutal accounting. Mr. Raines then submitted himself to a lynching-like encounter group at the Loew's Astor Plaza movie theater, a kind of Clintonian purge session that served nobody but the pent-up anger of a truly neurotic institution. Through it all, Mr. Raines may have lost some of his arrogance, but he never lost his authority.

That may go with the territory. It almost goes without saying that Mr. Raines' leadership during The Times ' coverage of the Sept. 11 aftermath and the war in Iraq reaffirmed the reputation of what he has called "this irreplaceable newspaper."

Nobody ever said it was the task of the executive editor of The New York Times to be well liked. Authority, incisiveness and distinctive intelligence are his tasks; so is commanding the largest reporting army in American journalism. He edits the only truly worldwide newspaper in the United States. There is, quite simply, nothing else like it. Protecting its vitality, responsibility and brilliance are his business. None of Mr. Raines' immediate predecessors-not Joseph Lelyveld, nor Max Frankel, nor the abrasive Mr. Rosenthal-could be said to be beloved. They served the readers of The New York Times and the history-conscious Sulzberger family, in whose hands Mr. Raines' fate now resides. Perhaps the only executive editor of The New York Times to be truly revered in the last 40 years was arguably its worst: James Reston, the legendary Washington columnist who had a two-year tenure and whose only institutional accomplishment, he said, was to change the type size of the page numbers.

But Mr. Reston had great wisdom as a human being. "Most of the time," he said once, "it is the heart that governs understanding." The greatness of The New York Times may be that within this massive, often obtuse kingdom beats a human heart. Howell Raines made a terrible, even historic mistake. But he understands his "irreplaceable" newspaper and has made decisive, even historic reparations. He deserves to complete his tenure as executive editor of The New York Times .

60 Minutes : 35 Years of Excellence

Since its debut in 1968, the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes has been the framework for integrity in television news. Remarkably, after three decades, the show is as good as it ever was, weekly earning its stripes as the most trusted hour on television. Creator and executive producer Don Hewitt and the show's brilliant on-air talent changed television by making the simple assumption that their viewers were intelligent people who didn't need to be pandered to, and who would tune in to programming that engaged the mind and looked at the world with a sharp, knowing wit.

60 Minutes ' profound influence can be found all over the dial, in a host of imitators such as ABC's 20/20 , NBC's Dateline and CBS's own 60 Minutes II , which have earned their own audiences and accolades. But from the opening ticks of the stopwatch, 60 Minutes arrives in 12 million American living rooms with the feel of an "event," with its well-known and admired correspondents Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Ed Bradley, Leslie Stahl, Steve Kroft and Andy Rooney. From Jackie Gleason shooting pool with Mr. Safer to the Ayatollah Khomeini sitting down with Mr. Wallace, 60 Minutes has both informed and entertained, rarely having an off night and always delivering on its promises. The show has won 73 Emmy awards, more than any other news program, but its uplifting impact on the American psyche goes beyond numbers. Mr. Hewitt and his team are to be congratulated for maintaining what is arguably the finest 60 minutes on television.

"No!" a laughing 48-year-old Mr. Fager said on Jan. 28, one day after CBS News announced a deal in which the indomitable Mr. Hewitt, 80, will finally loosen his kung-fu grip upon his executive-producer chair in 2004 to make way for Mr. Fager. "I hope Don doesn't, either. Because I think I am going to retire before he does."

Indeed, just like Irene Cara sang in Fame , Mr. Hewitt may just wanna live forever. But at least now he won't be running 60 Minutes forever. In about a year and a half, he'll make way on West 57th Street for Mr. Fager, who developed 60 Minutes II . Then Mr. Hewitt will take on the title of executive producer for CBS News, advising on existing shows and helping develop new ones-and, as he described it, serving as the newsroom's "glorified pain in the ass."

Did Mr. Hewitt still want to die at his desk?

"I still expect to do that," he said. "But I think that may be 20 years from now. I'll be 100 when that happens."

Would he want to stay at CBS News when he hits 100?

"Yes!" Mr. Hewitt said emphatically.

Well, who knows? In 20 years, everyone in television may be working for Hannity & Colmes , or at least Hannity. At least Mr. Hewitt got a deal-after a fairly ugly public struggle-so he could keep on working and not sit at home and look at that big scary clock.

"You know, I am frequently here before 7 in the morning," Mr. Hewitt said. "This is kind of like my home. I live in this office."

Mr. Hewitt said that before CBS executives came to him with this recent deal, he did consider shipping off to another news organization, though he never came close to doing so.

"I thought about it a lot," he said. "All I thought was that I was not going to retire, and there was no reason for me to retire."

So Mr. Hewitt keeps on ticking. And he pronounced himself totally game for trying to improve 60 Minutes ' aging audience. He cited a recent piece on pop singer Sheryl Crow-herself a spring chicken at 40-as the kind of piece that would help cultivate a younger crowd.

"She's perfect for this audience, because she is a pop artist who also sang with Pavarotti," Mr. Hewitt said. "I have got to find a way to put a foot in each generation. That's what I am going to think about now a lot: How do you bring in a new demographic and not lose the old one?"

Mr. Hewitt said that 60 Minutes was not alone in this youth-revival effort. "Take a look at The New York Times ," he said. "I don't even recognize half the things on page 1. I don't know how they got there. Obviously someone's got demographics in mind."

As for Mr. Fager, he announced that as soon as he assumes control of the Sunday 60 Minutes , he's replacing Mike Wallace with Carson Daly, chucking Andy Rooney for commentary from Kelly Osbourne, and changing that old silver stopwatch to a pink Nike digital. Not.

Calling 60 Minutes the "gold standard," Mr. Fager said he intends to maintain the franchise in much the same spirit as Mr. Hewitt leaves it.

"What will never change about 60 Minutes is the backbone of the broadcast, which is great reporting, stories that are done by real professionals, and stories that are thorough and thoughtful," Mr. Fager said. "Everything you expect when you see the stopwatch."

Mr. Fager also heaped praise upon 60 Minutes ' aging correspondents, likening them to an "all-star team of starting pitchers."

"It's an amazing group of professionals," Mr. Fager said of Mr. Wallace, Mr. Rooney, Leslie Stahl, Morley Safer, Steve Kroft and Ed Bradley.

And Mr. Hewitt will be there to protect his gang, too. Mr. Hewitt also expressed an interest in teaching a class on television writing.

"I'd like to teach writing for the ear as opposed to writing for the eye," Mr. Hewitt said. "It used to be better. I think TV is too full of clichés-'in-depth,' 'hard news,' 'team coverage.' Did you ever hear anything worse than that? 'Tonight there will be team coverage .' Nobody knows how to write. If I ever went to teach, the course would be called 'Cliché 101.'"

O.K., O.K. Tonight, no man is an island, so give Mr. Hewitt and Mr. Fager 110 percent, and watch more exciting in-depth team coverage on 60 Minutes II. [WCBS, 2, 9 p.m.]

Thursday, Jan. 30

Nielsen, schmielsen. You know, the only thing that could possibly settle the in-the-press verbal jousting between Fox News and CNN would be a good old-fashioned mudpile tug of war, or a scavenger hunt, or a foot-pedaled plastic-boat race, just like they have on MTV's Road Rules. So we went to an expert: Fox News correspondent Kit Hoover-herself an alumnus of Road Rules I (she was that cute brunette who palled around with the spiky-haired blond dude)-and asked her who she'd pick for her Fox News Road Rules team.

"I'd definitely want Bill O'Reilly," Ms. Hoover said. "He could talk his way out of anything. I'd throw in Laurie Dhue-you always need a looker. You always need somebody in the front of the pack. She could probably score some free drinks along the way for me. I'd want Geraldo for any sort of investigative stuff. And maybe Shepard Smith-you need another male hottie in there just to keep things interesting."

Could they beat CNN in Road Rules ? Or at least MSNBC?

"We'd kick everybody's butt!" Ms. Hoover said. "We got all the best-looking women over here, myself probably excluded."

Ms. Hoover was actually on the horn to talk about her upcoming segment on already-overexposed Joe Millionaire hunk Evan Marriott, which is running tonight on the Fox broadcasting network's newsmagazine, The Pulse .

So what did Ms. Hoover discover about Mr. Marriott? Can he actually hide tennis balls in his thick brown eyebrows?

"I think he was hiding some Lifesavers in that underwear ad!" Ms. Hoover said, referring to Mr. Marriott's pre-television stint as a provocative undies model.

Ms. Hoover said her segment explores every single rumor about Mr. Marriott, from whether or not he's gay to speculation that he may have worked as a male escort and could actually be a real-life millionaire. She said Mr. Marriott's parents, whom she interviewed for her segment, live in a house in Virginia Beach that is "definitely upper-upper-middle class."

Hmmm. We wondered, since Fox produces The Pulse and Joe Millionaire , whether or not Ms. Hoover would have delivered the goods if she'd found out that Mr. Marriott, you know, threw cats off the top of a water tower, or watched Donahue , or something.

"I wouldn't have hesitated at all," Ms. Hoover said.

That's the ticket! As for Mr. Marriott himself, what did she think of him? "Say what you will about him-all these rumors out there that he's not the quickest bear in the forest, or whatever-I found him to be very genuine," Ms. Hoover said. "He's kind of what you see is what you get."

Translation: Don't expect Joe Millionaire at the book club, ladies! Ms. Hoover, who said she still gets noticed on the street as a Road Rules girl, also reveals that Mr. Marriott really wanted to be a professional wrestler. And his wrestling name?

"Duke Suede!" Ms. Hoover said.

Interesting. Fox News Sunday anchor Tony Snow sings cabaret songs every Thursday night at the Washington Wyndham using the exact same name .

Tonight, go push corporate synergy along by catching Ms. Hoover's Pulse report. She could use the help: She's up against CSI and Will & Grace . [WNYW, 5, 9 p.m.]

Friday, Jan. 31

Speaking of pro wrestlers, will someone in Secaucus please step into the ring and say when MSNBC savior du jour Jesse Ventura is going to arrive? A deal between the G.E. cable-news network and Mr. Ventura has been expected for weeks, but nothing formal has been announced.

In the meantime, we were wondering: As he was leaving office in Minnesota-people there elected him governor, you know-Mr. Ventura speculated that he'd consider wrestling again if World Wrestling Entertainment honcho Vince McMahon offered him enough dough. How would MSNBC-and by extension, NBC News-feel about one of their own smashing heads in the ring?

Spokespeople at MSNBC and NBC News could not say if the employee manual prohibited staff from professionally wrestling. As for Mr. Ventura, the ex-governor's former gubernatorial spokesman and semi-official out-of-office spokesman, John Wodele, said that Big Jesse's comments about returning to the ring were "tongue in cheek." However, Mr. Wodele said that if the price is right, Mr. Ventura would probably give it consideration. (Which is kind of what Mr. Ventura said in the first place, when his tongue was alleged to be in his cheek.)

Was there any serious talk at the W.W.E. about luring Jesse back to wresting? A World Wrestling Entertainment spokesperson said that while there were no current negotiations with Mr. Ventura, the organization "would always welcome the opportunity to work with him."

Please appreciate that we wrote that entire item without making a cheap metaphor to on-air verbal wrestling. Tonight on MSNBC, Chris Matthews bench-presses 12,000 copies of Mr. Ventura's book, Do I Stand Alone ? Without breaking a sweat! Hardball . [MSNBC, 43, 9 p.m.]

Saturday, Feb. 1

And if Jesse Ventura does wind up at MSNBC, and does get permission to wrestle, maybe he'll enlist Sam Donaldson as his tag-team partner. On Jan. 28, after a sexy breaking bulletin on the Drudge Report , the TV world was whirled up at the possibility that ol' Leather Lungs was going to come to MSNBC to take on Larry King Live and Hannity & Colmes at 9 p.m.

MNSBC and ABC News officials moved quickly to stifle-or at least, try and take a little steam out of-the Sam-leaves-ABC story. But it looks pretty dang real. By evening, the word was that ABC had given Mr. Donaldson clearance to explore other options, and while there was no set deal with anyone, the thought across the river was that Ronald Reagan's tormentor would, in fact, eventually sign on with MSNBC. Would Mr. Donaldson's hiring lead to the jettisoning of Phil Donahue? Perhaps, but apparently it wouldn't lead to the ending of Mr. Donaldson's ABC News radio show, Live in America , for which he's signed up for a number of years.

Who knew: Sam Donaldson fever! Tonight on ABC, What Lies Beneath . [WABC, 7, 8 p.m.]

Sunday, Feb. 2

Anyone still riveted to N.F.L. football can watch Oakland Raider quarterback Rich Gannon lead the A.F.C. against the N.F.C. in the NFL Pro Bowl . Hey, did you hear Rich Gannon bought his wife a new sweater for her birthday? Yeah, but she returned it for an interception! [WABC, 7, 5:30 p.m.]

Monday, Feb. 3

Tonight on Fox's Joe Millionaire , an exasperated Evan says he wants to impress the ladies by counting "all the way to a millionaire." [WNYW, 5, 9 p.m.]

Tuesday, Feb. 4

Tonight on NBC, Frasier . NBC president Jeff Zucker recently announced that before he agrees to a fat new contract for Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce, he wants to "send in Hans Blix and United Nations weapons inspectors." [WNBC, 4, 9 p.m.]

Tell Me a Story: Fifty Years and 60 Minutes in Television , by Don Hewitt. Public Affairs, 272 pages, $26.

In his breezy new memoir, Don Hewitt informs us that, as a youngster, the journalist he most identified with was Hildy Johnson from The Front Page , the beguiling reporter in the best movie ever made about journalism. But for at least the first half of his career at CBS News, the person Mr. Hewitt most resembled was Hildy's boss, Walter Burns, the editor who would do anything to anyone to get a story.

When Mr. Hewitt found himself surrounded by the competition on a tug that was taking him to the wreckage of a plane that had crashed into the East River, he managed to charter the boat, steer it to the nearest dock and march his rivals down the gangplank. (When NBC retaliated by hiring its own, smaller boat, the skipper of Mr. Hewitt's tug "accidentally" rammed the competition.) During Khrushchev's visit to the Midwest in 1959, Mr. Hewitt came across an unmanned NBC remote truck parked on a dirt road near the farm. He immediately jumped in the driver's seat and headed into a nearby corn field, where he hoped to hide the truck-until suddenly he came to his senses. Four years later, when Dan Rather called him from Dallas to tell him that a man named Zapruder had apparently filmed John F. Kennedy's assassination, Mr. Hewitt instructed Mr. Rather to go to Zapruder's house, "sock him in the jaw, take his film to our affiliate in Dallas, copy it onto videotape, and let the CBS lawyers decide whether it could be sold or whether it was in the public domain." Mr. Rather thought that was a "great idea" and slammed down the phone, but Mr. Hewitt changed his mind a second later and called the eager rookie back to rescind the order for assault and robbery. Mr. Hewitt recalls that Mr. Rather was sorry he hadn't left before the second call came through.

A few months after his 45th birthday, when he had mellowed (a bit), Mr. Hewitt invented 60 Minutes , the most successful news hour in the history of television. Mr. Hewitt's guess is that it has netted CBS $2 billion since it first hit the air in 1968.

60 Minutes is the last remaining serious program from that halcyon era when network news divisions were still more interested in prestige than profits. Mr. Hewitt is good at offering pithy explanations for the present pathetic state of TV news-and for why we are unlikely ever to see again anything nearly as original as his signature program.

"The difference between then and now is that [the networks] were obliged to give something back in exchange for their public use of the airwaves. That was what the Federal Communications Commission demanded. So if news was a loss leader, that was the price of doing business." Broadcasting was once a sacred trust, but no one has taken that attitude "since Bill Paley of CBS, David Sarnoff of NBC and Leonard Goldenson of ABC passed from the scene."

Don Hewitt is smart enough to know that he and the rest of his seven-figure colleagues have become a big part of the problem-and clever enough to know that he should admit it. "Why aren't we broadcast journalists hollering about it? Because we want it both ways. We want the companies we work for to put back the wall the pioneers erected to separate news from entertainment, but we are not above climbing over the rubble each week to take an entertainment-size paycheck for broadcasting news.... Those of us who signed and re-signed during the Tisch era [when scores of jobs were eliminated from CBS News] are in no position to join the chorus." Mr. Hewitt knows that it "makes no sense for people like us to get all high and mighty about the corrupting influence of money in the news business when we ourselves are the beneficiaries of this newfound prosperity."

Of course, the only reason 60 Minutes is still allowed to exist (and even cover stories in foreign countries!) is that it remains one of the most profitable programs on television. It's never been broken, so no one's tried to fix it: "The broadcast has remained essentially unchanged since the very beginning. This is no accident. I have this crazy theory that we are the only thing in American life that still looks, feels, and smells the same as it always did. The supermarkets look different, the gas stations look different, the banks look different. But if you remember 60 Minutes as a kid, you'll feel an intimacy with it today."

The program has retained its distinctive personality in part because it's managed differently from every other magazine show on the air. Instead of Mr. Hewitt and his deputies dictating its content, all of the story ideas are generated from the bottom up, by its five full-time correspondents (and contributors Christiane Amanpour and Bob Simon) and their 20-odd producers.

Besides Hildy Johnson, Don Hewitt's other childhood hero was Julian Marsh, the Broadway producer in 42nd Street . That may explain why he has done a better job of maintaining an inherently precarious balance than most of his emulators: "There is a line that separates news biz from show biz. The trick is to walk up to that line, touch it with your toe, but don't cross it. If you don't go near it, you're going to lose your viewership or your readership. If you step over it, you'll lose your conscience. For more than thirty years, 60 Minutes has walked up to that line but never crossed it."

Why do I continue to admire a news program that flirts so frankly with "show biz"? After all, this is also the show that nearly disgraced itself in 1995 when it bowed to corporate pressure and gutted Mike Wallace's piece about a whistle blower from the tobacco industry-probably because Larry Tisch was nervous that the piece (and the lawsuit it might have provoked) had the potential to scuttle a planned merger with Westinghouse. (This saga happens to be the subject of one of the longest, most defensive and least convincing chapters of Don Hewitt's memoir.) It's a relatively rare lapse in the program's 33-year history, and it's not as serious as other recent journalistic felonies, including the wholly unwarranted prosecution of Wen Ho Lee by The New York Times . In the end, 60 Minutes retains our respect for the same reason The Times does: Its standards haven't declined quite as precipitously as those of the culture that surrounds it.

Charles Kaiser, author of The Gay Metropolis (Harcourt), is a former media critic for Newsweek.