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Creator and executive producer of CBS's 60 Minutes, Hewitt here reveals that he conceived this popular program as an alternative to ``boring'' TV documentaries. In its 17 years, 60 Minutes has interviewed such diverse personalities as Woody Allen, Katharine Hepburn, Jesse Jackson, Richard Nixon, Eubie Blake, Jean-Pierre Rampal and the Shah of Iran. The program has caused much controversy and exercised influence, for example, in bringing about the release of Lenell Geter, falsely imprisoned, as it turned out, for armed robbery. Hewitt engagingly describes the adventures of staff members Harry Reasoner, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, Dan Rather, Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer in pursuit of stories, and relates amusing anecdotes about ongoing competition with NBC. Photos. 50,000 first printing; first serial to Cosmopolitan, USA Today and TV Guide; BOMC alternate. Foreign rights: ICM. November 29 (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Hewitt, the man behind 60 Minutes , the first and still the highest-rated of the TV news magazines, has put together an informal chronology of the show, replete with photos and quotes of ``some of the more delicious moments'' that have occurred on camera over the past 17 years. He also peppers the text with anecdotes about his long career in broadcast journalism at CBS and many of the show's famous guests, such as Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Henry Kissinger, and Betty Ford. 60 Minutes has generated a spate of books recently, including Axel Madsen's 60 Minutes (LJ 10/1/84), Mike Wallace and Gary Paul Gates's Close Encounters ( LJ 9/1/84), and Don Kowet's A Matter of Honor ( LJ 7/84). Hewitt's entry is not as weighty as any of these, but it is more fun. The show's fans will love it; it should appeal to others interested in the media as well. BOMC alternate. Kenneth F. Kister, Tampa, Fla. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

YA The behind-the-scenes and on-screen story of 60 Minutes , told mostly in quotes by the creator and executive producer. Hewitt goes back 37 years to tell of the early days when he directed Douglas Edwards with the News in ``living black-and-white,'' then later directed the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite . He later started and produced 60 Minutes. He has edited slightly the transcripts used from the show to help convey to readers the same impressions that were originally conveyed to viewers. Hewitt is a fascinating and amusing writer. Most of the interview segments are one-half page, a color still from the episode filling the other half of the page. Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier, the Duke of Windsor, Lyndon Johnson, Woody Allen, Lena Horne, Gore Vidal and Katherine Hepburn are just a few of the people interviewed. Worthwhile as a browsing item and a reference book. Mary Wadsworth Sucher, Baltimore County Reading Services (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A behind-the-scenes, anecdotal look at 60 Minutes, which Hewitt conceived 17 years ago and has produced ever since. Hewitt had been with CBS for 20 years, directing the old Douglas Edwards newscasts and the CBS Evening News before he decided, against the conventional wisdom of the industry, that the time was right for brief, investigatory documentaries wrapped up in an hour-long package and delivered by some of TV-news' heaviest hitters such as Mike Wallace, Harry Reasoner, Morley Safer, Dan Rather, Ed Bradley, and Diane Sawyer Hewitt convincingly argues that no other network could field such an adept and popular group of reporters on one program. That's about it for depth. The book itself is a hodgepodge of anecdotes, photographs (150 of them), snippets of some of the more unusual conversational exchanges, and Hewitt's relating of some of the spicier or awkward outtakes in the program's history. Some of these involve Hewitt's own dirty tricks undertaken to ensure CBS's primacy in getting a story aired ahead of the other networks. One such, when Hewitt posed as a flight attendant over an airline intercom to ground an NBC plane long enough for the CBS plane to get a jump on its flight home, makes one wonder about the news media's criticism of politicans' dirty tricks. Another time, Hewitt, at a news site, discovered an unattended NBC News van with the keys in the ignition. Hopping in, Hewitt drove the van to a distant area and hid it in a cornfield. Funny guy. Safer once said that ""a crook doesn't believe he's made it as a crook until he's been on 60 Minutes."" Hewitt obviously believes that a book hasn't made it as a book until it's been written about his program. But the show is a lot more gripping than Hewitt's choppy, gossipy little book. . . and deserves better treatment from its creator. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.