Don Hewitt accepted the Missouri Medal for “60 Minutes.”

Hewitt, winner of six Emmy Awards, is executive producer of “60 Minutes,” CBS’s highly acclaimed television news series. Hewitt has been involved with the production and direction of broadcast coverage of almost every major news break in the past 28 years.

Hewitt’s journalism career began as head copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune in 1942. He was a war correspondent in Europe and in the Pacific and then became night editor for the Associated Press in Memphis.

Hewitt joined CBS in 1948. He was executive producer of the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite at its inception and then moved on the producing and directing numerous major news specials, among them the face-to-face television debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon in 1960.

Updated: July 13, 2012