‘60 Minutes’ Official Bids for CBS News : But a Top Network Executive Says He Thinks Offer Was Jest

Don Hewitt, executive producer of CBS News’ top-rated “60 Minutes,” last week proposed buying the network’s news division with some unidentified “colleagues,” but a top CBS executive to whom he made the offer said Monday that he thinks Hewitt was just kidding.

“I don’t think he was all that serious,” said Gene F. Jankowski, president of CBS Broadcast Group, to which the network’s news division reports. In any event, he said, he told Hewitt that CBS News “is not for sale, never has been, never will be.”

Hewitt, 64, with CBS News since 1948, was not available for comment. But he acknowledged in a letter to the Long Island, N.Y., newspaper Newsday on Monday that he had raised the possibility of buying CBS News if the network ever decided to sell. Jankowski said by phone from New York that his conversation with the producer occurred during one of the periodic lunches he has with senior executives at the network.

Variety, a leading show-business publication, reported Monday that Hewitt’s proposal would make CBS News a private organization run as a cooperative venture with no ties to the parent corporation, CBS Inc.

Support of Staffers

The report said his plan had the support of several key CBS News staffers “disgruntled” by the division’s current management and the division’s recent layoff of 74 employees as part of CBS’ efforts to control costs.

Among the plan’s supporters, Variety said, were anchorman Dan Rather and “CBS Reports” anchor and commentator Bill Moyers. Neither was available for comment.

Jankowski declined to comment when asked if Hewitt claimed to have their support or even mentioned their names. “I wouldn’t tell you if he did,” the executive said, adding that he considered his discussion with Hewitt a private matter.

But he emphatically denied--as did Hewitt--a report in Monday’s editions of Newsday that he asked the producer what he really wanted and that Hewitt said he was after “the scalps” of Van Gordon Sauter and Ed Joyce. The former is a senior CBS Broadcast Group executive in charge of the news division, and Joyce is the president of CBS News.

“He (Hewitt) did not say that,” Jankowski said. His assertion was echoed in a letter that the producer sent Monday to David Laventhal, the publisher of Newsday. The letter, released by Hewitt’s office in New York, said in part:

“Not only did I not say anything even remotely resembling what Newsday said I said, but Gene Jankowski never asked me the question Newsday said he asked.”

While Hewitt was reported tied up in meetings all day and unavailable for comment, his letter did confirm that he had raised--in a carefully qualified way--the idea of the purchase of CBS News.

The letter said he had asked “CBS management if it would entertain the thought of sitting down with me and some of my colleagues to discuss our buying CBS News if it should ever be for sale or if there was a chance that control of CBS might pass to some outsider who might not have the same feeling about CBS News that has always been a hallmark of this network.”

Hewitt’s letter didn’t identify those in management with whom he spoke or which of his colleagues would be involved in any discussions about CBS News. Nor did it say whether he had jokingly made the proposal or was serious about it.

However, Jankowski insisted that “it’s my impression” that the veteran producer was speaking in jest.

He expressed concern that too much attention was being given the matter and reiterated that CBS News never will be for sale: “It’s the crown jewel. It’s the operation that holds the whole thing together.”