HOWARD ROSENBERG : CHIP OFF THE ’60 MINUTES’ BLOCK

There are few TV success stories gaudier than Don Hewitt’s.

Hewitt is The Creator. He is the founder and executive producer of the news program that America loves most, the flamboyant prime-time signature of CBS News, the ever-ticking, ever-tickling, ever tingling “60 Minutes.”

By just about all accounts, The Creator is an extraordinary TV bossman/showman, a tough, blunt, imaginative and spit-in-your-eye deliverer of highly watchable journalism and highly bankable ratings. The man has just flat-out got the goods. “60 Minutes” is evidence of that.

The Creator can also be sort of a creep.

There is, for example, his sneering, condescending attitude toward many newspaper writers whom he freely criticizes, but just as freely exploits when it’s to his advantage.

It’s to his advantage now.

Hewitt has a freshly published book out called “Minute by Minute . . . ,” a largely anecdotal history of “60 Minutes” and his own rise at CBS News. It’s a nice read.

“Just think how much more space newspapers could devote to real news if they didn’t waste so much of it writing about us,” Hewitt writes about a favorite target, “the critics,” in a five-page conclusion titled “Parting Shots.”

An honorable sentiment. Interesting, though, how it changes when there is a book to sell. The Creator is not at all adverse to using newspaper space to create some money-making publicity for “Minute by Minute . . . ,” as evidenced by a press agent for his publisher calling recently to pitch Hewitt for an interview when he comes to Los Angeles this week.

Another idealist bites the dust.

“Minute by Minute . . . “ is aptly titled. It is a series of relatively short bursts, thoroughly diverting, but a chip off the TV block and lacking the kind of reflection that would put “60 Minutes” in perspective. There is a chapter titled “The Way ’60 Minutes’ Works,” but little in the book suggesting why the show works.

And that’s a curious omission, for Hewitt feels strongly about TV news. So much so that earlier this year he and some of his colleagues explored buying CBS News from the network, apparently because of concern about the direction the division had taken a la “West 57th,” Phyllis George and so on.

It’s also a curious omission because the widely heeded and copied “60 Minutes” is a fascinating phenomenon that has had a profound influence on TV news, both positive and negative.

Happily, on the one hand, its attention to style has rubbed off on other documentaries. “60 Minutes” has shown that documentaries--whatever their length--need not be arid and boring to be significant.

On the other hand, the segmented “60 Minutes” and its imitators have helped fragment America’s attention span, making viewers less tolerant of important longer documentaries. The long documentary has never been boffo box office, but “60 Minutes” further feeds a lust for quick hitters in place of longer storytelling. There is a growing feeling that if a story can’t be told in 20 minutes, it shouldn’t be told at all.

“60 Minutes” is TV’s best storyteller, a splendid mix of celebrity journalism and behind-the-scenes production. It is the one show you just don’t want to miss, the show that people talk about on Monday morning, the show that, minute for minute, may be the most entertaining in prime time.

Hewitt’s book traces the show’s evolution and its cast changes. He includes anecdotes about some of the guests and brief excerpts of interviews ranging from Clifford Irving and G. Gordon Liddy to Katharine Hepburn and Woody Allen (1974).

Morley Safer: Is chasing girls easier now that you’re Woody Allen?

Allen: Some situations become a little easier when you’re known, because you can approach people more easily and they know you’re not going to do something terrible to them--and they’re wrong.

As you would expect, “Minute by Minute . . . “ is far less an examination than a celebration. Hewitt does cover some of the warts, though, including that deeply flawed 1979 story about Illinois Power, which later produced its own “60 Minutes” about “60 Minutes.”

And there was the 1983 Carl Galloway slander case in Los Angeles, concerning medical clinics that allegedly falsified auto accident claims. “60 Minutes” apparently erroneously reported that Galloway, a physician related by marriage to the owner of one of the clinics, had signed a fictitious medical report.

Galloway sued, claiming that the signature cited by “60 Minutes” was not his. “We had made the reasonable assumption that if a doctor is the only doctor working at a clinic and his name is displayed on the wall,” Hewitt writes, “he is indeed the doctor who signs the clinic’s reports.” Wrong.

There was a spectacular trial, during which CBS never contended that the signature was indeed Galloway’s but won anyway when he was unable to show that “60 Minutes” had acted with “reckless disregard” for the truth. In other words, “60 Minutes” was ignorant of its error.

Hewitt writes that following the Galloway case, he was asked by a reporter why “60 Minutes” had said the signature was Galloway’s without having it verified by a handwriting expert. The reporter charged “60 Minutes” with basing a damaging assertion on an assumption.

Hewitt says he asked the reporter if he were going to quote him, and the reporter replied that he was. Hewitt says that he then pointed out that the reporter was merely assuming that he was talking to the real Don Hewitt. In other words, according to Hewitt, the reporter was making the same kind of assumption that “60 Minutes” had made about Galloway.

The reporter, says Hewitt, “left with his tail between his legs.”

Is Hewitt really serious? Does he really equate that episode with going on the air and implying criminal action by Galloway, based on an unsubstantiated signature? He is. He does.

“I bitch a lot about print people telling me how to do my job,” Hewitt writes, “but it really hasn’t caused me any anguish.” The only explanation, then, is that The Creator just likes to bitch .