Don Hewitt, most famous for creating the still running ’60 Minutes,’ passed away this morning from pancreatic cancer in Bridgehampton, NY.  Hewitt was 86.

Hewitt joined CBS News in television’s infancy in 1948, and produced the first televised presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960.

He made his mark in the late 1960s when CBS agreed to try his idea of a one-hour broadcast that mixed hard news and feature stories. The television newsmagazine was born on Sept. 24, 1968, when the “60 Minutes” stopwatch began ticking.

Hewitt was a legend in creation of news media and the third big name - Robert Novak (story/pics), Walter Cronkite (story/pics) – of ‘old media’ to pass in the last month.  Hewitt is pictured above at Cronkite’s funeral earlier this month.