(CNN) - The recent passing of actress Brittany Murphy adds another high-profile name to the list of those who have died in 2009.

The year seems to have been filled with an inordinate amount of high-profile deaths - some even on the same day.

Among those who passed: Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Natasha Richardson, Bea Arthur, Dom DeLuise, Karl Malden, David Carradine, Patrick Swayze, John Hughes, Ed McMahon, Walter Cronkite and Don Hewitt.

Authors John Updike, Frank McCourt and Dominick Dunne died, as did blues legend Koko Taylor, Ventures guitarist Bob Bogle, Mary Travers of Peter, Paul & Mary, guitar innovator Les Paul and Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein.

In sports, NFL players Steve McNair and Chris Henry died as did veteran basketball coach Chuck Daly.The politcal world mourned the loss of Sen. Edward Kennedy, and former U.S. Housing Secretary Jack Kemp.

Even celebrity pitch personalities weren't immune as 2009 also saw the passing of Oxiclean pitchman Billy Mays and Gidget, the chihuahua best known for hawking Taco Bell.

But was 2009 any more notable for celebrity deaths than other years? Or, in our hyper-caffeinated, overly Twittered culture, is there simply more awareness?

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Filed under: Don Hewitt • Ed McMahon • Kennedy • Michael Jackson • Patrick Swayze • Walter Cronkite

Via CBS

Don Hewitt, recognized as a father of modern television news and the creator of the medium's most successful broadcast, 60 Minutes, died today. He was 86.

Hewitt was executive producer of CBS News, the title he took when he stepped down from 60 Minutes in 2004. For the past several years, he had been involved in a variety of broadcast projects, mostly outside of CBS, including producing a primetime documentary about the Radio City Music Hall's annual Christmas show.

Hewitt's remarkable career in journalism spanned over 60 years, virtually all of it at CBS. As a young producer/director assisting at the birth of television news, it was usually Hewitt behind the scenes directing legendary CBS News reporters like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, using a playbook he had to write himself. He played an integral role in all of CBS News' coverage of major news events from the late 1940s through the 1960s, putting him in the middle of some of history's biggest events, including one of politics’ seminal moments: the first televised presidential debate in 1960.

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Filed under: Don Hewitt