I wouldn’t be honoring my profession in the news business if I didn’t mention the late Barbara Walters who died over the weekend. She was 93 and conducted interviews well into her 80’s and maybe even after she reached the age of 90.
Her questions were direct and to the point. She just knew how to dig deep into a person’s life and get answers to questions that other journalists had not even thought about.
She would sit directly in front of the person she was interviewing and pop those questions hard and fast. If she wanted an answer to that the person was trying to avoid she would keep pounding, answering it over and over, but maybe in a different way.
She always declared that she did her homework and knew more about the person she was interviewing than they knew about themselves. They often said during the interview, “How did you know that” in a surprising way.
She was a pioneering journalist, who made it in a man’s world. In 1976 she made history as the first female news anchor with a $1 million salary.
Just imagine, she interviewed such people as Fidel Castro and Richard Nixon, and made Oprah Winfrey and Ringo Starr cry.
She grew up in Miami Beach, Florida and graduated in 1947 from high school there.
She worked with Hugh Downs as host of The Today Show.
That’s where i first began to pay attention to her.
Diane Sawyer, another ABC newscaster, called Barbara Walters a trailblazer, a singular force who opened the door for every woman in television news…
Rest in peace. You have indeed left a legacy, Barbara Walters.
