Barbara Walters, an iconic journalist who broke down barriers for women in media, has died Friday, according to ABC News. He was 93 years old.
In a career that spanned over fifty years, Walters established himself as one of television’s most important and respected broadcasters. She made history when she became co-anchor of the ABC Evening News in 1976, marking the first time a woman co-hosted an evening newscast on national television.
She was best known for her stint as host of ABC’s “20/20,” a role she held for 25 years. During that time, he interviewed some of the world’s most influential and controversial leaders, celebrities and political figures – including former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, actor Katharine Hepburn and pop icon Michael Jackson – in often emotional and intense segments.
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He has also interviewed every US president since Richard Nixon. (She interviewed Donald Trump and Melania Trump during her 2016 presidential campaign and interviewed Joe Biden in 2014 when he was vice president.)
Walters went on to co-found the daytime talk show “The View,” which premiered in 1997 and featured a panel of female co-hosts.
“It was a simple idea: four women from different generations, different personalities and different opinions sitting together and talking,” she said in a 2012 interview with Makers. “Not women trying to expose themselves to each other, but to be able to have these different conversations and discussions and like each other.”
But to achieve this level of success and establish her status as an envelope-pushing journalist, she spent years fighting to be heard. she she faced persistent sexism early in her career at a time when men dominated the news industry.
“I remember sending a memo to the president of NBC News saying, ‘Shouldn’t we do something about the women’s movement?’ And scrawled across the top of my note was, “Insufficient interest.”
— Barbara Walters
Walters began working in front of a camera on NBC’s “Today” show, initially covering lighter duties — what she called “tea interviews” — and weather reports as the show’s “Today Girl.” She was eventually allowed to research and write for the news and became the program’s first female co-anchor in 1974.
“I remember sending a note to the president of NBC News saying, ‘Shouldn’t we do something about the women’s movement?'” she recalled in the Makers interview. “And scrawled across the top of my note, it said, ‘Insufficient interest.’
She left NBC News two years later to co-host the “ABC Evening News” with Harry Reasoner, becoming the first female evening anchor in history.
“I co-anchored a man, Harry Reasoner, who couldn’t accept me,” Walters said of his ABC Evening News host in 2012.
“I would go into that studio and Harry would be sitting with the sets and everyone was making jokes and ignoring me. No one would talk to me,” he added. “I was so lonely and failed. And I read about it in all the newspapers and magazines.”
At the time, Time magazine described Walter’s move to prime time as “the latest advance in the women’s movement in television” in an article titled “Will the morning star shine at night?“
She shined: When she moved to ABC, Walters became the first female news anchor to make a Annual salary of one million dollars.
“Overnight I became a million-dollar baby after being offered a salary that, on the surface, was at least double that of anyone else in the news business, including Walter Cronkite,” Walters wrote in his 2008 memoir, ” audition”. ”
“Nearly every broadcaster, including Harry Reasoner, walked into his boss’s office, asked for a raise and got it,” he wrote. “Well, you’re welcome.”
“We all recognize that if it hadn’t been for her, we wouldn’t have had a shoulder to lean on. Now we can all slide down that road that she literally paved for us brick by brick.
– Oprah Winfrey
Walters consistently assured some of the most searched topics in the news for “Today,” “ABC Evening News,” “20/20” and later for “The View” and its annual “Barbara Walters’ 10 Most Fascinating People” special.
He met with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for a joint interview in 1977, when the two foreign leaders began talks on a historic peace accord.
Walters retired from the newscasts in May 2014, but returned for occasional specials over the next few years, including interviewing Trump during the 2016 election cycle.
Walters HE WON three Daytime Emmy Awards (she was nominated for 31), one Primetime Emmy (out of 11 nominations), and seven News and Documentary Emmy Awards.
Walters’ legacy of telling humorous stories with compassion and poise has inspired women to excel in an industry where they were once unwelcome.
Ida Mae Astute via Getty Images
“I was 16, I saw it on TV, it inspired me to think, ‘Maybe I could do this,'” Oprah Winfrey told E! News from 2014. “For the first year of my television career, [I] in fact, she created this facade by pretending to be Barbara Walters and trying to sit, talk and act like her. … We all admit that if it hadn’t been for her, we wouldn’t have had a shoulder to stand on. Now we can all slide down that road that she literally paved for us brick by brick.
Changing the way the news industry thought about women was important to Walters.
“I’ve influenced the way women are viewed, and that’s important to me,” she said Bloomberg Businessweek in August 2013. “If I did stories and interviews that used to be done by men and opened the door a little bit, and now it’s taken for granted, that would be a legacy I could be proud of.”
Judah Robinson and Jackson Connor contributed to this report.
