Editor’s note: This is an editorial piece. An editorial, like a news article, is based on fact but also shares opinions. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and are not associated with our newsroom.
If you ever had the opportunity to be interviewed by Barbara Walters, two things were likely. One, you had arrived and two, you were likely to get a series of personal questions, followed by a real zinger you hadn’t even considered.
In that regard, she was fearless and perhaps more importantly, profoundly prepared.
It’s interesting that she never considered herself pretty or beautiful (telling Katie Couric that’s why they both could do such a good job – thanks?) but she also admitted she “wasn’t a dog,” otherwise no one would have put her on television.
When she became the “it girl” in 1977, selected to co-anchor the evening news with Harry Reasoner for a million a year, she thought she had made it, but she was miserable.
Reasoner wasn’t happy about having to share anchor duties with a woman and made it pretty clear off air that he was just “putting up with her.” She didn’t have much better luck with Dan Rather who said “I guess you’ll have to start reading the newspaper,” or Peter Jennings who just scowled in her general direction.
They all made it clear that THEY would do the interviews and she would read from the teleprompter, but Barbara would have none of that. In fact, she started to go outside the studio to do her own interviews and she had a ton of connections that she fostered regularly.
At first, it might be the occasional celebrity conversations, which the good ol’ boys would not consider newsworthy, but when ratings soared and people began to realize that perhaps these famous people had interesting things to say, she began to take off.
Her big break came when she was in Israel to interview Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, when suddenly he was off to have a sit down with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Her network rented a jet, so she got there first and secured an interview with both of them together – a huge coup that ruffled the feathers of one “Uncle Walter.” Of course, Cronkite would talk to them eventually, but nobody cared at that point. Barbara Walters had beaten them all to the punch.
At one point, Walters made the statement, “I love dictators!” She said that because she could always get them to reveal something they hadn’t before. She asked the tough questions to the likes of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Vladimir Putin and Saddam Hussein – who all thought they could just charm their way through the conversation, but the disarming Barbara would never back down.
Barbara Walters has always been considered a role model, but based on the dozens of network female anchors that have come since, turns out, she was THE role model.
There’s much more to discover about this amazing woman and it’s all beautifully laid out in this terrific documentary showing exclusively on Hulu.
