Journalist and American television pioneer Barbara Walters has died

She started her television career in 1961 The Tonight ShowIn 1976, Walters joined ABC News, where she became the first host of a nationally televised nightly news program. With an annual salary of $1 million, she also set a record as the highest paid news anchor. Although she had to compete against male co-presenters such as Frank McGee and Harry Reasoner, who tried to undermine her, she later testified.

After working in the television industry for more than half a century, her on-screen career came to an end in 2014. All told, Walters has won 12 Emmy Awards, 11 of which were hiring for ABC News. It is also placed on that channel the view On Legs, a popular talk show hosted today by Whoopi Goldberg, among others.

Walters has interviewed every American president and first lady since the 1970s, from Nixon to Obama. Her interviews have been extensive and her access to public figures has only increased throughout her career. Walters crossed the Bay of Pigs with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and held the first joint interview with Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

Tough questions

This is how Walters became a celebrity who could live up to her guests. She has also developed a reputation for asking tough questions. For example, I asked Russian President Vladimir Putin if he had ordered the killing of someone (he denied this). In 1999, an estimated 74 million viewers watched Walters’ interview with Monica Lewinsky about the former White House intern’s relationship with then-President Bill Clinton.

Oprah Winfrey calls Walters one of her great role models. In her on-screen farewell, she invited dozens of female journalists who have managed to make careers in her wake. “I had her first television audition,” Winfrey wrote in a statement after her death. “I wouldn’t be here without Barbara Walters, or any other woman you see in the news every day.”

Over the years, those interviewed by Walters have criticized her interviewing style. For example, singer Ricky Martin stated in 2021 that he was traumatized by the conversation with Walters in which she forced him to say something about his sexuality ten years before he made it public. Walters later apologized for this.

Walters was 93 and reportedly died peacefully at her home, surrounded by her family.