June 24, 2013 • 29 mins
After more than 50 years on TV, Barbara Walters is retiring in 2014. Cristen and Caroline discuss her legacy as a pioneering female broadcast journalist and soft-news aficionado, and why TIME magazine called her the "Most Appalling Argument for Feminism."
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to stuff Mom never told you. From House to
works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we are devoting our
episode to Barbara Walters, legendary news anchor and soft news personality.
(00:27):
How do you describe Barbara Walters, host, current host of
The View. I guess she's a personality journalism extraordinaire. That
is a great title for her. I will I will
air brush her a T shirt im that on it
if you want nice and I hope that her face
on it would have that airbrushed soft look as it
does now. Yes. Um, yeah. Barbara Walters recently announced that
(00:53):
she is retiring not just from the View but from journalism,
from TV, etcetera. And she's eighty three years old, which
makes it even more awesome that she initially made the
announcement via Twitter, right yeah. And and she's no dummy,
that Barbara Walter. She's she's pretty media savvy, as one
(01:13):
would expect from somebody who's been in the industry for
as long as she has. But she made this Twitter
announcement uh the night before her a big official announcement
on the View on May thirteenth, and coincidentally or not,
it's during sweeps week, right, And so she says she's
gonna retire in And she's been on television continuously for
(01:38):
over fifty years in different capacities, mostly on ABC and NBC,
and we wanted to take an episode to talk about
her because she was such a groundbreaking woman in broadcast
television and now with her legacy, there's there's a little
bit of controversy, but we want to take a take
(02:00):
a moment to talk about her highlights and why Barbara
Walters really does matter. Yeah, she's had some pretty significant
firsts and two that go hand in hand are the
fact that she was the first female co host over
on ABC News. She co hosted with Harry Reasoner, who
really sounds like a jerk. And when she was offered
(02:22):
this co hosting position, she became the first female anchor
to make a million bucks. Yeah, and before that, she
had become the first female co host of The Today
Show as well, which was where she really got her start. Um.
And before that, when she went to work for NBC
in the early sixties, she started out as a secretary
and then quickly worked her way up the ranks. And
(02:45):
from nineteen sixty one to nineteen seventy four she was
a reporter, a writer, and a panel member for The
Today Show, and at that time that when she was
on the show, they had a token female on there
called the Today Girl, who was usually a model or
an actress. So when Walters was tapped to become a
(03:07):
new Today Girl, it was a big deal because she said,
I wasn't beautiful, and I had trouble pronouncing my rs,
and I had no idea that they would want me
for this, but of course she jumped on it, right,
And the Today Girl slot was usually filled by models
or actresses, women who basically covered light, fluffy lifestyle pieces
(03:28):
because at the time, she said, you know, nobody was
going to take a woman seriously reading the news, and
so they kind of were relegated to the background doing
fluffier pieces. Didn't she call it something like the tea
pouring stories, right, yeah? And this maker's video that that
was produced by PBS and a O L. She she
did call them tea pouring interviews. She said that for
(03:49):
years the Today Show had one female writer out of
something like seven and the only way basically that you
could get the job is of another female writer got
married or died, and then they would hire literally one
other female writer to do the quote unquote female pieces,
which she called, you know, the fashion shows, the celebrity interviews.
Uh So she ended up doing that because it was
(04:10):
all she could do. And I didn't realize this, but
in nineteen seventy Barbara Walters published her first book, which
was called How To Talk with Practically Anybody About Practically Anything.
Because she made a name for herself pretty much off
the bat with her interviewing style. She was always able
to get notable interviews, as we'll talk about a little
bit more, and kind of developed a signature style. And
(04:35):
in nineteen seventy two, as sings at NBC are really
starting to pick up for her. Just to give you
a snapshot, Barbara Walters told Time Magazine in nineteen quote,
the only woman with a daily network show is Dinah Shore,
and she sings, I'd like to do evening news specials
like the men do. A female anchor woman on the
nightly news hasn't happened yet either. It's like she knew
(05:00):
what was going to happen. And that proved to be
a very preseent quote because she broke those barriers. She
did that stuff. But first, in nineteen seventy four to
nineteen seventy six, she became the co host on the
Today Show. But it took the death of this guy
named Frank McGhee who was one of the host for
(05:22):
her to actually be named co host because when she
was on the Today Show, Frank McGee was so opposed
to a woman being at an equal level of him
because it just was unheard of at the time that
it wasn't until he died that she was able to
step in and tell her bosses, hey, you know what,
according to my contract, I am a co host and
(05:44):
you need to call me a co host. And then
in nineteen seventy five, she snagged her first Daytime Emmy,
which was not for the Today Show, but for this
show called Not for Women Only that she hosted that
I believe was based in New York. It might have
just been on New York channels, but it was kind
(06:05):
of thing where she would invite women on to talk
about what they were doing. It was a little bit feminist,
um and that's where she got her first semi well.
You know, she has known for her interviewing style and
she developed it out of sheer scrappiness. This woman was
pushed aside so often that she often had to go
outside of normal methods of interviewing people. If she wanted
(06:28):
an interview in those days that she was co hosting
and kind of relegated to just the woman's stories, if
she wanted one that was totally her, she had to
literally go outside of the studios so that she wouldn't
have to wait for the men to ask the interview questions.
Because when after she had become a staple on the
Today Show alongside people like Hugh Downs and Frank McGee, uh,
(06:50):
she was restricted from asking questions of the show's quote
unquote serious guests until the male co host had had
asked his. That was an actual rule that the dude
had come up with, and so she had to clear
her own paths. She said, Uh, they became mine, the
interviews that she did outside of the studio, which she said,
is how she got her reputation as an interviewer and
(07:11):
a pushy cookie. A pushy cookie indeed, But in April
twent nineteen seventy six, not only was she a pushy cookie,
but Barbara Walters was a self described lonely cookie because
when that was when she got that groundbreaking co anchor
job on ABC World News Tonight, and she was at
(07:34):
the top of her game at the time, but also
completely despairing and almost depressed about it because whenever she
would walk into the studio and this was from that
maker's interview on PBS, she talks about how no one
wanted to talk to her. The mostly male staff and
Harry reason her co host, wanted absolutely nothing to do
(07:55):
with her. They would make jokes about her because they
thought it was ludicrous that a woman was co anchoring,
can you believe it? But the funny thing is, though
she was making more than Harry Reasoner when she first
got in there. She snagged that record one million dollar contract,
and half a million was for the co anchoring job,
and half a million was for her interview specials, which
(08:16):
was really more so than that job at ABC World
News Tonight. It was her interview specials that became her hallmark, right.
But you know what, just like Harry Reasoner didn't accept her,
viewers didn't either, and journalists called her a flop. And
she even says that, you know, she was so hurt,
and she actually asked the journalist who wrote the story,
(08:38):
you know you called me a flop? What why, why
did you do that? And he said, well you are.
And within two years of becoming the co anchor with
Harry Reasoner, she was reassigned to do specials and Reasoner
was actually let out of his contract to go to
another network. And Barbara said, you know, they could have
kept him, but they bet on me. And she said
it was during this time that she worked the hardest
and did probably the best in views of her life,
(09:01):
which included people like Fidel Castro and the very famous
joint interview with Manock and Beagan and and Arsadad. And
quickly going back to that short stint that she had
at ABC World News tonight, when I was reading about
her struggle managing all of the criticism, it gave me
a little bit of perspective for if I have a
(09:22):
bad day, if someone sends us Carolina maybe not so
nice email, I need to remember Barbara Walters and all
of the flak that she was getting at the time.
For instance, Larry Flint offered her a million dollars to
pose for Hustler. Alright, whatever, But then in nineteen seventies
six time magazine called her the quote unquote most appalling
(09:44):
argument for feminism. Uh, there was Guilda Radner's famous Saturday
Night Live impression of her Baba wah wah, which she was.
She knew that it was a joke, but it was
also offensive because everyone was making fun of how she spoke, right.
She really did not like it. And she even said
in that video that she caught her daughter watching the
(10:07):
impression on TV and said, what are you doing? Why
are you watching that stuff? And her ten year old
turns around and says, how mom, have a sense of humor,
And she said, Okay, I get it. But even then
it was still so hard to accept, right, And and
even later on Barbara Walters ended up meeting Gilda Radner
and she was very friendly and all of that, But
can you imagine being a national punchline when at the
(10:28):
same time you're at the top of your game, right? Well,
what she said saved her during that really dark time
was letters from women that came pouring in. It's things
like if you can do it, we can do it.
Hang in there, We're having the same problems. And she said,
I really realized that women from all walks of life
understood what I was going through, and they were with me. Yeah.
(10:52):
And so even though today when we think about Barbara
Walters and we think about the view and it is
an exact the hard hitting news, it might not have
the brainiest reputation, but looking at this snapshot of her
early career, and not even that early. She was forty
five years old when she got that job at ABC
(11:12):
World News tonight, Um, it still speaks so much to
the ambition and tenacity that she had and when she
was struggling with these these networks, she said that a
lot of times she wasn't one to elbow her way
into a vice president's office and demand things. She said
that I just wanted to do the work. And that
(11:32):
was the way that she snagged all of those interviews,
those famous interviews like the ones that you mentioned, and
also the fact that she interviewed in Richard Nixon and
has interviewed every single sitting president since then. Uh, she
had that famous interview with Monica Lewinsky, which is still
the most watched interview in television history. And it's incredible
(11:54):
to think that she was still able to do all
this stuff, still able to keep all this momentum even
when you know, major media outlets are basically telling her
to go home already. Yeah, well, so what sparked this drive?
I mean, obviously she has incredible drive and like you said,
this tenacity to keep pressing on in the face of
oh everyone. And she credits not necessarily her parents supporting her,
(12:18):
but her parents not directly supporting her. She said, you know,
I didn't have parents who said you can do everything
you want. What I did have was a father who
was in show business and my fear that it could
all be gone tomorrow. And then I had to work.
If the job was grubby, I could not say I'm
going to leave it and get married because I wasn't
very good at that and I didn't want to have
that as my safety net. I had to work. And
(12:40):
Barbara Walters was married three times, four times if you
count the second time she remarried her third husband and
carry the one. But um, you know, as far as
like that tenacity and that that not giving up and
having to work being a woman in that era who
is like, no, I'm gonna work, screw you, I'm not
going to fall back marriage. I mean, it's interesting in
(13:01):
the perspective of is she a feminist, what did she
do for the women's movement? Because she did want to
help other women, and she did want to put a
focus in the news on the women's movement. But there
was a bit of a pushback she had sent when
she worked very early in her career at NBC. She
had sent a memo to the NBC president asking shouldn't
we do something on this whole this whole little trend
(13:23):
going on right now, the women's movement, and his response,
scrawled on the top of the memo, was not enough interest.
And nevertheless, so she you know, she still made such
a big impact. There was a blog post over at
A A r P by Laurie Lynch and she said
it was her ceiling shattering move to ABC in nineteen
(13:44):
seventies six to co host and nightly news that really
made young women sit up and take notice. Those of
us aspiring to big careers in journalism were being told
by mentors and mothers that we two could be another
Barbara Walters. And I mean, from that perspective of that's
pretty incredible. I think probably for you and I we
both went to journalism school, and I don't think that
(14:08):
Barbara Walters was ever mentioned really in any of the
classes we took, because by that time, you know, maybe
we just sort of take her for granted, as you know,
popping up on and having the view. I mean she
start I didn't realize this, but she launched her famous
ten Most Fascinating People special in n and the View
(14:28):
launched when she was seventy. Yeah. I just like that
kind of blew my mind because I guess I just
think of the View as having started when I was
much older. Apparently not. But I mean, as far as
you know, the women's movement, she might not have directly
associated with it or with feminism, but she certainly didn't
(14:49):
turn her back on it, which you know, is what
Patricia Bradley said in her book Mass Media and the
Shaping of American Feminism, where she actually talked to a
lot of other female journalists from this era who said,
I remember Barbara being like so friendly and always offering
a hand and wanting to help, which is something that
Barbara herself confirmed in that maker's video. You know, she said,
I tried to be very supportive of women because I
(15:11):
know what I went through and women do need that help,
and it is still a little difficult for men to
understand it. The fact that we still have the same
poll between the career and the child and the marriage. Yes,
she said, men do to a degree, but not the
same way that women do. Yeah. And in two thousand
and twelve, she definitely raised some hackles among feminists and
(15:35):
just viewers in general who were kind of confused when she,
on the View publicly sided with conservative Rick Santorum's comment
that quote unquote, radical feminism was ruining the traditional family
and let's not even waste the time like in diving
into that assertion. Um. But on the view she I mean,
(15:59):
she really made people a bit angry because she said,
quote there was a time when feminists made the woman
who stayed home and had children feel inferior. I think
we are finally changing so that we realized younger ones
you can make a choice. So I don't think that
what he said is so terribly off the point. And
that's a strong move to say, hey, you know what
(16:20):
I'm gonna I'm gonna side with you, Rick Santorum, especially
if you might be more associated with slightly more liberal politics.
But that really isn't different from what she was saying
during the height of Second Wave feminism um. For instance,
in there's a nineteen seventy four book I Found the
(16:40):
New Feminist Movement, and she was quoted as saying that
second way feminist quote have given women who want to
stay home a national inferiority complex. And thinking about that,
I understand what she's saying in terms of it shouldn't
be demonizing women who want to stay home. It should
be more about the choice. Perhaps into the was in
twelve with the way that she said it and the
(17:02):
person that she was supporting as she was saying that
was really more of the problem for people, right. But
I mean, I think it's interesting and I think it's
I don't know, just coming that statement coming from a
woman who obviously did make the choice and felt like
she had to make the choice, Like she said, I
had to work. I didn't want to fall back on
(17:24):
marriage or any kind of safety net, you know, because
her father had been in show business, he was a
nightclub owner. It all could be gone in a second,
and she knew that, and so she wanted to keep working,
you know, keep being as successful as possible, make her contribution.
And so the fact that she's the one coming forward
and saying you feminists are giving women who want to
stay at home and raise babies and inferiority complex. I mean,
(17:45):
I think that gives it maybe some extra weight. Yeah,
and I wonder if that speaks to pressure that she
had felt at points during her career that maybe she
should stay home with her adoptive daughter at least stepped
back a little bit. How um, you could keep Barbara
walters intense schedule and also, uh, you know, be a
full time mom that that just seems pretty impossible. Um,
(18:09):
But you know, Barbara certainly has not been without her controversy.
Once she announced her retirement in May, everybody came out with,
you know, a blog post or an article or something
on Barbara saying good riddance or oh Barbara. And Alex Perreen,
(18:31):
for instance, over at Salon was one of the people
who said good riddance because he said she's fine for
inf attainment, but she has no journalistic scruples whatsoever because
of her very close, he thinks too close relationships over
the years with sources, some of whom were just a
tad corrupt, such as most recently Syrian president Bashar al Assa,
(18:55):
who um she had on I had I can't remember
if it was twenty but she had one of the
first interviews with him, and Marine was talking about how well,
of course you got the interview because she's actually good
friends with him and his wife, and and talking about
other um usually actually men for the most part, that
she had been friends with but also would interview or
(19:19):
use as as sources. Yeah, And one thing I read
was talking about how maybe that that comfort with extremely
famous or infamous people, that that ease of of interviewing
all sorts of people from all different walks of life
comes from her upbringing because her father was in show business,
and because she had been in some form of journalism
for so long. And yeah, she has walked that infotainment
(19:42):
tightrope for decades. You know, she's able to jump between
interviews with heads of state and celebrities like the you know,
the Kardashians, or that infamous Ricky Martin interview where she
was basically like demanding that he come out of the
closet on her show and he's like, look, I don't
want to talk about it. I mean, she was pretty
vilified for for that at the time. Yeah, and also
(20:03):
on Salon's kind of on the flip side of the controversy.
TV critic Mary Elizabeth Williams said, you know what I
am all about some Barbara Walters. She says that, yeah, Okay,
she's got the soft focus, she's got the entertainment spin
and all of that quote. But what she leaves behind
is a ferociously powerful, maddening lye unduplicated example. She's a
(20:26):
woman who out earned many of her male counterparts and
has been unashamed and unapologetic about her aspirations. Yeah and uh.
Over at the cut from New York Magazine, they wrote
that Barbara has served as a bridge between an era
when the news was defined by a small, homogeneous group
of experts to a time when discussion and conversation rain.
(20:47):
And I think her career has totally mirrored that trajectory
as far as like starting out wanting to be in
hard news talking to heads of state, whereas now she's
hosting a talk show basically right. And that's not to
say that the view never touches on political stories, harder news,
bigger societal issues. Um, but you know it's still it's
(21:12):
definitely it's not c Span. Yeah sure, I mean yeah,
I mean she's not just sitting there talking like Brian
Williams delivering the news at night. You know it's it's
four four or five or however. Many people are on
the View, sitting around on a couch talking versus the
more serious like Walter Cronkite. Who do you think will
replace her? Anybody? Do you think they'll do? You think
(21:34):
they'll pull in a replacement. Who's somebody with some gravitas?
Martha Stewart. She's looking for a new gig right. All
she's doing is dating on match dot com right now,
and yeah, and getting into trouble for selling her spatuel
as at different stores Martha spatialists. Now, maybe, um, let's
make our prediction. The person who will take over for
(21:56):
Barbara Walters in two thousand fourteen won't be Katie currct
because after she got the shaft, she she has her
own talk show now and it's successful. And I don't
think that it would be Diane Sawyer maybe and Curry.
I don't think it would be and Curry. I don't
think it would be and Curry. But you know what
if it were and Curry, I might watch the View
(22:19):
because of her unceremonious exit from the Today Show. Uh so,
But just to sign off, though, should we toss out
some final accolades that Barbara Walters has received absolutely over
the years. Listen to this. Nominated for seven Daytime Emmy Awards,
she's won four times, nominated for twenty News and Documentary
Emmy Awards and won eight times, and then nominated for
(22:42):
twelve Prime Time Emmy's and one one time. So let
me look at this, maths only everything thirteen Emmy's not bad,
not bad, not bad. Babs. Wonder if she has a cabinet,
an Emmy cabinet, or maybe she just sprinkles them around.
You know, she puts one in each of her thirteen
bathrooms in her home. Yeah, one in each shower. Yes,
(23:05):
So that's it, Barbara Walters. Hats off for you to
um really never giving up and also still though I
want to say that lover her hater. What a great example, though,
of a woman who is well beyond retirement age, who
never stopped working now and and I do like what
(23:28):
she said when she retired, you know, I just I
just want to sit on a hill and watch everything happen,
you know, just watch it go by. I mean, after
after being on television for over fifty years, I think
she deserves a vacation. Yeah, you wonder if her attitude
is still the same today as it was then, as
far as I have to work, because obviously, I mean,
she's been pretty consistently successful for decades now, Like I
(23:51):
think she's set. Yeah, I mean, Barbara Walters is as
much of a celebrity and an a lister as most
of the people that talks to at this point. So
let's hear from folks. Barbara Walters, what do you think
any predictions for who will take over at the View?
I know it's kind of a silly question, but it's
(24:12):
a fun one. So right to us mom Stuff at
Discovery dot com, or you can tweet us step mom
Stuff podcast, or send us a little message on Facebook
and like us while you're at it. And we are
going to read a couple of letters that we have
from past episodes. But before we do, let's take a
quick break and then we'll get right back. And now
(24:34):
back to our letters. And we've got a couple here
about our episode on Glass of Stereotypes, which we got
a ton of letters from. And this one to kick
off from Carmen is a little bit sad. Her subject
line is how I learned glasses are bad, she says.
When I was in elementary school, I wore glasses because
(24:54):
I was scared of putting things in my eyes. But
in the sixth grade, I was at school one day
and two girls in the other side the classroom we're
talking about me. One of them said, that's Carmen over there,
the ugly one with the glasses. I found out about
this conversation because the girl who said that was one
of my closest friends, and she simply told me what
she had said, as if she saw no problem with
(25:15):
calling me ugly. I told my mom I wanted context
as soon as I got home that day. At the
end of that school year, at my middle school, boyfriend
saw my yearbook picture, which had been taken before I
got context, and he immediately told me, I like you
better with contexts middle schools worst. I'm probably old enough
now that no one would ever call me ugly to
my face, but I still hate the idea of wearing glasses.
(25:38):
I'll soon be leaving to work in a developing country
for two years, and did not want to deal with
the hassle of bringing eight parents of daily contact with
me or being in a situation where I'm spending a
night in a village without a sink for me to
change my contact. So in two days I'll beating lay
six surgery after four years of wearing glasses and eleven
years were in contact. It's possible that I would have
gotten the surgery anyway, because both glasses and contacts can
(25:59):
be in credibly inconvenient times. But certainly the negative stereotypes
contributed a great deal to my enthusiasm for having lasers
shot into my eyes and the name of eliminating my
need for corrective lenses. Yeah, I have friends have done
life second, they love it. I'm too scared. I'm too
scared period. Okay, Well, I have a letter here from Chelsea.
(26:21):
She says, I've been wearing glasses for twenty one years
since i was six, and like you, I wear my
contact of the time. I have exceptionally awful vision, and
I've been legally blind since an early age. I definitely
played into the stereotype of the dorky girl in school,
which was reflected in my lack of a dating life
into college. So I was not surprised to hear your
finding from the podcast. I was surprised, however, that nothing
(26:44):
was mentioned about being genetically inferior. I always assumed that
people with glasses were subconsciously found less attractive because of
some primeval knowledge that poor eyesight equates death. I always
assumed I would have died early on if I was
born before eye glasses were invented. Much like with my
lack of childbearing hips and bountiful breasts. I would also
(27:05):
assume that people would not want to breed with someone
who is likely to pass on their poor eyesight to
their offspring. Did you find anything relating to that in
your research? We did not uncover anything like that, But
I don't know. Yeah, I on a slightly related note
that doesn't answer your question at all. So I recently
(27:27):
found this book, Uh, that was a compilation of my
great great great great great great uncle's letters to his
family because he went to Dartmouth, went to law school,
and ended up dying in the Civil War. Like at
the very end in anyway, his beloved sister compiled all
his letters, and in so many of his letters when
he's off at college, he's writing home, and he's like
mother and father. I can barely see as I write
(27:49):
you this inleto my eyes and he's like always concerned
about his eyes, and he's always looking forward to Christmas
break and summer breaks off so that he can rest
his eyes because he's like, I'm afraid I will need
glass oh mine. And he was also very skinny, so
that means nothing, but it's very interesting to read a
firsthand account of someone in the eighteen when was that college.
(28:13):
I don't know for him, but who was scared of
getting glasses? Man, if only if only Warby Parker existed
back then, he'd be the most stylish chap at dot
I mean he had to killer mustache there you go. Wow,
he had everything he needed just right there. He just
needed some some thick frames. Well. Thanks to everyone who
(28:34):
has written into us. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com
is where you can send your letters. You can also
follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts, and we're
on Facebook as well. Don't forget to check us out
there and see what we're doing, and follow us on
Tumbler at stuff mom never told you dot tumbler dot com,
and don't forget to watch us as well. Monday, Wednesday Friday,
(28:54):
we come out with a new video for you on
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never told you. Head on over and subscribe for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff works dot com
Welcome to stuff Mom never told you. From House to
works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we are devoting our
episode to Barbara Walters, legendary news anchor and soft news personality.
(00:27):
How do you describe Barbara Walters, host, current host of
The View. I guess she's a personality journalism extraordinaire. That
is a great title for her. I will I will
air brush her a T shirt im that on it
if you want nice and I hope that her face
on it would have that airbrushed soft look as it
does now. Yes. Um, yeah. Barbara Walters recently announced that
(00:53):
she is retiring not just from the View but from journalism,
from TV, etcetera. And she's eighty three years old, which
makes it even more awesome that she initially made the
announcement via Twitter, right yeah. And and she's no dummy,
that Barbara Walter. She's she's pretty media savvy, as one
(01:13):
would expect from somebody who's been in the industry for
as long as she has. But she made this Twitter
announcement uh the night before her a big official announcement
on the View on May thirteenth, and coincidentally or not,
it's during sweeps week, right, And so she says she's
gonna retire in And she's been on television continuously for
(01:38):
over fifty years in different capacities, mostly on ABC and NBC,
and we wanted to take an episode to talk about
her because she was such a groundbreaking woman in broadcast
television and now with her legacy, there's there's a little
bit of controversy, but we want to take a take
(02:00):
a moment to talk about her highlights and why Barbara
Walters really does matter. Yeah, she's had some pretty significant
firsts and two that go hand in hand are the
fact that she was the first female co host over
on ABC News. She co hosted with Harry Reasoner, who
really sounds like a jerk. And when she was offered
(02:22):
this co hosting position, she became the first female anchor
to make a million bucks. Yeah, and before that, she
had become the first female co host of The Today
Show as well, which was where she really got her start. Um.
And before that, when she went to work for NBC
in the early sixties, she started out as a secretary
and then quickly worked her way up the ranks. And
(02:45):
from nineteen sixty one to nineteen seventy four she was
a reporter, a writer, and a panel member for The
Today Show, and at that time that when she was
on the show, they had a token female on there
called the Today Girl, who was usually a model or
an actress. So when Walters was tapped to become a
(03:07):
new Today Girl, it was a big deal because she said,
I wasn't beautiful, and I had trouble pronouncing my rs,
and I had no idea that they would want me
for this, but of course she jumped on it, right,
And the Today Girl slot was usually filled by models
or actresses, women who basically covered light, fluffy lifestyle pieces
(03:28):
because at the time, she said, you know, nobody was
going to take a woman seriously reading the news, and
so they kind of were relegated to the background doing
fluffier pieces. Didn't she call it something like the tea
pouring stories, right, yeah? And this maker's video that that
was produced by PBS and a O L. She she
did call them tea pouring interviews. She said that for
(03:49):
years the Today Show had one female writer out of
something like seven and the only way basically that you
could get the job is of another female writer got
married or died, and then they would hire literally one
other female writer to do the quote unquote female pieces,
which she called, you know, the fashion shows, the celebrity interviews.
Uh So she ended up doing that because it was
(04:10):
all she could do. And I didn't realize this, but
in nineteen seventy Barbara Walters published her first book, which
was called How To Talk with Practically Anybody About Practically Anything.
Because she made a name for herself pretty much off
the bat with her interviewing style. She was always able
to get notable interviews, as we'll talk about a little
bit more, and kind of developed a signature style. And
(04:35):
in nineteen seventy two, as sings at NBC are really
starting to pick up for her. Just to give you
a snapshot, Barbara Walters told Time Magazine in nineteen quote,
the only woman with a daily network show is Dinah Shore,
and she sings, I'd like to do evening news specials
like the men do. A female anchor woman on the
nightly news hasn't happened yet either. It's like she knew
(05:00):
what was going to happen. And that proved to be
a very preseent quote because she broke those barriers. She
did that stuff. But first, in nineteen seventy four to
nineteen seventy six, she became the co host on the
Today Show. But it took the death of this guy
named Frank McGhee who was one of the host for
(05:22):
her to actually be named co host because when she
was on the Today Show, Frank McGee was so opposed
to a woman being at an equal level of him
because it just was unheard of at the time that
it wasn't until he died that she was able to
step in and tell her bosses, hey, you know what,
according to my contract, I am a co host and
(05:44):
you need to call me a co host. And then
in nineteen seventy five, she snagged her first Daytime Emmy,
which was not for the Today Show, but for this
show called Not for Women Only that she hosted that
I believe was based in New York. It might have
just been on New York channels, but it was kind
(06:05):
of thing where she would invite women on to talk
about what they were doing. It was a little bit feminist,
um and that's where she got her first semi well.
You know, she has known for her interviewing style and
she developed it out of sheer scrappiness. This woman was
pushed aside so often that she often had to go
outside of normal methods of interviewing people. If she wanted
(06:28):
an interview in those days that she was co hosting
and kind of relegated to just the woman's stories, if
she wanted one that was totally her, she had to
literally go outside of the studios so that she wouldn't
have to wait for the men to ask the interview questions.
Because when after she had become a staple on the
Today Show alongside people like Hugh Downs and Frank McGee, uh,
(06:50):
she was restricted from asking questions of the show's quote
unquote serious guests until the male co host had had
asked his. That was an actual rule that the dude
had come up with, and so she had to clear
her own paths. She said, Uh, they became mine, the
interviews that she did outside of the studio, which she said,
is how she got her reputation as an interviewer and
(07:11):
a pushy cookie. A pushy cookie indeed, But in April
twent nineteen seventy six, not only was she a pushy cookie,
but Barbara Walters was a self described lonely cookie because
when that was when she got that groundbreaking co anchor
job on ABC World News Tonight, and she was at
(07:34):
the top of her game at the time, but also
completely despairing and almost depressed about it because whenever she
would walk into the studio and this was from that
maker's interview on PBS, she talks about how no one
wanted to talk to her. The mostly male staff and
Harry reason her co host, wanted absolutely nothing to do
(07:55):
with her. They would make jokes about her because they
thought it was ludicrous that a woman was co anchoring,
can you believe it? But the funny thing is, though
she was making more than Harry Reasoner when she first
got in there. She snagged that record one million dollar contract,
and half a million was for the co anchoring job,
and half a million was for her interview specials, which
(08:16):
was really more so than that job at ABC World
News Tonight. It was her interview specials that became her hallmark, right.
But you know what, just like Harry Reasoner didn't accept her,
viewers didn't either, and journalists called her a flop. And
she even says that, you know, she was so hurt,
and she actually asked the journalist who wrote the story,
(08:38):
you know you called me a flop? What why, why
did you do that? And he said, well you are.
And within two years of becoming the co anchor with
Harry Reasoner, she was reassigned to do specials and Reasoner
was actually let out of his contract to go to
another network. And Barbara said, you know, they could have
kept him, but they bet on me. And she said
it was during this time that she worked the hardest
and did probably the best in views of her life,
(09:01):
which included people like Fidel Castro and the very famous
joint interview with Manock and Beagan and and Arsadad. And
quickly going back to that short stint that she had
at ABC World News tonight, when I was reading about
her struggle managing all of the criticism, it gave me
a little bit of perspective for if I have a
(09:22):
bad day, if someone sends us Carolina maybe not so
nice email, I need to remember Barbara Walters and all
of the flak that she was getting at the time.
For instance, Larry Flint offered her a million dollars to
pose for Hustler. Alright, whatever, But then in nineteen seventies
six time magazine called her the quote unquote most appalling
(09:44):
argument for feminism. Uh, there was Guilda Radner's famous Saturday
Night Live impression of her Baba wah wah, which she was.
She knew that it was a joke, but it was
also offensive because everyone was making fun of how she spoke, right.
She really did not like it. And she even said
in that video that she caught her daughter watching the
(10:07):
impression on TV and said, what are you doing? Why
are you watching that stuff? And her ten year old
turns around and says, how mom, have a sense of humor,
And she said, Okay, I get it. But even then
it was still so hard to accept, right, And and
even later on Barbara Walters ended up meeting Gilda Radner
and she was very friendly and all of that, But
can you imagine being a national punchline when at the
(10:28):
same time you're at the top of your game, right? Well,
what she said saved her during that really dark time
was letters from women that came pouring in. It's things
like if you can do it, we can do it.
Hang in there, We're having the same problems. And she said,
I really realized that women from all walks of life
understood what I was going through, and they were with me. Yeah.
(10:52):
And so even though today when we think about Barbara
Walters and we think about the view and it is
an exact the hard hitting news, it might not have
the brainiest reputation, but looking at this snapshot of her
early career, and not even that early. She was forty
five years old when she got that job at ABC
(11:12):
World News tonight, Um, it still speaks so much to
the ambition and tenacity that she had and when she
was struggling with these these networks, she said that a
lot of times she wasn't one to elbow her way
into a vice president's office and demand things. She said
that I just wanted to do the work. And that
(11:32):
was the way that she snagged all of those interviews,
those famous interviews like the ones that you mentioned, and
also the fact that she interviewed in Richard Nixon and
has interviewed every single sitting president since then. Uh, she
had that famous interview with Monica Lewinsky, which is still
the most watched interview in television history. And it's incredible
(11:54):
to think that she was still able to do all
this stuff, still able to keep all this momentum even
when you know, major media outlets are basically telling her
to go home already. Yeah, well, so what sparked this drive?
I mean, obviously she has incredible drive and like you said,
this tenacity to keep pressing on in the face of
oh everyone. And she credits not necessarily her parents supporting her,
(12:18):
but her parents not directly supporting her. She said, you know,
I didn't have parents who said you can do everything
you want. What I did have was a father who
was in show business and my fear that it could
all be gone tomorrow. And then I had to work.
If the job was grubby, I could not say I'm
going to leave it and get married because I wasn't
very good at that and I didn't want to have
that as my safety net. I had to work. And
(12:40):
Barbara Walters was married three times, four times if you
count the second time she remarried her third husband and
carry the one. But um, you know, as far as
like that tenacity and that that not giving up and
having to work being a woman in that era who
is like, no, I'm gonna work, screw you, I'm not
going to fall back marriage. I mean, it's interesting in
(13:01):
the perspective of is she a feminist, what did she
do for the women's movement? Because she did want to
help other women, and she did want to put a
focus in the news on the women's movement. But there
was a bit of a pushback she had sent when
she worked very early in her career at NBC. She
had sent a memo to the NBC president asking shouldn't
we do something on this whole this whole little trend
(13:23):
going on right now, the women's movement, and his response,
scrawled on the top of the memo, was not enough interest.
And nevertheless, so she you know, she still made such
a big impact. There was a blog post over at
A A r P by Laurie Lynch and she said
it was her ceiling shattering move to ABC in nineteen
(13:44):
seventies six to co host and nightly news that really
made young women sit up and take notice. Those of
us aspiring to big careers in journalism were being told
by mentors and mothers that we two could be another
Barbara Walters. And I mean, from that perspective of that's
pretty incredible. I think probably for you and I we
both went to journalism school, and I don't think that
(14:08):
Barbara Walters was ever mentioned really in any of the
classes we took, because by that time, you know, maybe
we just sort of take her for granted, as you know,
popping up on and having the view. I mean she
start I didn't realize this, but she launched her famous
ten Most Fascinating People special in n and the View
(14:28):
launched when she was seventy. Yeah. I just like that
kind of blew my mind because I guess I just
think of the View as having started when I was
much older. Apparently not. But I mean, as far as
you know, the women's movement, she might not have directly
associated with it or with feminism, but she certainly didn't
(14:49):
turn her back on it, which you know, is what
Patricia Bradley said in her book Mass Media and the
Shaping of American Feminism, where she actually talked to a
lot of other female journalists from this era who said,
I remember Barbara being like so friendly and always offering
a hand and wanting to help, which is something that
Barbara herself confirmed in that maker's video. You know, she said,
I tried to be very supportive of women because I
(15:11):
know what I went through and women do need that help,
and it is still a little difficult for men to
understand it. The fact that we still have the same
poll between the career and the child and the marriage. Yes,
she said, men do to a degree, but not the
same way that women do. Yeah. And in two thousand
and twelve, she definitely raised some hackles among feminists and
(15:35):
just viewers in general who were kind of confused when she,
on the View publicly sided with conservative Rick Santorum's comment
that quote unquote, radical feminism was ruining the traditional family
and let's not even waste the time like in diving
into that assertion. Um. But on the view she I mean,
(15:59):
she really made people a bit angry because she said,
quote there was a time when feminists made the woman
who stayed home and had children feel inferior. I think
we are finally changing so that we realized younger ones
you can make a choice. So I don't think that
what he said is so terribly off the point. And
that's a strong move to say, hey, you know what
(16:20):
I'm gonna I'm gonna side with you, Rick Santorum, especially
if you might be more associated with slightly more liberal politics.
But that really isn't different from what she was saying
during the height of Second Wave feminism um. For instance,
in there's a nineteen seventy four book I Found the
(16:40):
New Feminist Movement, and she was quoted as saying that
second way feminist quote have given women who want to
stay home a national inferiority complex. And thinking about that,
I understand what she's saying in terms of it shouldn't
be demonizing women who want to stay home. It should
be more about the choice. Perhaps into the was in
twelve with the way that she said it and the
(17:02):
person that she was supporting as she was saying that
was really more of the problem for people, right. But
I mean, I think it's interesting and I think it's
I don't know, just coming that statement coming from a
woman who obviously did make the choice and felt like
she had to make the choice, Like she said, I
had to work. I didn't want to fall back on
(17:24):
marriage or any kind of safety net, you know, because
her father had been in show business, he was a
nightclub owner. It all could be gone in a second,
and she knew that, and so she wanted to keep working,
you know, keep being as successful as possible, make her contribution.
And so the fact that she's the one coming forward
and saying you feminists are giving women who want to
stay at home and raise babies and inferiority complex. I mean,
(17:45):
I think that gives it maybe some extra weight. Yeah,
and I wonder if that speaks to pressure that she
had felt at points during her career that maybe she
should stay home with her adoptive daughter at least stepped
back a little bit. How um, you could keep Barbara
walters intense schedule and also, uh, you know, be a
full time mom that that just seems pretty impossible. Um,
(18:09):
But you know, Barbara certainly has not been without her controversy.
Once she announced her retirement in May, everybody came out with,
you know, a blog post or an article or something
on Barbara saying good riddance or oh Barbara. And Alex Perreen,
(18:31):
for instance, over at Salon was one of the people
who said good riddance because he said she's fine for
inf attainment, but she has no journalistic scruples whatsoever because
of her very close, he thinks too close relationships over
the years with sources, some of whom were just a
tad corrupt, such as most recently Syrian president Bashar al Assa,
(18:55):
who um she had on I had I can't remember
if it was twenty but she had one of the
first interviews with him, and Marine was talking about how well,
of course you got the interview because she's actually good
friends with him and his wife, and and talking about
other um usually actually men for the most part, that
she had been friends with but also would interview or
(19:19):
use as as sources. Yeah, And one thing I read
was talking about how maybe that that comfort with extremely
famous or infamous people, that that ease of of interviewing
all sorts of people from all different walks of life
comes from her upbringing because her father was in show business,
and because she had been in some form of journalism
for so long. And yeah, she has walked that infotainment
(19:42):
tightrope for decades. You know, she's able to jump between
interviews with heads of state and celebrities like the you know,
the Kardashians, or that infamous Ricky Martin interview where she
was basically like demanding that he come out of the
closet on her show and he's like, look, I don't
want to talk about it. I mean, she was pretty
vilified for for that at the time. Yeah, and also
(20:03):
on Salon's kind of on the flip side of the controversy.
TV critic Mary Elizabeth Williams said, you know what I
am all about some Barbara Walters. She says that, yeah, Okay,
she's got the soft focus, she's got the entertainment spin
and all of that quote. But what she leaves behind
is a ferociously powerful, maddening lye unduplicated example. She's a
(20:26):
woman who out earned many of her male counterparts and
has been unashamed and unapologetic about her aspirations. Yeah and uh.
Over at the cut from New York Magazine, they wrote
that Barbara has served as a bridge between an era
when the news was defined by a small, homogeneous group
of experts to a time when discussion and conversation rain.
(20:47):
And I think her career has totally mirrored that trajectory
as far as like starting out wanting to be in
hard news talking to heads of state, whereas now she's
hosting a talk show basically right. And that's not to
say that the view never touches on political stories, harder news,
bigger societal issues. Um, but you know it's still it's
(21:12):
definitely it's not c Span. Yeah sure, I mean yeah,
I mean she's not just sitting there talking like Brian
Williams delivering the news at night. You know it's it's
four four or five or however. Many people are on
the View, sitting around on a couch talking versus the
more serious like Walter Cronkite. Who do you think will
replace her? Anybody? Do you think they'll do? You think
(21:34):
they'll pull in a replacement. Who's somebody with some gravitas?
Martha Stewart. She's looking for a new gig right. All
she's doing is dating on match dot com right now,
and yeah, and getting into trouble for selling her spatuel
as at different stores Martha spatialists. Now, maybe, um, let's
make our prediction. The person who will take over for
(21:56):
Barbara Walters in two thousand fourteen won't be Katie currct
because after she got the shaft, she she has her
own talk show now and it's successful. And I don't
think that it would be Diane Sawyer maybe and Curry.
I don't think it would be and Curry. I don't
think it would be and Curry. But you know what
if it were and Curry, I might watch the View
(22:19):
because of her unceremonious exit from the Today Show. Uh so,
But just to sign off, though, should we toss out
some final accolades that Barbara Walters has received absolutely over
the years. Listen to this. Nominated for seven Daytime Emmy Awards,
she's won four times, nominated for twenty News and Documentary
Emmy Awards and won eight times, and then nominated for
(22:42):
twelve Prime Time Emmy's and one one time. So let
me look at this, maths only everything thirteen Emmy's not bad,
not bad, not bad. Babs. Wonder if she has a cabinet,
an Emmy cabinet, or maybe she just sprinkles them around.
You know, she puts one in each of her thirteen
bathrooms in her home. Yeah, one in each shower. Yes,
(23:05):
So that's it, Barbara Walters. Hats off for you to
um really never giving up and also still though I
want to say that lover her hater. What a great example, though,
of a woman who is well beyond retirement age, who
never stopped working now and and I do like what
(23:28):
she said when she retired, you know, I just I
just want to sit on a hill and watch everything happen,
you know, just watch it go by. I mean, after
after being on television for over fifty years, I think
she deserves a vacation. Yeah, you wonder if her attitude
is still the same today as it was then, as
far as I have to work, because obviously, I mean,
she's been pretty consistently successful for decades now, Like I
(23:51):
think she's set. Yeah, I mean, Barbara Walters is as
much of a celebrity and an a lister as most
of the people that talks to at this point. So
let's hear from folks. Barbara Walters, what do you think
any predictions for who will take over at the View?
I know it's kind of a silly question, but it's
(24:12):
a fun one. So right to us mom Stuff at
Discovery dot com, or you can tweet us step mom
Stuff podcast, or send us a little message on Facebook
and like us while you're at it. And we are
going to read a couple of letters that we have
from past episodes. But before we do, let's take a
quick break and then we'll get right back. And now
(24:34):
back to our letters. And we've got a couple here
about our episode on Glass of Stereotypes, which we got
a ton of letters from. And this one to kick
off from Carmen is a little bit sad. Her subject
line is how I learned glasses are bad, she says.
When I was in elementary school, I wore glasses because
(24:54):
I was scared of putting things in my eyes. But
in the sixth grade, I was at school one day
and two girls in the other side the classroom we're
talking about me. One of them said, that's Carmen over there,
the ugly one with the glasses. I found out about
this conversation because the girl who said that was one
of my closest friends, and she simply told me what
she had said, as if she saw no problem with
(25:15):
calling me ugly. I told my mom I wanted context
as soon as I got home that day. At the
end of that school year, at my middle school, boyfriend
saw my yearbook picture, which had been taken before I
got context, and he immediately told me, I like you
better with contexts middle schools worst. I'm probably old enough
now that no one would ever call me ugly to
my face, but I still hate the idea of wearing glasses.
(25:38):
I'll soon be leaving to work in a developing country
for two years, and did not want to deal with
the hassle of bringing eight parents of daily contact with
me or being in a situation where I'm spending a
night in a village without a sink for me to
change my contact. So in two days I'll beating lay
six surgery after four years of wearing glasses and eleven
years were in contact. It's possible that I would have
gotten the surgery anyway, because both glasses and contacts can
(25:59):
be in credibly inconvenient times. But certainly the negative stereotypes
contributed a great deal to my enthusiasm for having lasers
shot into my eyes and the name of eliminating my
need for corrective lenses. Yeah, I have friends have done
life second, they love it. I'm too scared. I'm too
scared period. Okay, Well, I have a letter here from Chelsea.
(26:21):
She says, I've been wearing glasses for twenty one years
since i was six, and like you, I wear my
contact of the time. I have exceptionally awful vision, and
I've been legally blind since an early age. I definitely
played into the stereotype of the dorky girl in school,
which was reflected in my lack of a dating life
into college. So I was not surprised to hear your
finding from the podcast. I was surprised, however, that nothing
(26:44):
was mentioned about being genetically inferior. I always assumed that
people with glasses were subconsciously found less attractive because of
some primeval knowledge that poor eyesight equates death. I always
assumed I would have died early on if I was
born before eye glasses were invented. Much like with my
lack of childbearing hips and bountiful breasts. I would also
(27:05):
assume that people would not want to breed with someone
who is likely to pass on their poor eyesight to
their offspring. Did you find anything relating to that in
your research? We did not uncover anything like that, But
I don't know. Yeah, I on a slightly related note
that doesn't answer your question at all. So I recently
(27:27):
found this book, Uh, that was a compilation of my
great great great great great great uncle's letters to his
family because he went to Dartmouth, went to law school,
and ended up dying in the Civil War. Like at
the very end in anyway, his beloved sister compiled all
his letters, and in so many of his letters when
he's off at college, he's writing home, and he's like
mother and father. I can barely see as I write
(27:49):
you this inleto my eyes and he's like always concerned
about his eyes, and he's always looking forward to Christmas
break and summer breaks off so that he can rest
his eyes because he's like, I'm afraid I will need
glass oh mine. And he was also very skinny, so
that means nothing, but it's very interesting to read a
firsthand account of someone in the eighteen when was that college.
(28:13):
I don't know for him, but who was scared of
getting glasses? Man, if only if only Warby Parker existed
back then, he'd be the most stylish chap at dot
I mean he had to killer mustache there you go. Wow,
he had everything he needed just right there. He just
needed some some thick frames. Well. Thanks to everyone who
(28:34):
has written into us. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com
is where you can send your letters. You can also
follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts, and we're
on Facebook as well. Don't forget to check us out
there and see what we're doing, and follow us on
Tumbler at stuff mom never told you dot tumbler dot com,
and don't forget to watch us as well. Monday, Wednesday Friday,
(28:54):
we come out with a new video for you on
our YouTube channel. It's YouTube dot com slash stuff mom
never told you. Head on over and subscribe for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
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