Barbara Walters, the first lady of news media, died peacefully at her home surrounded by family at the age of 95 yesterday.
She broke the glass ceiling when it was made out of concrete in the 60s and 70s. She was the first female to host the Today show and a national evening news program when the evening news was the shit.
Misogyny pushed Babs into doing interviews after getting clowned by bigots and assholes in the news media, and it saved her life.
Barbara Walters’s interviews were appointment-watching when I was growing up. My parents would clear the deck for “Barabara Walters Exclusives” and remember watching her crush, former Bond actor Sean Connery with my mom cheering in the background from the living room of our house in Rosetown, Saskatchewan.
When Barbara Walters put Sean Connery on blast. Legend. R.I.P. pic.twitter.com/KVmLDHv2eU
— Don Lewis (@DonLew87) December 31, 2022
We didn’t cancel people back then, and Sean went on to win multiple awards after this interview, but Barbara put him on blast at a time when women didn’t do this to men. In THEIR industry.
Barbara turned her exclusives into an industry. She became the executive producer of several shows and specials that featured women carrying the mail and helped change the lives and narratives of all women in media.
I can’t tell you how many female journalists I’ve worked with who hold Barabara Walters up as the GOAT and who they want to be when they grow into their careers.
Barbara Walters was the Tom Brady of female journalists and maybe the best interviewer of our time. Prepared, measured, intellectual, and fearless, Barbara was the gold standard of interviewers. My mom fucking LOVED her. RIP to the first woman of news media.
