Barbara Walters Announces 2014 Retirement

[alp227]

Source: ABC

For decades, Barbara Walters has inspired millions with her groundbreaking interviews — but after 37 years with ABC News, the newscaster is announcing on “The View” Monday that next summer, she will retire from TV journalism. Until then, she will continue to anchor and report for ABC News, appear on “The View,” and anchor specials throughout the year including a “20 Years of 10 Most Fascinating People” special in December, an Oscars special, and a May career retrospective.

Walters will remain Executive Producer of “The View,” the show she created in 1997.

“I am very happy with my decision and look forward to a wonderful and special year ahead both on ‘The View’ and with ABC News,” she said. “I created ‘The View’ and am delighted it will last beyond my leaving it.”

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2013/05/barbara-walters-announces-2014-retirement/

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I've seen a few of Walters's year-end Most Fascinating People specials. In 2008, Media Matters criticized Walters for including Rush Limbaugh in such a list. I'm too young to have seen her interviews with various world leaders and controversial people such as Fidel Castro or Monica Lewinsky.

I recently saw her 2007 interview with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez on YouTube

[GoneOffShore]

1. Good.

It's been time for her to go for a long time.

[Suich]

2. It's about time.

Never have been a fan.

[MADem]

4. I have ALWAYS been a fan. I haven't always agreed with her, but the only reason I watched the

news with that asshole Harry Reasoner was to watch him fume and her maintain her dignity.

I knew even back then that "avuncular" old Harry was ripshit about something, and that something was having to share the desk with ..... A GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone not getting the there needs to grab a clue...

She was a groundbreaker when it wasn't easy. She's the reason that Molly Ivins and Rachel Maddow and Amy Goodman were able to show their faces on TV. She was a glass-ceiling breaker of the first order, and she didn't get a lot of help, either. She had to be pushy, b-wordy, aggressive, tireless and BETTER than her male peers. And she was. You can make fun of her speech impediment and her "What kind of tree would you be" but she got Castro, she got Shah, she got Quaddafi, Assad the Younger, most Presidents, a slew of other leaders, and of course, all those celebrities.

Like I said, I find her exasperating at times, don't always agree with her, but I have the UTMOST RESPECT for that woman. She is one helluva interviewer, and she doesn't skip the tough questions.

[Hekate]

7. KnR for your post, MADem!

A capsule feminist history lesson -- thank you.

[MADem]

8. Hey, I gotta give credit where due. She is indefatigable. Smart as hell, too.

She's 83, she deserves a break. I hope she keeps a toe in and does the odd special, yet. She's a broadcasting icon.

[harmonicon]

3. She retired from journalism a LONG time ago.

That is, if she ever really was a journalist. I've heard that she once was, but I've yet to see any evidence. In my lifetime, she's just been a weird tv celebrity that interviews famous people sometimes. I guess she also has some show where she and some other women who don't seem to have careers doing anything that would make them famous just sit around and bullshit for an hour - I've never seen it. Her interview with David Letterman in the 90's was good, but possibly just because it's one of the only interviews Letterman's ever done.

[MADem]

5. No evidence?

How about this?

&list=PL04A3FDA2F75FE977

Or this?

Or this?

Or this?

She's one helluva journalist. Better than most on the air these days. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Even many of her entertainment interviews (Richard Pryor, e.g., Dolly Parton, Ellen Degeneres, etc.) are revealing gems.

[MADem]

9. You are just so wrong. nt

[Cooley Hurd]

11. I think there are many on DU that don't recognize just how much of a pioneer she was...

While I don't think her last years were her best, her place in Broadcast Journalism history can never be disputed.

[MADem]

13. People who are very young don't realize that even Walter Cronkite did some banal and stupid shit.

It wasn't all taking off the glasses and telling us the President had died, or talking about Vietnam as a national tragedy, or narrating the moon landing.

Cronkite initially--and for entirely SELFISH reasons--opposed CAPE WIND, and used his celebrity to lobby against it. He later saw the error of his ways. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.capewind.org/news121.htm

Hey, everyone has to put "food on their family" to quote the Porge. And even icons aren't perfect. It doesn't diminish a lifetime of achievement...

I suppose the nice thing (in an odd way) is that a lot of these youngsters denigrating Walters are just so used to seeing women on television that they don't understand what a Big Frigging Deal it was to see her, or to see Max (RIP) Robinson, or Bernie Shaw, for that matter, on TV, IN CHARGE of the desk, either. What used to be a "Whoa/WOW" event is just a ho-hum/so-what thing.

She OWNS a big piece of that. She deserves props.

[Cooley Hurd]

16. I remember when they teamed her w/ Reasoner in the 70's...

...for the nightly news. It was a HUGE story - not because the two couldn't stand each other (by many accts, Harry R was a grumpy ol' prick), but because she was considered the 1st Female anchor of the Nightly News on ANY network. The best Katie Couric could claim was that she was the first SOLO Female anchor of the nightly news.

Max was another groundbreaker. Sadly, hardly anyone remembers him now, save you or I.

[MADem]

18. Yeah--I could tell Harry didn't like her. He used to step on her copy, and his body

language was just WAY off. But hey--living well is the best revenge, and she lived way better than he did.

It's a shame more people don't remember Max. He died way too young--if he'd gotten sick today, it'd be nothing but a thing. He probably wouldn't have missed much, if any, work.

His little brother Randall (smart guy, he's written a couple of very pointed/discussion-inciting books) is still alive, for a long time he was running TransAfrica, but he left USA for awhile to go live in his wife's homeland (she's from the Caribbean) during the Bush administration--can't say I blame him. Haven't heard much out of him in years...last I heard he was on a college faculty somewhere. He's probably due for another book soon!

[Hulk]

10. She came, she saw, she milked it for 20 years beyond what she was worth.

I won't miss that voice one little bit. Adios.

[MADem]

14. See post five.

With the exception of the Shah interview, all the others took place within the last 20 years.

Those few "gets" would MAKE any new journalist, and secure their reputation for a lifetime, but that's just the tip of her iceberg--and no one is a better interviewer. Even if you don't like her.

[liberal N proud]

12. I think she started when TV was introduced to the public

[L0oniX]

15. Baba Wawa will always be.... Baba Wawa to me. n/t

[kentauros]

17. Thank you, Gilda!

Still miss her...