Barbara Walters [antikvár]

PREFACE N o other woman has had a greater impact on broadcast news than Barbara Walters. It was her tenacious pioneering, her infinite drive, her unbridled determination and unabashed ambition to succeed in the male-dominated world of television that opened the door for today's news-women: Diane Sawyer, Connie Chung, Mary Alice Williams, among others. It's doubtful that at any time in the foreseeable iliture will an interviewer-reporter come along who will reach the heights that Barbara Walters has attained. She has set a standard that few, if any, will ever match. As interrogator of the famous and infamous, she is nonpareil. As pursuer of the ultimate exclusive interview, she is unrivaled. An icon, Walters has reached that pinnacle of fame where her name has become indelibly etched alongside those of Jackie O., Monroe, Presley, Carson, Hope, Taylor, Hepburn. Like them, she is a legend in her own time. Since her first appearance on the Today show in the early Sixties, Walters has fascinated television viewers from Tallahassee to Tel Aviv. I count myself as one of them. Having worked in television as a news producer and writer, which were the first jobs Walters held, I was intrigued and perplexed as to how someone with her apparent handicaps—^the speech impediment, the lack of journalistic credentials, the fact that she didn't have the prerequisite blond, blue-eyed all-American look—^was able