Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / SMNTY Classics: The View on Barbara Walters

Transcript

SMNTY Classics: The View on Barbara Walters · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and Welcome to Stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I Never Told You Protection by Heart Radio. I don't
0:19
Speaker 1: know if you feel this way, Samantha, And maybe I'm
0:21
Speaker 1: just I don't know, I'm getting older, but I feel
0:26
Speaker 1: like we lost a lot of people in two, like
0:30
Speaker 1: especially towards the end of Yeah, at the end of
0:34
Speaker 1: the beginning, I feel like a lot of death for
0:37
Speaker 1: being announced and I was like, oh no, yeah, yeah,
0:41
Speaker 1: like big iconic figures. So unfortunately, we have a couple
0:46
Speaker 1: of classics coming up about some of those people. But
0:49
Speaker 1: we're going to start with Barbara Walters, who died at
0:51
Speaker 1: the end of two and just like with most people
0:56
Speaker 1: we talked about, that's sort of a you know, looking back,
0:59
Speaker 1: some things we can talk about that we're problematic for sure,
1:02
Speaker 1: but was an icon and was a trailblazer in terms
1:07
Speaker 1: of journalism. Uh, kind of that soft focus journalism is
1:12
Speaker 1: still a thing that people reference. But yeah, we wanted
1:15
Speaker 1: to bring back this classic episode about Barbara Walters and
1:19
Speaker 1: and all the things that she did, so please enjoy.
1:25
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You. From House toff
1:28
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
1:36
Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we are devoting our
1:39
Speaker 1: episode to Barbara Walters, legendary news anchor and soft news personality.
1:49
Speaker 1: How do you describe Barbara Walters, host, current host of
1:53
Speaker 1: The View. I guess she's a personality journalism extraordinaire. That
1:58
Speaker 1: is a great title for her. I will I will
2:01
Speaker 1: air brush her a T shirt that on it if
2:04
Speaker 1: you want nice and I hope that her face on
2:06
Speaker 1: it would have that air brushed soft look as it
2:09
Speaker 1: does now. Yes. Um, yeah, Barbara Walters recently announced that
2:15
Speaker 1: she is retiring, not just from the View but from journalism,
2:21
Speaker 1: from TV, etcetera. And she's eighty three years old, which
2:25
Speaker 1: makes it even more awesome that she initially made the
2:28
Speaker 1: announcement via Twitter, right yeah. And and she's no dummy,
2:32
Speaker 1: that Barbara Walters. She's she's pretty media savvy, as one
2:35
Speaker 1: would expect from somebody who's been in the industry for
2:38
Speaker 1: as long as she has. But she made this Twitter
2:40
Speaker 1: announcement uh the night before her a big official announcement
2:44
Speaker 1: on the View on May thirteen, and coincidentally or not,
2:50
Speaker 1: it's during sweeps week, right, And so she says she's
2:54
Speaker 1: gonna retire in and she's been on television continuously for
3:00
Speaker 1: over fifty years in different capacities, mostly on ABC and NBC,
3:07
Speaker 1: and we wanted to take an episode to talk about
3:10
Speaker 1: her because she was such a groundbreaking woman in broadcast
3:16
Speaker 1: television and now with her legacy, there's there's a little
3:20
Speaker 1: bit of controversy, but we wanted to take a take
3:22
Speaker 1: a moment to talk about her highlights and why Barbara
3:26
Speaker 1: Walters really does matter. Yeah, she's had some pretty significant firsts,
3:30
Speaker 1: and two that go hand in hand are the fact
3:32
Speaker 1: that she was the first female co host over on
3:36
Speaker 1: ABC News. She co hosted with Harry Reasoner, who really
3:41
Speaker 1: sounds like a jerk. And when she was offered this
3:44
Speaker 1: co hosting position, she became the first female anchor to
3:47
Speaker 1: make a million bucks. Yeah, and before that, she had
3:50
Speaker 1: become the first female co host of The Today Show
3:53
Speaker 1: as well, which was where she really got her start. Um.
3:57
Speaker 1: And before that, when she went to work for in
4:00
Speaker 1: BC in the early sixties, she started out as a
4:03
Speaker 1: secretary and then quickly worked her way up the ranks,
4:06
Speaker 1: and from nineteen sixty one to nineteen seventy four she
4:10
Speaker 1: was a reporter, a writer, and a panel member for
4:13
Speaker 1: The Today Show and at that time that when she
4:17
Speaker 1: was on the show, they had a token female on
4:20
Speaker 1: there called the Today Girl, who was usually a model
4:24
Speaker 1: or an actress. So when Walters was tapped to become
4:29
Speaker 1: a new Today Girl, it was a big deal because
4:32
Speaker 1: she said, I wasn't beautiful, and I had trouble pronouncing
4:35
Speaker 1: my rs, and I had no idea that they would
4:39
Speaker 1: want me for this, but of course she jumped on it, right,
4:42
Speaker 1: And the Today Girl slot was usually filled by models,
4:45
Speaker 1: her actresses, women who basically covered light, fluffy lifestyle pieces
4:50
Speaker 1: because at the time, she said, you know, nobody was
4:52
Speaker 1: going to take a woman seriously reading the news, and
4:55
Speaker 1: so they kind of were relegated to the background doing
4:58
Speaker 1: fluffier pieces. Didn't you call it something like the tea
5:01
Speaker 1: pouring stories? Right? Yeah? And this maker's video that that
5:06
Speaker 1: was produced by PBS and a O L. She she
5:08
Speaker 1: did call them tea pouring interviews. She said that for years,
5:12
Speaker 1: but Today show had one female writer out of something
5:14
Speaker 1: like seven and the only way basically that you could
5:16
Speaker 1: get the job is off another female writer got married
5:19
Speaker 1: or died, and then they would hire literally one other
5:23
Speaker 1: female writer to do the quote unquote female pieces, which
5:26
Speaker 1: she called you know, the fashion shows, the celebrity interviews.
5:30
Speaker 1: Uh So she ended up doing that because it was
5:32
Speaker 1: all she could do. And I didn't realize this, but
5:35
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy Barbara Walters published her first book, which
5:38
Speaker 1: was called How To Talk with Practically Anybody About Practically Anything.
5:41
Speaker 1: Because she made a name for herself pretty much off
5:44
Speaker 1: the bat with her interviewing style. She was always able
5:48
Speaker 1: to get notable interviews as well talk about a little
5:52
Speaker 1: bit more and kind of developed a signature style. And
5:57
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two, as sings, NBC are really starting
6:01
Speaker 1: to pick up for her. Just to give you a snapshot,
6:04
Speaker 1: Barbara Walters told Time Magazine in nineteen quote, the only
6:08
Speaker 1: woman with a daily network show is Dinah Shore, and
6:10
Speaker 1: she sings, I'd like to do evening news specials like
6:14
Speaker 1: the men do. A female anchor woman on the nightly
6:17
Speaker 1: news hasn't happened yet either. It's like she knew what
6:22
Speaker 1: was going to happen. And that proved to be a
6:25
Speaker 1: very preseent quote, because she broke those barriers. She did
6:30
Speaker 1: that stuff. But first, in nineteen seventy four to nineteen
6:34
Speaker 1: seventy six, she became the co host on the Today Show.
6:38
Speaker 1: But it took the death of this guy named Frank
6:42
Speaker 1: McGhee who was one of the host for her to
6:44
Speaker 1: actually be named co host because when she was on
6:48
Speaker 1: the Today Show, Frank McGee was so opposed to a
6:52
Speaker 1: woman being at an equal level of him because it
6:56
Speaker 1: just was unheard of at the time that it wasn't
6:59
Speaker 1: into he died that she was able to step in
7:02
Speaker 1: and tell her bosses, hey, you know what, according to
7:04
Speaker 1: my contract, I am a co host and you need
7:07
Speaker 1: to call me a co host. And then in nineteen
7:10
Speaker 1: seventy five, she snagged her first Daytime Emmy, which was
7:13
Speaker 1: not for the Today Show, but for this show called
7:17
Speaker 1: Not for Women Only that she hosted that I believe
7:20
Speaker 1: was based in New York. It might have just been
7:23
Speaker 1: on New York channels, but it was kind of thing
7:27
Speaker 1: where she would invite women on to talk about what
7:30
Speaker 1: they were doing. It was a little bit feminist, um,
7:33
Speaker 1: and that's where she kind of first semi well, you know,
7:36
Speaker 1: she has known for her interviewing style and she developed
7:40
Speaker 1: it out of sheer scrappiness. This woman was pushed aside
7:44
Speaker 1: so often that she often had to go outside of
7:47
Speaker 1: normal methods of interviewing people. If she wanted an interview
7:51
Speaker 1: in those days that she was co hosting and kind
7:53
Speaker 1: of relegated to just the woman's stories, if she wanted
7:57
Speaker 1: one that was totally her, she had to literally go
7:59
Speaker 1: outside of the studios so that she wouldn't have to
8:01
Speaker 1: wait for the men to ask the interview questions. Because
8:05
Speaker 1: when after she had become a staple on the Today
8:08
Speaker 1: Show alongside people like Hugh Downs and Frank McGee, uh,
8:12
Speaker 1: she was restricted from asking questions of the show's quote
8:15
Speaker 1: unquote serious guests until the male co host had had
8:19
Speaker 1: asked his. That was an actual role that the dude
8:21
Speaker 1: had come up with, and so she had to clear
8:24
Speaker 1: her own paths. She said, Uh, they became mine, the
8:28
Speaker 1: interviews that she did outside of the studio, which she said,
8:31
Speaker 1: is how she got her reputation as an interviewer and
8:33
Speaker 1: a pushy cookie. A pushy cookie indeed, But in April twenty,
8:39
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, not only was she a pushy cookie,
8:42
Speaker 1: but Barbara Walters was a self described lonely cookie. Because
8:45
Speaker 1: when that was when she got that groundbreaking co anchor
8:49
Speaker 1: job on ABC World News Tonight, and she was at
8:56
Speaker 1: the top of her game at the time, but also
8:59
Speaker 1: comple lately despairing and almost depressed about it because whenever
9:03
Speaker 1: she would walk into the studio and this was from
9:05
Speaker 1: that maker's interview on PBS, she talks about how no
9:09
Speaker 1: one wanted to talk to her. The mostly male staff
9:14
Speaker 1: and Harry reason and her co host, wanted absolutely nothing
9:17
Speaker 1: to do with her. They would make jokes about her
9:18
Speaker 1: because they thought it was ludicrous that a woman was
9:21
Speaker 1: co anchoring, can you believe it? But the funny thing
9:25
Speaker 1: is though she was making more than Harry Reasoner when
9:27
Speaker 1: she first got in there. She snagged that record one
9:30
Speaker 1: million dollar contract, and half a million was for the
9:33
Speaker 1: co anchoring job, and half a million was for her
9:36
Speaker 1: interview specials, which was really more so than that job
9:40
Speaker 1: at ABC World News Tonight. It was her interview specials
9:45
Speaker 1: that became her hallmark. Right. But you know what, just
9:50
Speaker 1: like Harry Reasoner didn't accept her, viewers didn't either, and
9:52
Speaker 1: journalists called her a flop. And she even says that,
9:55
Speaker 1: you know, she was so hurt, and she actually asked
9:59
Speaker 1: the journalist who write the story, you know you called
10:00
Speaker 1: me a flop? What why why did you do that?
10:02
Speaker 1: And he said, well, you are and within two years
10:06
Speaker 1: of becoming the co anchor with Harry Reasoner, she was
10:08
Speaker 1: reassigned to do specials and Reasoner was actually let out
10:12
Speaker 1: of his contract to go to another network. And Barbara said,
10:14
Speaker 1: you know, they could have kept him, but they bet
10:16
Speaker 1: on me. And she said it was during this time
10:18
Speaker 1: that she worked the hardest and did probably the best
10:21
Speaker 1: interviews of her life, which included people like Fidel Castro
10:25
Speaker 1: in the very famous joint interview with Manacum Bagan and
10:28
Speaker 1: and Arsadat. And quickly going back to that short stint
10:32
Speaker 1: that she had at ABC World News tonight, when I
10:34
Speaker 1: was reading about her struggle managing all of the criticism,
10:40
Speaker 1: it gave me a little bit of perspective for if
10:43
Speaker 1: I have a bad day, if someone sends us Carolina
10:47
Speaker 1: maybe not so nice email, I need to remember Barbara
10:51
Speaker 1: Walters and all of the flak that she was getting
10:54
Speaker 1: at the time. For instance, Larry Flint offered her a
10:57
Speaker 1: million dollars to pose for Hustler whatever. But then in
11:02
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies six Time magazine called her the quote unquote
11:05
Speaker 1: most appalling argument for feminism. Uh, there was Guilder Radner's
11:10
Speaker 1: famous Saturday Night Live impression of her baba wah wah,
11:14
Speaker 1: which she was. She knew that it was a joke,
11:18
Speaker 1: but it was also offensive because everyone was making fun
11:21
Speaker 1: of how she spoke, right. She really did not like it.
11:24
Speaker 1: And she even said in that video that she caught
11:26
Speaker 1: her daughter watching the Impression on TV and said, what
11:30
Speaker 1: are you doing? Why are you watching that stuff? And
11:32
Speaker 1: her ten year old turns around and says, home, mom,
11:34
Speaker 1: have a sense of humor. And she said, Okay, I
11:36
Speaker 1: get it. But even then it was still so hard
11:38
Speaker 1: to accept, right. And and even later on Barbara Walters
11:42
Speaker 1: ended up meeting Gilda Radner and she was very friendly
11:45
Speaker 1: and all of that, but can you imagine being a
11:48
Speaker 1: national punch line when at the same time you're at
11:52
Speaker 1: the top of your game? Right? Well, what she said
11:56
Speaker 1: saved her during that really dark time was letters from
11:59
Speaker 1: women that came pouring in, things like if you can
12:03
Speaker 1: do it, we can do it. Hang in there, We're
12:05
Speaker 1: having the same problems. And she said, I really realized
12:08
Speaker 1: that women from all walks of life understood what I
12:11
Speaker 1: was going through and they were with me. Yeah. And
12:14
Speaker 1: so even though today when we think about Barbara Walters
12:18
Speaker 1: and we think about the view and it isn't exactly
12:22
Speaker 1: hard hitting news. It might not have the brainiest reputation,
12:27
Speaker 1: but looking at this snapshot of her early career, and
12:31
Speaker 1: not even that early. She was forty five years old
12:33
Speaker 1: when she got that job at ABC World News Tonight, Um,
12:36
Speaker 1: it still speaks so much to the ambition and tenacity
12:39
Speaker 1: that she had, and when she was struggling with these
12:42
Speaker 1: these networks, she said that a lot of times she
12:45
Speaker 1: wasn't one to elbow her way into a vice president's
12:49
Speaker 1: office and demand things. She said that I just wanted
12:53
Speaker 1: to do the work. And that was the way that
12:55
Speaker 1: she snagged all of those interviews, those famous interviews like
12:58
Speaker 1: the ones that you mentioned, and also the that she
13:00
Speaker 1: interviewed in Richard Nixon and has interviewed every single sitting
13:04
Speaker 1: president since then. She had that famous interview with Monica Lewinsky,
13:10
Speaker 1: which is still the most watched interview in television history.
13:14
Speaker 1: And it's incredible to think that she was still able
13:17
Speaker 1: to do all this stuff, still able to keep all
13:19
Speaker 1: this momentum, even when you know, major media outlets are
13:23
Speaker 1: basically telling her to go home already. Yeah, well, so
13:35
Speaker 1: what sparked this drive? I mean, obviously she has incredible drive,
13:38
Speaker 1: and like you said, this tenacity to keep pressing on
13:41
Speaker 1: in the face of oh everyone, And she credits not
13:45
Speaker 1: necessarily her parents supporting her, but her parents not directly
13:49
Speaker 1: supporting her. She said, you know, I didn't have parents
13:52
Speaker 1: who said you can do everything you want. What I
13:55
Speaker 1: did have was a father who was in show business
13:57
Speaker 1: and my fear that it could all be gone tomorrow.
13:59
Speaker 1: And then I had to work. If the job was grubby.
14:02
Speaker 1: I could not say I'm going to leave it and
14:03
Speaker 1: get married because I wasn't very good at that and
14:06
Speaker 1: I didn't want to have that as my safety net.
14:08
Speaker 1: I had to work. And Barbara Walters was married three times,
14:12
Speaker 1: four times if you count the second time she remarried
14:16
Speaker 1: her third husband and carry the one. But um, you know,
14:20
Speaker 1: as far as like that tenacity and that that not
14:23
Speaker 1: giving up and having to work being a woman in
14:26
Speaker 1: that era who is like, no, I'm gonna work, Screw you,
14:28
Speaker 1: I'm not going to fall back on marriage. I mean,
14:30
Speaker 1: it's interesting in the perspective of is she a feminist?
14:33
Speaker 1: What did she do for the women's movement? Because she
14:36
Speaker 1: did want to help other women, and she did want
14:39
Speaker 1: to put a focus in the news on the women's movement,
14:42
Speaker 1: but there was a bit of a pushback she had
14:45
Speaker 1: sent when she worked very early in her career at NBC.
14:47
Speaker 1: She had sent a memo to the NBC president asking
14:50
Speaker 1: shouldn't we do something on this whole this whole little
14:53
Speaker 1: trend going on right now, the women's movement, and his
14:55
Speaker 1: response scrawled on the top of the memo, was not
14:58
Speaker 1: enough in tryst. And nevertheless, so she you know, she
15:04
Speaker 1: still made such a big impact. There was a blog
15:06
Speaker 1: post over at A A r P by Laurie Lynch
15:09
Speaker 1: and she said it was her ceiling shattering move to
15:13
Speaker 1: ABC in nineteen seventies six to co host and nightly
15:16
Speaker 1: news that really made young women sit up and take notice.
15:19
Speaker 1: Those of us aspiring to big careers in journalism were
15:22
Speaker 1: being told by mentors and mothers that we two could
15:25
Speaker 1: be another Barbara Walters. And I mean, from that perspective,
15:30
Speaker 1: that's pretty incredible. I think probably for you and I.
15:33
Speaker 1: We both went to journalism school, and I don't think
15:37
Speaker 1: that Barbara Walters was ever mentioned really in any of
15:41
Speaker 1: the classes we took, because by that time, you know,
15:44
Speaker 1: maybe we just sort of take her for granted, as
15:46
Speaker 1: you know, popping up on and having the view. I
15:49
Speaker 1: mean she start I didn't realize this, but she launched
15:52
Speaker 1: her famous ten Most Fascinating People special in n and
15:57
Speaker 1: the view launched when she was V and D. Yeah,
16:02
Speaker 1: I just like that kind of blew my mind because
16:04
Speaker 1: I guess I just think of the view as having
16:06
Speaker 1: started when I was much older. Apparently not. But I mean,
16:10
Speaker 1: as far as you know, the women's movement, she might
16:13
Speaker 1: not have directly associated with it or with feminism, but
16:18
Speaker 1: she certainly didn't turn her back on it, which you know,
16:20
Speaker 1: is what Patricia Bradley said in her book Mass Media
16:24
Speaker 1: and the Shaping of American Feminism, where she actually talked
16:27
Speaker 1: to a lot of other female journalists from this era
16:29
Speaker 1: who said, you know, I remember Barbara being like so
16:31
Speaker 1: friendly and always offering a hand and wanting to help,
16:34
Speaker 1: which is something that Barbara herself confirmed in that maker's video.
16:38
Speaker 1: You know, she said, I tried to be very supportive
16:40
Speaker 1: of women because I know what I went through and
16:43
Speaker 1: women do need that help. And it is still a
16:45
Speaker 1: little difficult for men to understand it. The fact that
16:49
Speaker 1: we still have the same poll between the career and
16:52
Speaker 1: the child and the marriage. Yes, she said, men do
16:55
Speaker 1: to a degree, but not the same way that women do. Yeah.
16:59
Speaker 1: And in two thousand twelve, she definitely raised some hackles
17:03
Speaker 1: among feminists and just viewers in general who were kind
17:07
Speaker 1: of confused when she, on the View publicly sided with
17:12
Speaker 1: conservative Rick Santorum's comment that quote unquote, radical feminism was
17:17
Speaker 1: ruining the traditional family. And let's not even waste the
17:21
Speaker 1: time like diving into that assertion. Um. But on the view,
17:27
Speaker 1: she I mean, she really made people a bit angry
17:31
Speaker 1: because she said, quote, there was a time when feminists
17:33
Speaker 1: made the woman who stayed home and had children feel inferior.
17:36
Speaker 1: I think we are finally changing so that we realized
17:40
Speaker 1: younger ones you can make a choice. So I don't
17:42
Speaker 1: think that what he said is so terribly off the point.
17:46
Speaker 1: And that's a strong move to say, hey, you know
17:49
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna I'm gonna side with you, Rick santorm
17:52
Speaker 1: especially if you might be more associated with slightly more
17:57
Speaker 1: liberal politics. But that really isn't different from what she
18:03
Speaker 1: was saying during the height of second wave feminism. Um.
18:06
Speaker 1: For instance, in there's a nineteen four book, I Found
18:10
Speaker 1: the New Feminist Movement, and she was quoted as saying
18:13
Speaker 1: that second wave feminist quote have given women who want
18:16
Speaker 1: to stay home a national inferiority complex, And thinking about that,
18:21
Speaker 1: I understand what she's saying in terms of it shouldn't
18:24
Speaker 1: be demonizing women who want to stay home. It should
18:27
Speaker 1: be more about the choice. Perhaps in two thousand twelve
18:30
Speaker 1: of the way that she said it and the person
18:32
Speaker 1: that she was supporting as she was saying that was
18:36
Speaker 1: really more of the problem for people, right. But I mean,
18:41
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting and I think it's I don't know,
18:44
Speaker 1: just coming that statement coming from a woman who obviously
18:48
Speaker 1: did make the choice and felt like she had to
18:50
Speaker 1: make the choice, Like she said, I had to work.
18:53
Speaker 1: I didn't want to fall back on marriage or any
18:55
Speaker 1: kind of safety net, you know, because her father had
18:57
Speaker 1: been in show business, he was a nightclub owner. It
18:59
Speaker 1: all it be gone in a second, and she knew that,
19:01
Speaker 1: and so she wanted to keep working, you know, keep
19:04
Speaker 1: being as successful as possible, make her contribution. And so
19:08
Speaker 1: the fact that she's the one coming forward and saying,
19:10
Speaker 1: you feminists are giving women who want to stay at
19:13
Speaker 1: home and raise babies and inferiority complex, I mean, I
19:15
Speaker 1: think that gives it maybe some extra weight. Yeah, And
19:18
Speaker 1: I wonder if that speaks to pressure that she had
19:22
Speaker 1: felt it points during her career that maybe she should
19:24
Speaker 1: stay home with her adoptive daughter at least stepped back
19:27
Speaker 1: a little bit. How um, you could keep Barbara walters
19:31
Speaker 1: intense schedule and also, uh, you know, be a full
19:35
Speaker 1: time mom, but that just seems pretty impossible. Um. But
19:39
Speaker 1: you know, Barbara certainly has not been without her controversy.
19:45
Speaker 1: Once she announced her retirement in May, everybody came out with,
19:52
Speaker 1: you know, a blog post or an article or something
19:55
Speaker 1: on Barbara saying good riddance or oh Barbara well ms
20:00
Speaker 1: and Alex s Perrine, for instance, over at Salon was
20:03
Speaker 1: one of the people who said good riddance because he
20:06
Speaker 1: said she's fine for infotainment, but she has no journalistic
20:10
Speaker 1: scruples whatsoever because of her very close he thinks, two
20:15
Speaker 1: close relationships over the years with sources, some of whom
20:19
Speaker 1: were just a tad corrupt, such as most recently Syrian
20:23
Speaker 1: President Bashar al Assa, who um she had on I
20:28
Speaker 1: had I can't remember if it was on twenty, but
20:30
Speaker 1: she had one of the first interviews with him, and
20:33
Speaker 1: Marene was talking about how well, of course you got
20:36
Speaker 1: the interview because she's actually good friends with him and
20:38
Speaker 1: his wife, and and talking about other um usually actually
20:42
Speaker 1: men for the most part, that she had been friends
20:44
Speaker 1: with but also would interview or use as as sources. Yeah,
20:50
Speaker 1: and one thing I read was talking about how maybe
20:53
Speaker 1: that that comfort with extremely famous or infamous people, that
20:58
Speaker 1: that ease of interviewing all sorts of people from all
21:01
Speaker 1: different walks of life comes from her upbringing because her
21:04
Speaker 1: father was in show business, and because she had been
21:07
Speaker 1: in some form of journalism for so long. And Yeah,
21:09
Speaker 1: she has walked that infotainment tightrope for decades. You know,
21:13
Speaker 1: she's able to jump between interviews with heads of state
21:16
Speaker 1: and celebrities like the you know, the Kardashians, or that
21:19
Speaker 1: infamous Ricky Martin interview where she was basically like demanding
21:23
Speaker 1: that he come out of the closet on her show
21:25
Speaker 1: and he's like, look, I don't want to talk about it.
21:27
Speaker 1: I mean, she was pretty vilified for for that at
21:31
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, And also on Salon she just kind
21:35
Speaker 1: of on the flip side of the controversy. TV critic
21:39
Speaker 1: Mary Elizabeth Williams said, you know what I am all
21:42
Speaker 1: about some Barbara Walters. She says that, yeah, Okay, she's
21:46
Speaker 1: got the soft focus, she's got the entottainment spin and
21:48
Speaker 1: all of that quote, but what she leaves behind is
21:51
Speaker 1: a ferociously powerful, maddening, lee unduplicated example. She's a woman
21:56
Speaker 1: who out earned many of her male counterparts and has
21:59
Speaker 1: been ashamed and unapologetic about her aspirations. Yeah and uh
22:05
Speaker 1: over at the Cut from New York Magazine, they wrote
22:08
Speaker 1: that Barbara has served as a bridge between an era
22:10
Speaker 1: when the news was defined by a small, homogeneous group
22:13
Speaker 1: of experts to a time when discussion and conversation rain.
22:17
Speaker 1: And I think her career has totally mirrored that trajectory
22:20
Speaker 1: as far as like starting out wanting to be in
22:23
Speaker 1: hard news talking to heads of state, whereas now she's
22:26
Speaker 1: hosting a talk show basically right. And that's not to
22:30
Speaker 1: say that the View never touches on political stories, harder news,
22:36
Speaker 1: bigger societal issues. Um, but you know it's still it's
22:42
Speaker 1: definitely it's not c SPAN. Yeah sure, I mean yeah,
22:45
Speaker 1: I mean she's not just sitting there talking like Brian
22:49
Speaker 1: Williams delivering the news at night. You know, it's it's
22:51
Speaker 1: four four or five or however many people are on
22:53
Speaker 1: the View sitting around on a couch talking versus the
22:57
Speaker 1: more serious like Walter Cronkite. Who do you think will
23:00
Speaker 1: replace her? Anybody? Do you think they'll do? You think
23:04
Speaker 1: they'll pull in a replacement. Who's somebody with some gravitas?
23:07
Speaker 1: Martha Stewart. She's looking for a new gig right All
23:10
Speaker 1: she's doing is dating on match dot com right now.
23:13
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm getting into trouble for selling her spatchel
23:16
Speaker 1: as at different stories Martha, No spatialists now. Maybe, um,
23:22
Speaker 1: let's make our prediction. The person who will take over
23:26
Speaker 1: for Barbara Walters in two thousand fourteen won't be Katie
23:30
Speaker 1: Currect because after she got the shaft, she she has
23:34
Speaker 1: her own talk show now and it's successful. And I
23:36
Speaker 1: don't think that it would be Diane Sawyer maybe and Curry.
23:40
Speaker 1: I don't think it would be and Curry. I don't
23:43
Speaker 1: think it would be and Curry. But you know what
23:44
Speaker 1: if it were and Curry, I might watch the view
23:48
Speaker 1: because of her unceremonious exit from the Today Show. Uh So.
23:53
Speaker 1: But just to sign off, though, should we toss out
23:55
Speaker 1: some final accolades that Barbara Walters has received over the years.
24:00
Speaker 1: Listen to this nominated for seven Daytime Emmy Awards, she's
24:05
Speaker 1: won four times, nominated for twenty News and Documentary Emmy
24:08
Speaker 1: Awards and won eight times, and then nominated for twelve
24:12
Speaker 1: Prime Time Emmy's and one one time. So let me
24:16
Speaker 1: look at this maths on everything thirteen Emmy's not bad,
24:20
Speaker 1: not bad, not bad, Babs. I wonder if she has
24:23
Speaker 1: a cabinet, an Emmy cabinet, or maybe she just sprinkles
24:27
Speaker 1: them around. You know, she puts one in each of
24:30
Speaker 1: her thirteen bathrooms in her home. Yeah, one in each shower. Yes,
24:35
Speaker 1: So that's it, Barbara Walters. Hats off for you too,
24:40
Speaker 1: um really never giving up and also still though I
24:44
Speaker 1: want to say that lover her hater. What a great example, though,
24:49
Speaker 1: of a woman who is well beyond retirement age, who
24:54
Speaker 1: never stopped working now and and I do like what
24:58
Speaker 1: she said when she retired. You know, I just I
24:59
Speaker 1: just want to it on a hill and watch everything happen,
25:02
Speaker 1: you know, just watch it go by. I mean, after
25:05
Speaker 1: after being on television for over fifty years, I think
25:09
Speaker 1: she deserves a vacation. Yeah, you wonder if her attitude
25:12
Speaker 1: is still the same today as it was then. As
25:14
Speaker 1: far as I have to work because obviously, I mean,
25:17
Speaker 1: she's been pretty consistently successful for decades now, like I
25:21
Speaker 1: think she's set. Yeah, I mean, Barbara Walters is as
25:23
Speaker 1: much of a celebrity and an a lister as most
25:29
Speaker 1: of the people that she talks to at this point.
25:32
Speaker 1: So let's hear from folks, Barbara Walters, what do you
25:36
Speaker 1: think any predictions for who will take over at the View?
25:40
Speaker 1: I know it's kind of a silly question, but it's
25:42
Speaker 1: a fun one. So right to us mom Stuff at
25:45
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com, or you can tweet us set mom
25:48
Speaker 1: Stuff podcasts, or send us a little message on Facebook
25:53
Speaker 1: and like us while you're at it. And we are
25:56
Speaker 1: going to read a couple of letters that we have
25:59
Speaker 1: from past episode. But before we do, let's take a
26:01
Speaker 1: quick break and then we'll get right back. And now
26:08
Speaker 1: that to our letters, and we've got a couple here
26:11
Speaker 1: about our episode on Glass of Stereotypes, which we got
26:14
Speaker 1: a ton of letters from. And this one to kick
26:19
Speaker 1: off from Carmen is a little bit sad. Her subject
26:22
Speaker 1: line is how I learned glasses are bad? She says,
26:25
Speaker 1: when I was in elementary school, I wore glasses because
26:28
Speaker 1: I was scared of putting things in my eyes. But
26:30
Speaker 1: in the sixth grade, I was at school one day
26:32
Speaker 1: and two girls on the other side of the classroom
26:34
Speaker 1: we're talking about me. One of them said, that's Carmen
26:37
Speaker 1: over there, the ugly one with the glasses. I found
26:40
Speaker 1: out about this conversation because the girl who said that
26:43
Speaker 1: was one of my closest friends, and she simply told
26:46
Speaker 1: me what she had said, as if she saw no
26:48
Speaker 1: problem with calling me ugly. I told my mom I
26:50
Speaker 1: wanted context as soon as I got home that day.
26:53
Speaker 1: At the end of that school year, at my middle school,
26:55
Speaker 1: boyfriend saw my yearbook picture, which had been taken before
26:58
Speaker 1: I got context, and he immediately told me, I like
27:01
Speaker 1: you better with contacts. Middle school's worse. I'm probably old
27:06
Speaker 1: enough now that no one would ever call me ugly
27:08
Speaker 1: to my face, but I still hate the idea of
27:10
Speaker 1: wearing glasses. I'll soon be leaving to work in a
27:13
Speaker 1: developing country for two years, and did not want to
27:15
Speaker 1: deal with the hassle bringing eight parents of daily contacts
27:18
Speaker 1: with me, or being in a situation where I'm spending
27:20
Speaker 1: a night in a village without a sink for me
27:21
Speaker 1: to change my contacts. So in two days, I'll beating
27:24
Speaker 1: lay six surgery after four years of wearing glasses and
27:27
Speaker 1: eleven years were in contacts. It's possible that I would
27:30
Speaker 1: have gotten the surgery anyway, because both glasses and contacts
27:33
Speaker 1: can be incredibly inconvenient times. But certainly the negative stereotypes
27:37
Speaker 1: contributed a great deal to my enthusiasm for having lasers
27:41
Speaker 1: shot into my eyes and the name of eliminating my
27:43
Speaker 1: need for corrective lenses. Yeah. I have friends have done
27:47
Speaker 1: life second, they love it. I'm I'm too scared. I'm
27:51
Speaker 1: too scared period. Okay, Well, I have a letter here
27:54
Speaker 1: from Chelsea. She says, I've been wearing glasses for twenty
27:57
Speaker 1: one years since I was six, and you. I wear
28:00
Speaker 1: my contact of the time. I have exceptionally awful vision,
28:04
Speaker 1: and I've been legally blind since an early age. I
28:07
Speaker 1: definitely played into the stereotype of the dorky girl in school,
28:10
Speaker 1: which was reflected in my lack of a dating life
28:12
Speaker 1: until college. So I was not surprised to hear your
28:15
Speaker 1: findings in the podcast. I was surprised, however, that nothing
28:18
Speaker 1: was mentioned about being genetically inferior. I always assumed that
28:22
Speaker 1: people with glasses were subconsciously found less attractive because of
28:25
Speaker 1: some primeval knowledge that poor eyesight equates death. I always
28:29
Speaker 1: assumed I would have died early on if I was
28:31
Speaker 1: born before eyeglasses were invented, Much like with my lack
28:36
Speaker 1: of child bearing hips and bountiful breasts. I would also
28:38
Speaker 1: assume that people would not want to breed with someone
28:40
Speaker 1: who is likely to pass on their poor eyesight to
28:43
Speaker 1: their offspring. Did you find anything relating to that in
28:46
Speaker 1: your research? We did not uncover anything like that, But
28:52
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I on a slightly related note
28:58
Speaker 1: that doesn't answer your question at all. So I recently
29:01
Speaker 1: found this book, uh, that was a compilation of my
29:05
Speaker 1: great great great great great great uncle's letters to his family,
29:09
Speaker 1: because he went went to Dartmouth, went to law school,
29:12
Speaker 1: and ended up dying in the Civil War. Like at
29:13
Speaker 1: the very end in anyway, his beloved sister compiled all
29:16
Speaker 1: his letters, and in so many of his letters when
29:17
Speaker 1: he's off at college, he's writing home and he's like
29:20
Speaker 1: mother and father. I can barely see as I write
29:22
Speaker 1: you this letter, my eyes. And he's always concerned about
29:25
Speaker 1: his eyes. And he's always looking forward to Christmas break
29:28
Speaker 1: and summer breaks off, so that he can rest his
29:30
Speaker 1: eyes because he's like, I'm afraid I will need glasses
29:33
Speaker 1: oh mine. And he was also very skinny, so that
29:38
Speaker 1: means nothing. But it's very interesting to read a firsthand
29:42
Speaker 1: account of someone in the eighteen when was that college.
29:46
Speaker 1: I don't know for him, but who was scared of
29:49
Speaker 1: getting glasses? And if only if only Warby Parker existed
29:53
Speaker 1: back then, he'd be the most stylish chap at dot
29:56
Speaker 1: I mean he had to killer mustache. There you go, Wow,
29:59
Speaker 1: he's he had everything he needed just right there. He
30:03
Speaker 1: just needed some some thick frames. Well. Thanks to everyone
30:07
Speaker 1: who has written into us. Mom Stuff at discovery dot
30:09
Speaker 1: com is where you can send your letters. You can
30:11
Speaker 1: also follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts, and
30:15
Speaker 1: we're on Facebook as well. Don't forget to check us
30:17
Speaker 1: out there and see what we're doing, and follow us
30:20
Speaker 1: on Tumbler at stuff mom Never Told You dot tumbler
30:23
Speaker 1: dot com, and don't forget to watch us as well. Monday,
30:27
Speaker 1: Wednesday Friday, we come out with a new video for
30:29
Speaker 1: you on our YouTube channel. It's YouTube dot com slash
30:32
Speaker 1: stuff Mom Never Told You. Head on over and subscribe
30:38
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics is it,
30:40
Speaker 1: how stuff works? Dot com