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She Decided Who Mattered: The Legacy of Barbara Walters · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:03
Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
0:05
Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
0:11
Speaker 1: closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
0:16
Speaker 1: Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come
0:19
Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
0:22
Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
0:28
Speaker 2: And who says?
0:30
Speaker 3: So?
0:30
Speaker 1: Come curious, dig deep, and join the conversation. It's time
0:36
Speaker 1: to question everything. The room where it happens? Okay, that's
0:43
Speaker 1: my theater kid Hamilton reference, But jokes aside. So many
0:47
Speaker 1: people want to be in the room, so much so
0:51
Speaker 1: lin Manuel Miranda even wrote about it. Right, But what
0:53
Speaker 1: does it take to be in the room? To get
0:56
Speaker 1: into the room where it happens? Barbara Walters knew, and
1:04
Speaker 1: she didn't just kick down doors. She built rooms where
1:06
Speaker 1: women weren't even invited before. She was the first woman
1:10
Speaker 1: to anchor the evening news. Can you believe that was
1:13
Speaker 1: just in nineteen seventy six. She was a cultural gatekeeper,
1:17
Speaker 1: and she didn't get there by being agreeable. She got
1:20
Speaker 1: there by being relentless.
1:22
Speaker 3: She would call agents, she would call celebrities. She had
1:26
Speaker 3: a crazy Rolodex. She treated her social life like it
1:30
Speaker 3: was her job, which it was in some ways, and
1:33
Speaker 3: I think she enjoyed being friends with the rich and
1:35
Speaker 3: the famous, because your bookings are your power in that industry,
1:38
Speaker 3: and if you were able to get the get, then
1:40
Speaker 3: you win.
1:41
Speaker 1: She also had epic dinner parties and loved gossip, which
1:44
Speaker 1: we talk about in this episode. I'm joined by Emmy
1:47
Speaker 1: nominated documentary filmmaker Jackie Jesco, one of the most exciting
1:52
Speaker 1: voices in nonfiction storytelling. You might know her work from Vice,
1:56
Speaker 1: The New York Times Presents, or The Invisible War on
1:59
Speaker 1: the She's covered everything from organized crime to political revolutions,
2:04
Speaker 1: but her latest subject might be her most iconic, at
2:08
Speaker 1: least in my eyes, the Life of Barbara Walters. Jackie
2:12
Speaker 1: directed the upcoming Barbara Walters documentary for ABC News Studio
2:16
Speaker 1: and Imagine Documentaries, which is now streaming on Hulu, and
2:19
Speaker 1: she had unprecedented access to all of the footage, the specials,
2:23
Speaker 1: the outtakes, the moments when the cameras were rolling that
2:27
Speaker 1: never aired. This episode isn't just about legacy. It's about
2:32
Speaker 1: power and date keeping and ambition and media and the
2:36
Speaker 1: cost of being first.
2:38
Speaker 3: The end of her life, she says this, I wasn't
2:40
Speaker 3: really doing it for other women. I wasn't waving a flag,
2:44
Speaker 3: I wasn't kicking and screaming, probably in the way that
2:46
Speaker 3: like Laura's seinomage. I just worked and didn't whine. But
2:51
Speaker 3: I'm glad now to see that I did make a difference.
2:55
Speaker 3: Whatever her motives were, she still did it.
2:58
Speaker 1: The central question we're circling today is what does it
3:01
Speaker 1: really take to be first?
3:03
Speaker 2: And what does it cost?
3:05
Speaker 1: So whether you care about me or just love the podcast,
3:08
Speaker 1: you probably know by now that I love Barbara Walters.
3:11
Speaker 2: But if you're like Danielle, why should I care about
3:13
Speaker 2: Barbara Walters? Here's why.
3:15
Speaker 1: First of all, there's so many lessons to be learned
3:17
Speaker 1: through her story and secondly, through the lens of Barbara Walters'
3:21
Speaker 1: life and career. This conversation with Jackie explores how media
3:25
Speaker 1: shaped culture in general, and Barbara Walters was really a
3:28
Speaker 1: woman who quietly but powerfully held the pen. Jackie does
3:32
Speaker 1: such a great job of explaining this. Barbara wasn't simply
3:35
Speaker 1: a journalist. She was a gatekeeper who helped define what
3:38
Speaker 1: stories mattered and how they were told. In an era
3:42
Speaker 1: before social media democratized attention. Barbara's interviews weren't just conversations.
3:47
Speaker 1: They were quite literally cultural events. Her presence could redeem
3:51
Speaker 1: a reputation or shape a public narrative, and the way
3:55
Speaker 1: she asked questions became a lens through which the world
3:57
Speaker 1: saw things like power and scandal and humanity. Barbara paid
4:03
Speaker 1: the path without asking for permission.
4:06
Speaker 3: If she was born today, she'd be a tech executive,
4:09
Speaker 3: like television was the big growth industry of the time
4:13
Speaker 3: when she lived. And I think that she's just someone
4:16
Speaker 3: who wants to be at the center of it all.
4:20
Speaker 1: Jackie's film tells her story, the complicated, the brilliant, and
4:24
Speaker 1: all of the lessons that we can learn from her.
4:27
Speaker 1: It's time to question everything with Jackie Jesco. Jackie, I
4:40
Speaker 1: don't know if there's any other person in this world
4:43
Speaker 1: who would be as excited to talk about Barbara Walters
4:46
Speaker 1: with me than you.
4:47
Speaker 3: I'm happy to be here doing just that.
4:50
Speaker 1: I mean, you've covered everything from organized crime to political revolutions.
4:56
Speaker 1: I'm so curious what pulled you towards doing a Barbara
4:59
Speaker 1: Walters dock about her life and legacy.
5:02
Speaker 3: Sure, you know there's like a lot of different kinds
5:05
Speaker 3: of work, obviously in the dock world that you can do,
5:08
Speaker 3: and I had never done a celebrity sort of doc.
5:13
Speaker 3: I don't even know if it's because I didn't want to,
5:14
Speaker 3: but it just wasn't really my wheelhouse. But I like
5:17
Speaker 3: one day got an email from Imagine Documentaries, which is
5:19
Speaker 3: like Ron Howard's company. It's a big documentary outfit here
5:23
Speaker 3: in New York, and they were like, can we talk
5:25
Speaker 3: to you about something? And I was like, obviously, yes,
5:27
Speaker 3: of course. And I remember the call so vividly because
5:30
Speaker 3: the dead executive was like, would you be interested in
5:33
Speaker 3: doing a film about Barbara Walters? And I honestly couldn't
5:37
Speaker 3: believe it, because I can't think of a more perfect
5:40
Speaker 3: person to do a film about. Actually started my career
5:43
Speaker 3: at ABC News. I was like a desk assistant, works
5:47
Speaker 3: my way up there to be a producer, you know,
5:50
Speaker 3: climb the ladder and all that. At ABC in particular,
5:53
Speaker 3: Barbara is it. You know, she is the absolute icon.
5:57
Speaker 3: You know. She was still sort of working then, even
5:59
Speaker 3: so I would every now and again catch a glimpse
6:01
Speaker 3: of her walking in the halls, and it was always
6:04
Speaker 3: really exciting and something I'd tell my friends about at
6:06
Speaker 3: the end of the day. So, you know, I kind
6:09
Speaker 3: of knew that ecosystem specifically, I knew TV news and
6:12
Speaker 3: I knew ABC in particular, And so while it was
6:16
Speaker 3: an enormous honor, it also felt like a good fit
6:19
Speaker 3: and like I really wanted to tell her life story
6:22
Speaker 3: and the struggles that she went through, which were tremendous,
6:25
Speaker 3: But at the same time, like, you know, her career
6:27
Speaker 3: spanned five decades of television news, and so there's a
6:31
Speaker 3: story within the story here, which is how that industry,
6:36
Speaker 3: that medium changed over time throughout the decades, and so
6:40
Speaker 3: we were able to do both those things packed up
6:42
Speaker 3: in this one film.
6:43
Speaker 1: I remember when I was young, like a really young girl,
6:47
Speaker 1: the first time that I think I saw Barbara Walters
6:52
Speaker 1: on TV and thought like, who is that? What is
6:55
Speaker 1: this woman doing? And it was her ten most fascinating people.
7:00
Speaker 1: Do you remember the first time you saw her and
7:02
Speaker 1: what you thought. I know, it may be hard to
7:04
Speaker 1: think about because you know so much now.
7:07
Speaker 3: The first time I remember being aware of Barbara Walters,
7:10
Speaker 3: I think it was the Monica Lewinsky interview, which was
7:14
Speaker 3: the highest rated news interview of all time. I believe
7:17
Speaker 3: a record that's not been broken to date, and it
7:20
Speaker 3: was an enormous cultural event. When I'm my parents talking
7:24
Speaker 3: about it, you know, I was maybe ten years old
7:26
Speaker 3: or eleven and kind of wondering, like how you get
7:29
Speaker 3: a job like that? Like how do you be the
7:31
Speaker 3: person who sits across from anybody but like somebody famous,
7:36
Speaker 3: somebody in the news, what have you and get to
7:39
Speaker 3: ask these questions? And for a naturally nosy person, it
7:42
Speaker 3: was a very compelling possibility.
7:45
Speaker 1: So I don't know nowadays, if you get to a
7:49
Speaker 1: certain height of success because people just have so much access,
7:53
Speaker 1: if you are just not thought of as a complicated person.
7:57
Speaker 1: Barbara was thought of as a complicated person in the
8:00
Speaker 1: news industry. I think from what I understand, some people
8:04
Speaker 1: lauded her as, you know, one of the first somebody
8:07
Speaker 1: who was really incisive and great at her job, and
8:10
Speaker 1: other people saw her as competitive, gossipy, cold at times.
8:16
Speaker 1: What kind of access did you get? I can imagine
8:19
Speaker 1: you talked to former colleagues and producers. Were you able
8:23
Speaker 1: to talk to people that felt complicated about her?
8:26
Speaker 3: Definitely? I think even her friends or her like mentees,
8:31
Speaker 3: those were a lot of the interviews who recognized her
8:33
Speaker 3: greatness still recognize that she was an imperfect person. And
8:38
Speaker 3: you know, I have a lot of deep thoughts about
8:40
Speaker 3: that because I think that part of it is having
8:45
Speaker 3: to be the person who breaks through all these last ceilings.
8:49
Speaker 3: You know, like when Barbara started, women just didn't do
8:52
Speaker 3: the news like period. There may have been a few
8:55
Speaker 3: other correspondents here and there, like on specialized beats like
8:59
Speaker 3: the Supreme Quarter or something, but like to be a
9:01
Speaker 3: news anchor, like, no, absolutely not. And so to answer
9:06
Speaker 3: your actual question, we got amazing access. So the film
9:10
Speaker 3: was set up through ABC News Studios, which was great
9:13
Speaker 3: because they own the majority of the archive of Barbara's
9:17
Speaker 3: career since nineteen seventy six, I believe, and so they
9:22
Speaker 3: gave us unprecedented and pretty much unfettered access to that archive.
9:27
Speaker 3: And as you know, a former news producer and a
9:29
Speaker 3: documentary director like I knew that there was going to
9:32
Speaker 3: be lots of stuff that no one's ever really seen before,
9:35
Speaker 3: like outtakes, little asides, you know, when you're kind of
9:39
Speaker 3: killing time in an interview, when they're like resetting cameras
9:42
Speaker 3: or something like that. And so a lot of my
9:44
Speaker 3: favorite parts of the film are these moments we were
9:47
Speaker 3: able to find where she's chatting with like Dolly Parton
9:50
Speaker 3: or with whoever, and she talks about her life. These
9:53
Speaker 3: little moments feels like the cameras weren't rolling, although I'm
9:57
Speaker 3: sure that she knew they were, but she knew that
10:00
Speaker 3: going to be used, but now here we are using it.
10:03
Speaker 3: That was one amazing element of it. Another cool thing
10:06
Speaker 3: that I didn't know, or I didn't realize it was
10:09
Speaker 3: going to be the case going into the film was
10:11
Speaker 3: that she'd given several interviews over the course of her life.
10:15
Speaker 3: But you know, a lot of times when you do
10:16
Speaker 3: a film about a dead person, you'll get the reading
10:20
Speaker 3: of their own book. Typically people read their own autobiography.
10:24
Speaker 3: She did not do that, so I was worried. I
10:26
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, well, how present is her voice going
10:29
Speaker 3: to be? But we were really lucky to find all
10:32
Speaker 3: these different interviews she did with different places over the years,
10:36
Speaker 3: and kind of we're able to cobble those all together
10:39
Speaker 3: so that she feels very present. You know, she reflected
10:42
Speaker 3: on her career many times. She is the narrator for
10:44
Speaker 3: some of these stories, which is which is really nice.
10:47
Speaker 3: And I wasn't really sure that was going to happen.
10:49
Speaker 3: And then so far as the people who spoke, I mean,
10:51
Speaker 3: she was old when she died and that was several
10:53
Speaker 3: years ago. So like her contemporaries, we interviewed one of
10:56
Speaker 3: her friends, Cindy Adams, who is a famous gossip hoem
11:00
Speaker 3: and she's fun. But like a lot of the more
11:02
Speaker 3: insightful interviews were younger mentees, journalists like Cynthia McFadden, Katie
11:08
Speaker 3: couric Oprah was an incredible interview. They had a very
11:11
Speaker 3: special relationship, and I felt like all of these women
11:15
Speaker 3: and there were some men as well, but they brought
11:17
Speaker 3: like a lot of insight into who she was and
11:20
Speaker 3: to what made her tick and the things. You know.
11:22
Speaker 3: I think she was a person who was rather open
11:24
Speaker 3: with their regrets and sort of the things that didn't
11:29
Speaker 3: go so well in their lives. So she was knowable
11:31
Speaker 3: in that sense. And like a lot of these people
11:33
Speaker 3: like spoke directly with her about you know, the fact
11:37
Speaker 3: that she had three failed marriages. I couldn't seem to
11:39
Speaker 3: make that work for her or like in a way
11:41
Speaker 3: that she needed, you know, which isn't necessarily a failure
11:44
Speaker 3: in and of itself, But like I think she saw
11:46
Speaker 3: it that way. She had a very complicated relationship with
11:49
Speaker 3: her only child. His name is also Jackie, and she
11:53
Speaker 3: would tell people about it, and she'd talk about it.
11:55
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting, like I'm a working mom, and
11:57
Speaker 3: so obviously, you know, I'm not here to say that
12:00
Speaker 3: you can't be a successful working mom, but I think
12:04
Speaker 3: to be Barbara Walters and to be a working mother,
12:08
Speaker 3: it was a different calculus to be this like superstar.
12:13
Speaker 2: Well especially at that time.
12:15
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Yeah, you can't take away that part either.
12:17
Speaker 3: But it's a mix. It's like the time and like
12:20
Speaker 3: the level of her career, which she was achieving, and yes,
12:23
Speaker 3: like the standards at the time of what men and
12:27
Speaker 3: women's roles were in parenthood. I think also she just
12:30
Speaker 3: had a very insatiable need to be important and to
12:34
Speaker 3: be to borrow from Hamilton, like in the room where
12:37
Speaker 3: it happened, like she needed that and she would do
12:40
Speaker 3: anything to be there.
12:41
Speaker 1: When you say do anything, what do you mean, I
12:44
Speaker 1: mean anything?
12:44
Speaker 3: You know, like I don't know how many years, let's
12:46
Speaker 3: at the first decade of her career, she was just
12:48
Speaker 3: fighting to be recognized as worthy of being a news anchor,
12:54
Speaker 3: of being someone to be taken seriously and that actually
12:57
Speaker 3: continued for a long time in different ways. But I
13:01
Speaker 3: think her superpower outside of being an incredible interviewer, was
13:05
Speaker 3: that she just did not take no for an answer,
13:07
Speaker 3: and she knew how to work it. Like she would
13:10
Speaker 3: call agents, she would call celebrities. She had a crazy rolodex.
13:15
Speaker 3: She treated her social life like it was her job,
13:18
Speaker 3: which it was in some ways, and I think she
13:20
Speaker 3: enjoyed being friends with the rich and the famous, but
13:23
Speaker 3: it was also useful for her career to be friends
13:25
Speaker 3: with the rich and the famous. I think she made
13:27
Speaker 3: it a point to know everyone to be the best booker,
13:32
Speaker 3: because your bookings are your power in that industry, and
13:35
Speaker 3: if you were able to get the get, then you win.
13:38
Speaker 1: When you mentioned her mentees, I'm interested in that because
13:41
Speaker 1: she paid for the way at a time when there
13:44
Speaker 1: was no path, which sounds so wild because it really
13:48
Speaker 1: wasn't that long ago, but she did. There was no
13:51
Speaker 1: path she created one. Was she building something for women?
13:57
Speaker 1: Was that a part of her ethos or is she
14:00
Speaker 1: just surviving?
14:01
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny. We actually have a quote from
14:03
Speaker 3: her in the film, and I really liked it because
14:06
Speaker 3: I thought it felt honest and real to me, and
14:09
Speaker 3: she basically at the end of her life when she
14:10
Speaker 3: says this, she's like, I wasn't really doing it for
14:14
Speaker 3: other women, Like I wasn't waving a flag, I wasn't
14:16
Speaker 3: kicking and screaming, probably in the way that like Laura Steinovis,
14:20
Speaker 3: I wasn't doing it for that. I just worked and
14:22
Speaker 3: didn't whine. But I'm glad now to see that I
14:27
Speaker 3: did make a difference. And so I think the answer
14:29
Speaker 3: to that is whatever her motives were, she still did it.
14:33
Speaker 3: She still paved the way and made it possible for
14:36
Speaker 3: other women to follow on her footsteps. Whether she meant
14:38
Speaker 3: to do it for other women or meant to do
14:40
Speaker 3: it for herself, you can't argue with the results.
14:43
Speaker 1: I appreciate that she required honesty from other people and
14:47
Speaker 1: was willing to give it of herself because a lot
14:49
Speaker 1: of interviewers require it of other people and are not
14:53
Speaker 1: willing to give it themselves, and that's something that she
14:56
Speaker 1: markedly did throughout the years. I think specifically on The
14:58
Speaker 1: View too.
14:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think The View was a really interesting chapter
15:02
Speaker 3: of her life. She was very proud of the View, certainly,
15:05
Speaker 3: but you know, she started the View. I think she
15:06
Speaker 3: was in her mid sixties. Like it was very much
15:08
Speaker 3: like late in her career, and it was such a
15:11
Speaker 3: departure from what she'd done before, which were like these
15:16
Speaker 3: normal interviews for different as you said, the specials twenty twenty,
15:20
Speaker 3: all these things. But she kind of had to like
15:23
Speaker 3: loosen up on the view, and she did over time.
15:27
Speaker 1: But even that paid the path too, because never before
15:30
Speaker 1: had five women been on TV talking about issues, which
15:35
Speaker 1: I mean, now there's been so many I don't know
15:38
Speaker 1: what the right word is, but copycats, you know, of
15:41
Speaker 1: that show. Her childhood, I want to go back a
15:44
Speaker 1: little bit before we go forward. Her childhood was marked
15:46
Speaker 1: by complete chaos. I think it's something a lot of
15:49
Speaker 1: people don't know. It was sometimes glamorous, and then also
15:52
Speaker 1: she had a very unstable family life. Her dad produced
15:56
Speaker 1: Broadway shows and would go boom and bust all the time.
16:00
Speaker 1: How do you think that instability shaped her drive and
16:03
Speaker 1: her emotional armor later.
16:04
Speaker 3: I think it did very much. So I think that
16:07
Speaker 3: she had a very deep insecurity in her and a
16:11
Speaker 3: need to succeed that was in large part authored by
16:15
Speaker 3: her dad's boom and bust. And like when we say
16:17
Speaker 3: boom and bus like they were like penthouse in New York,
16:20
Speaker 3: fur coat, really rich and then really poor. What happened
16:25
Speaker 3: a couple of times and then ultimately her dad, she
16:28
Speaker 3: speaks at this freely, so tried to attempt suicide ultimately survive,
16:32
Speaker 3: but it couldn't work anymore. And she had a mother
16:36
Speaker 3: who women didn't work and that generation didn't have an education.
16:39
Speaker 3: She had an older sister who was developmentally delayed in
16:42
Speaker 3: some way, unable to work and function in normal society.
16:47
Speaker 3: And so I think she just felt this immense amount
16:50
Speaker 3: of pressure, like it has to be me, I have
16:53
Speaker 3: to make money for my whole family, and she did.
16:56
Speaker 3: She supported her family. It's interesting, like it's a pause
17:00
Speaker 3: trait that is driven from a negative place, right, Like
17:03
Speaker 3: insecurity can be a really amazing tool in terms of
17:07
Speaker 3: like it propels people to achieve. It's the gas in
17:10
Speaker 3: the tank, but it doesn't feel good. It doesn't come
17:12
Speaker 3: from a positive place, right, And so you can kind
17:15
Speaker 3: of see that with her. I think she worried a
17:17
Speaker 3: lot about everything. I think that she was very aware
17:20
Speaker 3: of the jockeying of who was like in, who was out,
17:23
Speaker 3: like where she stood in you know, the stable of
17:27
Speaker 3: stars that ABC had who was the threat? Who wasn't
17:31
Speaker 3: I think that like she was always looking over her
17:33
Speaker 3: shoulder because I think she always felt like a bust
17:37
Speaker 3: could have been around the corner. That makes sense if
17:39
Speaker 3: you think about it, to be an armchair psychiatrist.
17:42
Speaker 1: When I read her book, there was this quote that
17:44
Speaker 1: I highlighted, and she said, my father made me feel
17:46
Speaker 1: I was never quite good enough. And that was earlier
17:50
Speaker 1: on in her book, and as I was reading, I
17:52
Speaker 1: was thinking, as an armchair psychologist, like, oh, that.
17:56
Speaker 2: Permeated her entire life.
17:58
Speaker 1: It permeated her marriage, is it permeated her friendships even
18:02
Speaker 1: and definitely her career.
18:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, she definitely was an insecure person, I think in
18:07
Speaker 3: different arenas of her life in different ways, but it
18:11
Speaker 3: was I think part of the drive to be important
18:13
Speaker 3: was just to fill that to respond to that insecurity
18:16
Speaker 3: by showing how important she could be. I understand that,
18:19
Speaker 3: you know. I think that's actually like the reality for
18:21
Speaker 3: a lot of people, even though it's not like a
18:24
Speaker 3: sexy thing to talk about, I guess, or discuss in
18:26
Speaker 3: the moments because you want to be like, oh no,
18:28
Speaker 3: they just have this drive. I think that sometimes drive
18:31
Speaker 3: can be fully insecurity, and like, I really do think
18:34
Speaker 3: she loved her job, like loved being on television, loved
18:37
Speaker 3: making television. She was a genius programmer. But I think
18:40
Speaker 3: part of it would go back to an insecurity and
18:43
Speaker 3: sort of that childhood base when.
18:45
Speaker 1: You say insecurity. What came to my mind too was
18:48
Speaker 1: her appearance. I don't remember if I heard this or
18:51
Speaker 1: if I read this, so maybe you can shed light,
18:54
Speaker 1: but I know she was very competitive with Diane Sawyer,
18:58
Speaker 1: and I think she always felt like Diane Sawyer was
19:01
Speaker 1: the prettier journalist. Did that come up at all? Did
19:05
Speaker 1: people talk about how she felt about her appearance?
19:08
Speaker 3: Yes, before the whole Diane Sawyer, but all there was
19:12
Speaker 3: her time on the Today Show at NBC, where the
19:15
Speaker 3: only women who appeared on camera were like actresses and models,
19:18
Speaker 3: and they were called the Today Girls, and they were
19:21
Speaker 3: sort of like ornaments, right, like they're part of like jokes,
19:24
Speaker 3: and they would do little women's things, and she sort
19:27
Speaker 3: of finagled her way into being one of them, despite
19:30
Speaker 3: feeling like she didn't look the part. It is interesting though,
19:33
Speaker 3: because you see those videos of her at that time,
19:35
Speaker 3: she's so beautiful, but she's beautiful. I think in a
19:38
Speaker 3: way that wasn't popular at the time. You know, these
19:41
Speaker 3: things changed so quickly, like what's beautiful and what's not.
19:45
Speaker 3: So I think she always felt a bit other like
19:46
Speaker 3: I think at the time it was very much the blonde,
19:49
Speaker 3: blue eyed sort of I guess shiksah look. And Barbara
19:52
Speaker 3: was Jewish. Of course, I don't know if that all
19:54
Speaker 3: factored in. We didn't really get deep into that, but
19:57
Speaker 3: I wonder and then later on, like certainly with Diane Sawyer.
20:00
Speaker 3: I mean, Diane Sawyer is an incredibly beautiful woman. She
20:03
Speaker 3: just so an incredibly talented woman, and I think she
20:06
Speaker 3: kind of was on the same level as Barbara in
20:10
Speaker 3: some ways. And so to have this like younger, beautiful,
20:14
Speaker 3: talented person come into the space that you built at
20:18
Speaker 3: your own network and be given a competing show by
20:22
Speaker 3: the head of ABC News, it's a recipe for disaster.
20:24
Speaker 3: And I think that brought out all of her worst
20:27
Speaker 3: instincts and her worst fears. It's a funny thing because
20:30
Speaker 3: I think everybody can understand this, or at least every
20:32
Speaker 3: woman can. I don't mean to get all genderly about it,
20:35
Speaker 3: but like all of us have had somebody like a
20:37
Speaker 3: Diane in our lives right, who's just kind of unnerves
20:40
Speaker 3: you and you feel inferior towards in some way. I
20:43
Speaker 3: think that at times she probably took that to a
20:45
Speaker 3: bit of an extreme, but like I feel like I
20:47
Speaker 3: understand sort of that it would have brought her back
20:50
Speaker 3: to a really painful place to feel like this person
20:54
Speaker 3: is just over my shoulder. And you know, I don't
20:57
Speaker 3: necessarily think it was personal animus. I think it was
21:00
Speaker 3: just couldn't handle the whole package that Diane Sawyer, wasn't
21:04
Speaker 3: it well.
21:05
Speaker 1: Also, I don't know what happened, but I can imagine,
21:08
Speaker 1: just based on my own experience in news stations, that
21:12
Speaker 1: oftentimes executives fuel the fire in ways that are almost unbelievable.
21:20
Speaker 1: And so even if things are not competitive and people
21:24
Speaker 1: do have good intentions, executives I don't know why, but
21:29
Speaker 1: it's usually male executives fuel that fire immensely.
21:34
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, you're certainly correct in this situation. I
21:36
Speaker 3: don't think it was just for the women. So run
21:39
Speaker 3: our Ledge was the president of ABC News during this time.
21:41
Speaker 3: He's a famous guy in the industry, a visionary who
21:44
Speaker 3: basically figured out that news could be entertaining and like
21:49
Speaker 3: that for better or worse has shaped the industry for
21:52
Speaker 3: a long time now. But he also was of the
21:55
Speaker 3: mindset that if your talent competes, your network wins, right, Like,
22:00
Speaker 3: if you foment competition between your star anchors, they will
22:04
Speaker 3: perform even better, which is potentially true, but it's not
22:10
Speaker 3: a good time for those who are in a horse
22:12
Speaker 3: race with each other. And I think that was true
22:15
Speaker 3: some of the male anchors, and it was certainly true
22:17
Speaker 3: of Diane and Barbara because again they were like flying
22:20
Speaker 3: at the same altitude. This is also the nineties that
22:23
Speaker 3: this happened when Diane came over to ABC, and this
22:26
Speaker 3: was the era of like huge tabloid news magazine shows.
22:32
Speaker 3: Diane had Prime Time Lives, Barbara had Twenty twenty, and
22:36
Speaker 3: I think they had slightly different interest in stories. It
22:39
Speaker 3: was still like, if a big story comes out, ABC
22:42
Speaker 3: will be chasing it and they're going to put forth
22:44
Speaker 3: one of their anchor stars, right, And so it must
22:48
Speaker 3: have been interesting at the time to be the press
22:50
Speaker 3: person for like I don't know, OJ Simpson. You have
22:54
Speaker 3: like the same network approaching you from two different sides,
22:57
Speaker 3: and it's not a unified front. It's like Barber's people
23:00
Speaker 3: Diane's people, and there's always other people that were also
23:02
Speaker 3: in the mix of the time. But it was a
23:05
Speaker 3: time when like news stories were like primetime entertainment, you know,
23:09
Speaker 3: the Menendez brothers, Tanya Harding. Like now they're like nostalgia stories, right,
23:13
Speaker 3: but like these really iconic stories of the nineties, like
23:17
Speaker 3: the booking wars behind that are absolutely legendary for sure.
23:21
Speaker 2: Well.
23:22
Speaker 1: I think also what people don't understand unless you're in
23:25
Speaker 1: news or in that world, about the booking process is
23:28
Speaker 1: that when you're at the network level, there's a lot
23:30
Speaker 1: of rules, like you can't pay for an interview, but
23:35
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things that happened that our
23:37
Speaker 1: workarounds and promises that people make under the table that
23:42
Speaker 1: aren't technically being paid.
23:43
Speaker 2: But I actually think it's really interesting.
23:45
Speaker 3: So that is the party line is that you don't
23:47
Speaker 3: pay for interviews, but that doesn't mean you can't pay
23:50
Speaker 3: for other things. And so there's a great deal of
23:52
Speaker 3: like whining and dining for a long time, and maybe
23:54
Speaker 3: this is back now. I actually don't know, you know,
23:56
Speaker 3: I haven't worked in news in a while, but for
23:59
Speaker 3: a while, it was you pay for like personal photos
24:01
Speaker 3: and videos, and that was how you side step to
24:03
Speaker 3: the idea of paying for an interview, But ultimately what
24:07
Speaker 3: it really boiled down to in like this era of
24:10
Speaker 3: like the big shows, I think was like less about
24:13
Speaker 3: the money and more about the exposure. Because these shows
24:16
Speaker 3: would get twenty million people every episode or more. The
24:21
Speaker 3: reach is unlike anything that we have today, Like none
24:25
Speaker 3: of the news network shows are getting anywhere near that.
24:28
Speaker 3: And so I think for a lot of people who
24:30
Speaker 3: are caught up in like a scandal or whatever, it
24:32
Speaker 3: was a lot of it was like who do you
24:34
Speaker 3: want to pick to be your mouthpiece to speak to
24:36
Speaker 3: the world, because remember they didn't have the ability to
24:39
Speaker 3: like speak out on their own. They couldn't post a
24:42
Speaker 3: YouTube statement or go on Instagram or anything like that.
24:45
Speaker 3: And so when those tools came around, everything changed, right,
24:49
Speaker 3: But this was kind of like how you spoke to
24:51
Speaker 3: the world is that you chose a Barbara and you
24:55
Speaker 3: were like, she's going to help me tell my story.
24:58
Speaker 3: She's legendary, how she was a booking and so I
25:01
Speaker 3: think that she just knew how to read people and
25:03
Speaker 3: to figure out where their interests aligned and go from there.
25:08
Speaker 1: What interview moment do you think she considered to be
25:10
Speaker 1: her greatest professional triumph.
25:12
Speaker 3: She had this really interesting streak when she came to
25:15
Speaker 3: ABC for the first time. So the quick backstory on
25:18
Speaker 3: that is that she became the co host of the
25:21
Speaker 3: Today Show for several years. The day show was a
25:23
Speaker 3: morning show. So while that is journalism, it's not serious journalism,
25:29
Speaker 3: or was I considered that at the time the evening
25:31
Speaker 3: news show. Like Walter Cronkite was the anchor for the
25:34
Speaker 3: CBS News Show, guys of that ILK were doing the
25:37
Speaker 3: evening news. So in nineteen seventy six, she is given
25:42
Speaker 3: the chance to become the co anchor of the evening
25:45
Speaker 3: news at ABC. She had a co anchor, this guy,
25:48
Speaker 3: Harry Reisner, and the whole thing was like an absolute disaster.
25:52
Speaker 3: Harry absolutely hated her. That's like kind of when the
25:55
Speaker 3: Babba Wah Wah thing started with Gilda Radner. The newspaper
26:00
Speaker 3: papers called her million dollar baby because she got a
26:02
Speaker 3: million dollar contract. You know, it was a huge, like
26:05
Speaker 3: news event that Barbara Walters was going to anchor the
26:08
Speaker 3: news and be the first woman to do that. And
26:10
Speaker 3: by all accounts, it was a complete disaster because there
26:13
Speaker 3: was no chemistry between her and her co anchor it
26:16
Speaker 3: actually wasn't a plate to her strengths to have her
26:18
Speaker 3: be behind the anchored ask either, she is an amazing interviewer.
26:22
Speaker 3: She felt like it was a complete and total disaster.
26:25
Speaker 3: So in response to this, she decides, I have to
26:28
Speaker 3: save my career, right, and so she goes out in
26:31
Speaker 3: the field and has this year where she gets these
26:34
Speaker 3: incredible gets like run right after another, the Fidel Castro interview, iconic,
26:40
Speaker 3: so great and so amazing to be able to watch
26:42
Speaker 3: that raw and find all these things that didn't make
26:45
Speaker 3: the cut, and such an amazing historical time capsule. But
26:48
Speaker 3: I think what she would actually say her biggest coup
26:51
Speaker 3: was when President Sadat of Egypt and the Prime Minister
26:56
Speaker 3: Began of Israel decided to meet in nineteen seventy seven.
27:00
Speaker 3: Began invited Sadat to Israel, and Saddat became the first
27:04
Speaker 3: and I think only Egyptian leader to ever visit Israel.
27:07
Speaker 3: And so Barbara was like in a total horse race
27:11
Speaker 3: with Walter Cronkite and John Chancellor, who were the other
27:14
Speaker 3: two anchors to get the best gets from this summit, right,
27:19
Speaker 3: and they were all on the plane together. We have
27:22
Speaker 3: kind of a whole step by step, and she somehow
27:25
Speaker 3: convinces Sadat and Bayen to do a joint interview with
27:29
Speaker 3: her after they had this like historic summit, and she
27:32
Speaker 3: totally beats out Chancellor and Kronkite. And so not only
27:36
Speaker 3: was it a very important interview and like historic moment
27:39
Speaker 3: and like history in the making, she also like beat
27:41
Speaker 3: out the guys who definitely underestimated her. And I think
27:45
Speaker 3: that probably felt the best for her, Like I think
27:48
Speaker 3: that would be the thing that she'd be like that
27:50
Speaker 3: was the absolute best.
27:52
Speaker 2: Best were the guys on the plane with her.
27:55
Speaker 3: They were We have like amazing footage of every step
27:58
Speaker 3: of this. You'll see it in the film.
28:00
Speaker 1: That's even cooler. I didn't know the guys were on
28:02
Speaker 1: the plane. I thought she convinced them on the plane.
28:05
Speaker 3: She passed a note to Sadat on the plane, like
28:08
Speaker 3: a very like elementary school check yes or no kind
28:11
Speaker 3: of note asking like, will you do an interview with me? Yes?
28:15
Speaker 3: Yes alone, yes with prime minister began or no wasn't
28:19
Speaker 3: an option, probably, and so she just was clever. I
28:23
Speaker 3: actually think it's funny. After giving some thought, I think
28:26
Speaker 3: part of her success was that she certainly didn't have
28:29
Speaker 3: an ego, right, Like I think some of these male
28:31
Speaker 3: anchors wouldn't stoop to making the phone calls themselves to
28:34
Speaker 3: kind of begging people to do stuff. And I don't
28:37
Speaker 3: know this is true of those two guys in particular,
28:39
Speaker 3: but in general, I think that like she was willing
28:42
Speaker 3: to make these calls and do all this footwork, whereas
28:45
Speaker 3: I think like the guys were more aloof and felt
28:48
Speaker 3: like that was kind of beneath them to approach people
28:50
Speaker 3: directly for interviews, Like you know what I'm saying. It's
28:53
Speaker 3: like I think that she was willing to do it.
28:56
Speaker 1: I think every great interviewer has like a distinct style,
29:00
Speaker 1: and to me, it's almost a lens through which they
29:03
Speaker 1: see the world, and so they don't even know that
29:05
Speaker 1: they're doing it. It's just their instinct. I think with
29:08
Speaker 1: Oprah it's often spiritual or an emotional through line. With Barbara,
29:14
Speaker 1: I want to tell you what I think, and then
29:16
Speaker 1: I want to know what you think, because you have
29:18
Speaker 1: more insight than I do. With Barbara, to me, it
29:20
Speaker 1: felt like there was always a question behind the question.
29:24
Speaker 1: I felt like she was always digging for something, like
29:27
Speaker 1: almost trying to get through someone's performance. To the truth,
29:32
Speaker 1: and so she would use questions as building blocks, like
29:36
Speaker 1: I think she didn't even care about the answers to
29:39
Speaker 1: a few questions, but she would use them to take
29:42
Speaker 1: people to a place to get the question out that
29:45
Speaker 1: she actually cared about. And she did it so seamlessly
29:48
Speaker 1: that people didn't even know they were being taken somewhere.
29:52
Speaker 1: Do you think I'm right wrong? Do you have other thoughts?
29:55
Speaker 1: Did you notice because you went through so much tape,
29:57
Speaker 1: did you notice any like consistent patterns or signatures in
30:00
Speaker 1: her style?
30:02
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, I think you're right. I think that
30:04
Speaker 3: she walked into most interviews with the goal, and that
30:08
Speaker 3: goal would be tailored to whoever that person was or
30:10
Speaker 3: whatever was going on. But then, you know, I think
30:14
Speaker 3: for her also she would ask really hard questions, and
30:19
Speaker 3: a lot of it was like building up to asking
30:21
Speaker 3: that hard questions in a very blunt way. There's a
30:24
Speaker 3: whole other aspect of her now that I see, like
30:27
Speaker 3: whenever I go on like TikTok and see a Barbara
30:29
Speaker 3: Walters thing, which isn't often, but it has come across
30:32
Speaker 3: my fee where people would be like mad at her
30:35
Speaker 3: for the way she spoke to Dolly parton actually as
30:37
Speaker 3: one or various other people, and like, yes, certainly, by
30:42
Speaker 3: today's standards, it's very tone deaf, But you know, I
30:46
Speaker 3: don't think it's incredibly fair to judge her by today's standards.
30:49
Speaker 3: I think that the question she asked and the way
30:51
Speaker 3: she would ask them were indicative of where the culture
30:54
Speaker 3: was at the time. Asking someone what's it like to
30:58
Speaker 3: be a homosexual the eighties, and like people didn't know.
31:02
Speaker 1: But here's something that she does that I want to
31:05
Speaker 1: understand better because I agree with you, and she does
31:09
Speaker 1: something that like I would never do, and I'm always
31:12
Speaker 1: wondering what the reason was because Okay, for instance, she
31:16
Speaker 1: has this standout moment in a Monica Lewinsky interview. Her
31:19
Speaker 1: final line or her final question is what will you
31:22
Speaker 1: tell your children about this? And Monica replies, Mommy made
31:25
Speaker 1: a big mistake. And instead of cutting it there and
31:28
Speaker 1: leaving it, Barbara Walters responds and says, and that's the
31:32
Speaker 1: understatement of the year. So like, she could be a
31:38
Speaker 1: little bit blunt and harsh, But what I'm confused about
31:44
Speaker 1: is that I don't think that it makes people in
31:47
Speaker 1: that interview chair want to speak more.
31:49
Speaker 2: Why did she do that?
31:51
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, I think some of it
31:56
Speaker 3: was just TV moments. It was such a different media
32:00
Speaker 3: environments to the point where, especially at that point in
32:03
Speaker 3: her career, I think people felt like sitting down with
32:05
Speaker 3: Barbara was like legitimizing to them, Like she was so
32:09
Speaker 3: famous that if you earned a Barbara Walters interview, it
32:13
Speaker 3: was like a gold star for you. And so I
32:17
Speaker 3: think that the power dynamic was different, and like a
32:19
Speaker 3: lot of her questions can be really blunt, but there's
32:22
Speaker 3: something so refreshing about that now in this environment where
32:27
Speaker 3: people go on podcasts or they executive produce their own
32:30
Speaker 3: documentaries and not all the time, but sometimes they don't
32:34
Speaker 3: have to deal with hard questions, you know. Like actually,
32:37
Speaker 3: one of my favorite interviews Barbara did was with Donald Trump,
32:41
Speaker 3: and we have parts of it in the show, and
32:43
Speaker 3: she is so hard on him, you know, and like
32:46
Speaker 3: calling out these different things. It's funny. I mean, he's
32:49
Speaker 3: been saying the same thing for so long, you know,
32:50
Speaker 3: which is the press is so unfair to me, you know,
32:52
Speaker 3: blah blah blah. But she just like gives them a
32:55
Speaker 3: hard time, and I feel like that's not something we
32:58
Speaker 3: see all the time anymore. Really holding someone's feet to
33:01
Speaker 3: the fire. And some people deserved it, some people didn't
33:04
Speaker 3: deserve it as much. But like, there's something refreshing about
33:09
Speaker 3: like hearing the question asked. That's like the question in
33:13
Speaker 3: your head that you're too polite to ask, right, Like
33:15
Speaker 3: she was just willing to do that, And you know,
33:18
Speaker 3: was that a negative experience in her subjects? Potentially, but
33:22
Speaker 3: it did not seem out of place at the time.
33:24
Speaker 3: I felt like that was just part of the way
33:27
Speaker 3: the media worked, and if you were going to subject
33:28
Speaker 3: yourself to a big television interview, you had to expect that.
33:33
Speaker 1: The people that work at the view nowadays, the producers
33:36
Speaker 1: are trained in the Barbara Walters School of Research and Production.
33:39
Speaker 1: They still say that did you learn anything about her process?
33:44
Speaker 1: If so, I'm so curious about the nitty gritty of it.
33:47
Speaker 3: Yes, she was famous for being an incredibly detailed researcher,
33:52
Speaker 3: Like she would walk into any interview incredibly prepared. Find
33:56
Speaker 3: these little tidbits. This is back in the newspaper days,
33:59
Speaker 3: right before the end, Like find a local news article
34:01
Speaker 3: about a celebrity that mentions some one thing and then
34:04
Speaker 3: bring it up to them and it would disarm them
34:06
Speaker 3: so much because they're like, how do you know about that?
34:09
Speaker 3: But she would definitely do a huge deep dive. And
34:12
Speaker 3: she was also like very famous for the way she
34:14
Speaker 3: prepped for interviews, very painful for her producers. She would
34:18
Speaker 3: do all these index cards where she would write the
34:20
Speaker 3: question on the cards. She'd then reshuffle the cards. She'd
34:22
Speaker 3: like ask her assistant the guy who delivered the sandwiches,
34:26
Speaker 3: like what would you want to ask like Harrison Ford
34:28
Speaker 3: or Clintisu, whatever whoever it may be, and like take
34:31
Speaker 3: their suggestions and like do this like into the wee
34:34
Speaker 3: hours of the night, which must have been like so
34:36
Speaker 3: frustrating for her producers, just like want to go home,
34:38
Speaker 3: like we have the questions. And she would do this
34:41
Speaker 3: crazy prep so that in the moment she didn't have
34:44
Speaker 3: to look at it. Maybe she consulted her cards here
34:46
Speaker 3: and there, but like she knew the plan and what
34:50
Speaker 3: she wanted to get down so pat that she was
34:53
Speaker 3: able to be better on her feet. And I think
34:56
Speaker 3: that's really great. That's a really great way to prepare.
34:58
Speaker 3: I mean, some of it sounds a bit extreme, but
35:00
Speaker 3: it's always like important to do your research, of course,
35:04
Speaker 3: and that seems almost silly to say that it's important.
35:06
Speaker 3: Obviously you have to do your research, but I think
35:07
Speaker 3: she just took it to a level that was far
35:10
Speaker 3: beyond what a lot of people did.
35:12
Speaker 1: I particularly love the note card idea because it was
35:16
Speaker 1: like pre computers, you know, and so now you can
35:19
Speaker 1: shuffle questions on a computer, but you couldn't do that,
35:21
Speaker 1: and so I love that was her method. Part of
35:24
Speaker 1: what I think made her so special too, or her interviews,
35:28
Speaker 1: was that she interviewed people from across industries. So a
35:32
Speaker 1: lot of journalists even to this day, have niches. People
35:36
Speaker 1: are political journalists or they're entertainment journalists. She could interview
35:42
Speaker 1: a rapper one day and then interview the leader of
35:46
Speaker 1: a country the next. It felt to me like she
35:49
Speaker 1: could speak anybody's language. Do you know who she enjoyed
35:52
Speaker 1: interviewing the most?
35:54
Speaker 3: You know, I actually think she really did like the
35:56
Speaker 3: political interviews, but she was very wily, and she knew
35:59
Speaker 3: that a lot of those wouldn't rate as well as
36:02
Speaker 3: a celebrities. You know. It's interesting because when she first
36:06
Speaker 3: started doing her specials at ABC, she was among the
36:09
Speaker 3: first to mix celebrities and world leaders. Essentially, you know,
36:15
Speaker 3: do castro one week and then like, I don't know,
36:17
Speaker 3: Lucille Ball the next week, just not think it was
36:20
Speaker 3: a problem to put these things next to each other.
36:23
Speaker 3: And it was really unorthodox at the time when she
36:24
Speaker 3: was criticized for it. It's funny we say that now
36:27
Speaker 3: because now it's like so standard and that's every news
36:29
Speaker 3: show does that, But it was definitely kind of new
36:33
Speaker 3: when she did that. And I think one of the
36:35
Speaker 3: most interesting things about her is that she likes the
36:38
Speaker 3: political interviews, but the questions she asked weren't that different. Then.
36:42
Speaker 3: She would ask a movie star, a singer, like she
36:46
Speaker 3: would ask people like Momar Gadaffi famously and dictatored Libya,
36:51
Speaker 3: what were your childhood dreams growing up? What did you
36:54
Speaker 3: want to be? She did the same with Castro. She
36:57
Speaker 3: would tease him, asking him are you married, and like
37:00
Speaker 3: you would like not answer her, and she'd like, it's
37:01
Speaker 3: not a complicated question. She wanted to understand who the
37:05
Speaker 3: person behind a leader really was. And I actually think
37:08
Speaker 3: it's really effective and like maybe something that the male
37:11
Speaker 3: journalists would have not thought to do, because it's like
37:14
Speaker 3: kind of a feminine thing to be, like, what do
37:17
Speaker 3: you dream of when you were a little boy? But
37:19
Speaker 3: you know, the answers would be really interesting. And I
37:21
Speaker 3: said this before, but I think like the CIA profilers
37:24
Speaker 3: were probably pretty pumped to watch her interview so they
37:26
Speaker 3: could create a more wholesome image of this person. Was
37:29
Speaker 3: they were tracking, But it's also quite effective. It's interesting
37:32
Speaker 3: to hear that and to know their world view. So
37:34
Speaker 3: it's interesting that she was able to almost use the
37:37
Speaker 3: same playbook with everybody, which was I want to know
37:41
Speaker 3: what drives you as a person.
37:42
Speaker 1: She was also known for making people cry, and I
37:46
Speaker 1: heard her say that most of the time she would
37:48
Speaker 1: ask about their parents, particularly their dad. For some reason,
37:51
Speaker 1: the dad would make people cry. Looking through all this footage,
37:56
Speaker 1: what else do you think it was about her that
37:58
Speaker 1: made people cry?
37:59
Speaker 3: You know, it's like it makes me think, Like as
38:01
Speaker 3: I was just saying about the way she would ask
38:02
Speaker 3: questions and like how she would try to get to
38:04
Speaker 3: know people, I think these were questions people weren't asking,
38:08
Speaker 3: tell me about your relationship with your father. I think
38:10
Speaker 3: that was actually a trial and error thing that she
38:11
Speaker 3: realized that really got people to open up. She's like, oh,
38:13
Speaker 3: I asked about their moms and it was always like fine,
38:16
Speaker 3: But then when I asked about their dads. It's like
38:18
Speaker 3: opened something up for them. So I think that she
38:20
Speaker 3: was just looking for ways in and realized over time
38:24
Speaker 3: that there's like some common things that drive people, you know,
38:27
Speaker 3: when she'd ask everybody about the romantic relationships, and these
38:30
Speaker 3: are all things that everybody has in common, right, Like
38:33
Speaker 3: we all have parents presumably, and we all presumably are
38:36
Speaker 3: interested in romantic relationships. It's a great equalizer in some
38:40
Speaker 3: ways when other aspects of someone's life maybe it's completely unattainable.
38:44
Speaker 1: Well, she also notoriously loved gossip, Like she threw these
38:46
Speaker 1: epic dinner parties that people still talk about. Do you
38:49
Speaker 1: think the gossip ever got her in trouble?
38:52
Speaker 3: Probably? I don't know about an instance of that, but
38:56
Speaker 3: like probably what.
38:58
Speaker 1: Do you think the greatest myth or Barbara misnomer was?
39:02
Speaker 1: And what was the truth that you found? And actually
39:06
Speaker 1: I'm asking this because one of her favorite questions was
39:09
Speaker 1: do you think you're misunderstood?
39:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, what is the biggest misconception about you? Actually, I
39:13
Speaker 3: think it's how she phrased it. I don't know what
39:16
Speaker 3: the biggest misconception would be about her. Actually, the public
39:20
Speaker 3: image of her, I think is pretty clear in some ways.
39:23
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that she would say she was
39:25
Speaker 3: a more fun person, and she seemed, you know, although
39:27
Speaker 3: she seemed pretty fun at times. But it's a hard question.
39:32
Speaker 3: I thought about it too, because I thought about that
39:34
Speaker 3: question and why it repeated so many times. I feel
39:37
Speaker 3: like she was a knowable person, and she was a
39:40
Speaker 3: really tough person, and like she demanded excellence, but like
39:43
Speaker 3: you could tell, like none of that surprised me to learn.
39:47
Speaker 3: It's just kind of clear.
39:49
Speaker 2: Did anything not make the cut?
39:50
Speaker 1: Because I know, when you're doing a doc, like there's
39:53
Speaker 1: pieces that you love that you want to include that
39:56
Speaker 1: because of the way you're sharing the story, you just can't.
39:59
Speaker 3: I mean, you can't ever do everything. You know, it's
40:01
Speaker 3: ninety minutes. You have to pick and choose at a
40:04
Speaker 3: certain time, like what stories you're going to tell, what
40:06
Speaker 3: stories you're not going to tell. I mean, there's some
40:08
Speaker 3: interviews that would have been fun to spend more time
40:10
Speaker 3: on and to like really unpack. But ultimately I'm really
40:13
Speaker 3: happy with what we were able to include and the
40:16
Speaker 3: time that we were able to give to each different story.
40:19
Speaker 3: I'm sure people who watch it will be like, oh,
40:21
Speaker 3: I wish they had talked about this, or wish they
40:22
Speaker 3: talked about that, and that's fine, but there wasn't anything
40:24
Speaker 3: that I felt like we just couldn't do that was
40:28
Speaker 3: devastating to me.
40:29
Speaker 1: So I was like thinking about if it would be
40:32
Speaker 1: okay to bring this up, and I'm not sure, but
40:34
Speaker 1: I think in Barbara's professional honor, I think she would
40:40
Speaker 1: maybe appreciate me asking the hard question. I heard that
40:44
Speaker 1: she had Alzheimer's and didn't want anybody to know.
40:47
Speaker 2: Does the doc hit on.
40:48
Speaker 3: That, you know, we actually don't. In her last couple
40:51
Speaker 3: of years, she certainly had some kind of issue. I mean,
40:55
Speaker 3: it's like well known amongst those who knew her personally.
40:59
Speaker 3: We just I had to sort of end it with
41:01
Speaker 3: her retirement from television because I don't know, like when
41:05
Speaker 3: you're making these life stories, you don't always have to
41:07
Speaker 3: cover the very end, you know. I didn't feel like
41:09
Speaker 3: there was anything particularly poetic about it. Just seems like
41:14
Speaker 3: a sad thing. I felt like the time was better
41:17
Speaker 3: spent kind of meditating on the impact she had on television,
41:21
Speaker 3: how the industry as a whole has changed, and also
41:23
Speaker 3: practically speaking, it's not like we had footage of the
41:26
Speaker 3: final years of her life. But I think that she
41:27
Speaker 3: struggled with retirement certainly, and like we talk about that
41:30
Speaker 3: a little bit, like she lived for the television spotlight,
41:35
Speaker 3: and she had like a bunch of retirements, super tired
41:39
Speaker 3: in phases. Like I think she had a hard time
41:41
Speaker 3: staying away until it became to a point where she
41:44
Speaker 3: could no longer do it. But she definitely missed the
41:46
Speaker 3: glow to your point.
41:48
Speaker 1: Her final interview was with President Barack Obama and Michelle
41:51
Speaker 1: Obama in twenty twelve, and it was her last official
41:55
Speaker 1: interview before retiring from the View, which almost felt like
41:59
Speaker 1: a cultural circle moment. Did she know it was her
42:02
Speaker 1: last interview?
42:03
Speaker 3: No, because you know, to be honest with you, she
42:05
Speaker 3: actually did a bunch of other interviews after that. So
42:08
Speaker 3: she retires from the View and that was like her
42:10
Speaker 3: big retirement, but she still comes back to ABC and
42:13
Speaker 3: does a couple interviews. I actually think famously while with
42:16
Speaker 3: Donald Trump when he was running for president. We don't
42:19
Speaker 3: even get into this though, not just because it was
42:21
Speaker 3: like we ended it when she retired in twenty fourteen.
42:23
Speaker 3: They weren't her best moments, and I really think that
42:25
Speaker 3: she just missed the spotlight a lot. And wanted to
42:29
Speaker 3: come back and was allowed to, of course, But sometimes
42:32
Speaker 3: people retire and they just go off into the sunset
42:34
Speaker 3: and that's it. But I think she just missed being
42:37
Speaker 3: in the mix and like being part of the game
42:40
Speaker 3: and the thrill and the chase and the dance of
42:42
Speaker 3: the interview.
42:43
Speaker 1: I've asked a lot of Barbara questions. I have some
42:45
Speaker 1: Jackie questions. Did making this documentary change the way you
42:49
Speaker 1: ask questions?
42:50
Speaker 3: I don't know that it did. It's an interesting question.
42:54
Speaker 3: It's interesting because also the way that you ask questions
42:58
Speaker 3: when you are also on camera is different than you
43:01
Speaker 3: ask questions as a documentary director when you don't plan
43:05
Speaker 3: to include your voice in the film. The entire construct
43:09
Speaker 3: is different. I like Barbara. I'm a huge preparer, and
43:13
Speaker 3: I always want to walk into interviews knowing a lot
43:17
Speaker 3: more than perhaps the subject even knows that I know,
43:21
Speaker 3: especially if it's an investigative thing. But I think that
43:24
Speaker 3: I appreciate that she wasn't afraid to ask the hard questions.
43:27
Speaker 3: I like to think that I'm also not afraid to
43:29
Speaker 3: ask people hard questions. But it's sort of like a
43:32
Speaker 3: different medium in a way which I know is not
43:33
Speaker 3: a very satisfying answer, but like there's a showmanship to
43:37
Speaker 3: asking a question that you know will beyond camera. That
43:39
Speaker 3: is not part of the equation for me when I'm
43:42
Speaker 3: writing questions, since I am trying not to be.
43:45
Speaker 1: I had no expectation for your answer, So that was satisfying.
43:49
Speaker 1: I was just curious because you also ask questions for
43:53
Speaker 1: a living, and so I was wondering what watching all
43:55
Speaker 1: that footage, what the impact was for you?
43:58
Speaker 2: Did it have a different impact.
44:00
Speaker 3: I mean, she's absolutely a master of interview, and when
44:03
Speaker 3: you watch these things in totality, you do see that
44:05
Speaker 3: there's a lot of recurring beings, a lot of recurring questions,
44:09
Speaker 3: things that I think she just honed over time and
44:11
Speaker 3: knew worked to get good answers out of people, which
44:15
Speaker 3: is an art in and of itself. It's also a personality thing.
44:19
Speaker 3: I think everybody's different. Also, over the years, I feel
44:22
Speaker 3: like her style changed as her star rose, where sometimes
44:26
Speaker 3: it felt like her questions are something's more important in
44:29
Speaker 3: some interviews, But that also could have been because the
44:32
Speaker 3: interview subjects weren't quite like you know, it might have
44:34
Speaker 3: been like one of those fluffy like here's the Oscar
44:36
Speaker 3: nominated people it's not like a deep philosophical treatise. What
44:40
Speaker 3: I think we achieved and what I hope we achieved,
44:43
Speaker 3: was that you will walk away from this film feeling
44:46
Speaker 3: like you know her, like you understand her in terms
44:48
Speaker 3: of what shaped her, what drove her. And you know,
44:52
Speaker 3: there's some people who just live their lives with this
44:55
Speaker 3: burning need to be and the center of things, where
44:59
Speaker 3: the big I guess things are happening. Somebody who I
45:02
Speaker 3: was talking to about Barbara, I can't remember who it was,
45:04
Speaker 3: said that if she was born today, she'd be a
45:07
Speaker 3: tech executive, like television was the big growth industry of
45:12
Speaker 3: the time when she lived. And I think that she's
45:14
Speaker 3: just someone who wants to be at the center of
45:18
Speaker 3: it all and sometimes like kind of in an intense way,
45:20
Speaker 3: you know, like an interview subject we have talked about.
45:22
Speaker 3: She was a pretty transactional person. She didn't seem to
45:26
Speaker 3: always mind if some of her friends were morally questionable,
45:30
Speaker 3: you know, like there was a bit of a ruthlessness
45:32
Speaker 3: to her, which I think people's.
45:34
Speaker 2: Sense, actually, what do you mean by that?
45:37
Speaker 3: Like, for example, she was very close with Roy Kohane, who,
45:42
Speaker 3: for those who don't know who that is, he is
45:44
Speaker 3: kind of like the man who shaped Not to talk
45:46
Speaker 3: about Donald Trump so much, but he's kind of the
45:48
Speaker 3: man who shaped Donald Trump. If you watch the film
45:50
Speaker 3: in The Apprentice, he's played by Jeremy Strong. He's also
45:54
Speaker 3: this reviled guy who was a closeted homosexual for most
45:58
Speaker 3: of his life, who took part in the McCarthy trials,
46:01
Speaker 3: and part of that was outing gay people. He's kind
46:05
Speaker 3: of an arch villain, honestly, Like he's I'm going to
46:08
Speaker 3: paraphrase the interview subject who talked about this, he was like,
46:11
Speaker 3: he's one of the worst people of the last century.
46:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, he sounds disgusting, and there's a.
46:16
Speaker 3: Bunch of amazing documentaries about him. Actually, Like he's a
46:18
Speaker 3: very interesting figure in American history. And Barbara and him
46:23
Speaker 3: were very good friends, to the point where they spoke
46:25
Speaker 3: about getting married. I think a lot of that was
46:28
Speaker 3: that he had a lot of rich and powerful friends.
46:30
Speaker 3: He could make things happen. She kind of ran with
46:33
Speaker 3: a crowd that, like, I don't know if it was
46:35
Speaker 3: every crowd. She was in a lot of different crowds,
46:37
Speaker 3: but there was at least one part of her life
46:39
Speaker 3: that was this crowd of like pretty morally objectionable people,
46:42
Speaker 3: with him being the most morally objectionable. And you know,
46:46
Speaker 3: I just don't think it bothered her as much as
46:48
Speaker 3: it might bother other people, because I think she really
46:50
Speaker 3: loved power.
46:51
Speaker 1: Which goes back to the beginning of our conversation, feeling
46:54
Speaker 1: powerless over her security in life. I think for anybody
46:59
Speaker 1: who is listening, thinking, who cares why Barbara Walters? Why
47:04
Speaker 1: do you think it was important to tell the story
47:06
Speaker 1: of Barbara Walters?
47:07
Speaker 3: I mean her story is in essence also the story
47:11
Speaker 3: of broadcast news of the past fifty years, which I
47:14
Speaker 3: think is interesting and relevant and importance. And there aren't
47:18
Speaker 3: that many documentaries or films in general about broadcast I
47:22
Speaker 3: guess documentaries about broadcast news, and so that was an
47:24
Speaker 3: exciting opportunity. But I also think during the height of
47:28
Speaker 3: Barber's career, she was an absolute cultural gatekeeper, like she
47:33
Speaker 3: has the power to influence public thought, to rectify someone's reputation.
47:39
Speaker 3: Maybe she got to decide what was important, like if
47:42
Speaker 3: she interviewed someone, you were important, right, And so we
47:46
Speaker 3: don't really have these gatekeepers anymore. Like the way that
47:50
Speaker 3: the media landscape has shifted so dramatically, there's a lot
47:53
Speaker 3: of different ways to get information and very few gatekeepers
47:57
Speaker 3: of this way, where it's like you have one or
48:00
Speaker 3: two people who kind of set the cultural tone.
48:03
Speaker 1: I just want to quickly before you finis, I want
48:06
Speaker 1: to drive that point home by saying, even think about
48:08
Speaker 1: Oprah Winfree nowadays?
48:10
Speaker 2: Who was?
48:11
Speaker 1: I think one of those gatekeepers is not anymore. And
48:14
Speaker 1: it's not because she's changed or it's anything different. It's
48:18
Speaker 1: the media landscape is so cluttered it doesn't matter as.
48:22
Speaker 3: Much, correct, And I think we've seen the waning of that.
48:26
Speaker 3: Of course with the rise of social media. It's pretty
48:29
Speaker 3: directly related to that, the rise of the internet and
48:32
Speaker 3: the ability for anyone to reach others. And so I
48:36
Speaker 3: think that not a need for this person anymore. And
48:38
Speaker 3: your correct Oprah is certainly in person I ould put
48:40
Speaker 3: in the same category. I think it's important to talk
48:43
Speaker 3: about is it good? Is it bad? I think there's
48:46
Speaker 3: pros and cons to both of these situations. But the
48:49
Speaker 3: reality is Barbara Walters shaped our culture as we know
48:52
Speaker 3: it in a big way for many decades. Like she
48:54
Speaker 3: was a very important person and maybe people just aren't
48:57
Speaker 3: aware of that.
48:58
Speaker 2: Did you have fun making it?
49:00
Speaker 3: I did have a lot of fun making it. It
49:01
Speaker 3: was amazing to get to meet all these famous people
49:04
Speaker 3: we interviewed for the film. Of course that was very cool,
49:06
Speaker 3: But the coolest part, I think was just being able
49:09
Speaker 3: to go through this raw footage of these interviews that
49:13
Speaker 3: are so famous and just like find these funny moments
49:16
Speaker 3: and find Barber's personality and just immerse ourselves in that footage.
49:21
Speaker 3: Like it was a very special experience. I don't think
49:23
Speaker 3: anybody outside of ABC or even honestly even insid of
49:26
Speaker 3: ABAC has been like allowed this kind of access before,
49:30
Speaker 3: So it just felt like a huge voyage of discovery
49:33
Speaker 3: and it was really fun to put it together. And
49:35
Speaker 3: I had an absolutely amazing team, a great editor, a
49:37
Speaker 3: great producer, great everybody, and it was just really fun,
49:40
Speaker 3: you know, like we had a good time with like
49:42
Speaker 3: each of the steps of trying to figure out what
49:44
Speaker 3: the narrative needed to be. But it was really fun.
49:47
Speaker 3: It was a really it was really nice experience.
49:49
Speaker 1: And I'm so grateful to you for making this because
49:52
Speaker 1: on a personal note, and it's not even necessarily just
49:56
Speaker 1: about Barbara, I think that there are like a bunch
49:59
Speaker 1: of legendary people who are of an older generation that
50:04
Speaker 1: could be studied and we could all learn from them,
50:09
Speaker 1: both in what to do and what not to do.
50:10
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes our generation or even below us
50:15
Speaker 1: discounts some of those legends. And so I'm so glad
50:19
Speaker 1: that this film exists. I can't wait to watch it.
50:22
Speaker 3: It's coming to Hulu at the end of June.
50:25
Speaker 2: Jackie, thank you so much.
50:27
Speaker 3: Thanks Daniel, this is very fun.
50:33
Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day.
50:36
Speaker 1: To have a good day. I'll see you next week.