Barbara Walters, a trailblazer for female journalists and a prominent news anchor, passed away on Friday.
Spokesperson Cindi Berger told CNN that Walters passed away at home while she was surrounded by loved ones. She was 93 at the time of her passing.
Who was Barbara Walters?
Born on September 25, 1929 in Boston, Massachusetts, Walters’ father was involved in the entertainment industry. She went on to attend Sarah Lawrence College, graduating in 1951 before she began her decades-long career in the journalism industry. According to Variety, her original career path was to become a teacher, but that quickly changed.
After she began working in New York area television stations, she began working on CBS’ morning show.
Variety reported, “She made her first on-air appearance at the station in a fashion segment she had produced and also grabbed an exclusive interview in 1956 with survivors of the Andrea Doria ship sinking.”
Then, after five years at CBS, she was hired by NBC where she wrote women’s features and fashion segments. She soon began going on-air with her first big break with a Jacqueline Kennedy feature.
Walters was the first woman to be a co-host of the “Today” show, which is where her career really grew, according to The New York Times. She began working there in 1964 and became a co-host after a decade of writing and appearing on television regularly. She inspired other well-known female journalists like Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric.
According to Axios, when Walters joined ABC in 1976, she made history as the first female news anchor on an evening program. She appeared regularly on television until 2014 when she became an Executive Producer at ABC.
The New York Times reported that she first entered journalism as a writer at NBC — one of only few women at the time.
When she became a co-host, she made history. “The move to the co-anchor’s chair made her not only the highest-profile female journalist in television history, but also the highest-paid news anchor, male or female, and her arrival signaled something of a cultural shift: the moment when news anchors began to be seen less as infallible authority figures, in the Walter Cronkite mold, and more as celebrities.”
During her career, she launched “The View,” according to ABC News. She will be remembered as a legendary interviewer, interviewing several U.S. presidents like Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan. She was also famous for interviewing celebrities like Katharine Hepburn, per Variety.
She made history with her Monica Lewinsky interview for garnering the largest audience for a journalism interview at the time. Variety said that the interview on March 3, 1999 was seen by 74 million viewers.
Her career was well-recognized as she won 12 Emmys and was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1989 — just 25 years after the start of her career, per ABC News.
Walters even has a building named after her.
In May 2014, ABC News decided to rename their headquarters “The Barbara Walters Building” per Axios. When she received this honor, she said, “People ask me very often, ‘what is your legacy?’ and it’s not the interviews with presidents, or heads of state, nor celebrities. If I have a legacy, and I’ve said this before and I mean it so sincerely, I hope that I played a small role in paving the way for so many of you fabulous women.”
Walters is remembered today as a pioneer of modern broadcast journalism.