Pioneering journalist Barbara Walters has died at the age of 93 in NYC, ABC confirmed on Friday.
“We were all influenced by Barbara Walters,” David Muir of ABC News said while paying tribute to the legendary figure, who was the first woman that co-hosted both a morning and evening newscast. “She broke barriers behind the scenes and she broke news on-camera. She got people to say things they never would’ve said to another journalist.”
Walters made her on-air debut back in 1956 while working as a writer for CBS’ The Morning Show, perUSA Today. She later worked on NBC’s Today Girl and was the first female co-host of Today. She also was a co-anchor on ABC’s Evening News in the 1970s. Perhaps most famously, Walters was on 20/20 and also created the popular ABC show The View.
Walters’ career included interviews with numerous notable figures, such as Michael Jackson, Donald Trump, Tom Cruise, Anna Wintour, Hugo Chavez, Justin Bieber, Fidel Castro, Mike Tyson. Monica Lewinsky, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Oprah, Vladimir Putin, John Wayne, Barbra Streisand, Muhammad Ali, Willie Nelson, Miley Cyrus, Jay Leno, Lucille Ball, and many more.
