Let's be real about Barbara Walters

In glowing obituaries, Walters was credited with being a pioneer who first pierced the male-dominated landscape of American network news. To her credit, Walters led what would, within a few generations, become a welcomed wave of female correspondents destined to share her rank and status.

Alas, Walters squandered that leadership, choosing instead to pursue the inconsequential allure and trappings of celebrity over the hard, usually mundane work of journalism that Stone practised methodically year after productive year.

Walters’ gooey gallery of interviews with the who’s who of Hollywood and world capitals was largely a vapid vanity exercise with little, if any, journalistic value, unless you consider making Beatles drummer Ringo Starr cry newsworthy.

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This gaudy pantomime had one overarching intent: to establish Barbara Walters as an irresistible powerbroker who could win the confidence and trust of A-listers in film, TV and politics and boost ratings to boot.

That is not journalism.

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Walters had become the kind of “insider” that should be anathema to any journalist who knows that easy access to and cosy familiarity with the powers that be inevitably erodes the adversarial relationship that must exist between them.

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Walters has spawned a bevvy of male and female disciples more interested in landing “the get” interview with the celebrity du jour rather than investing time, energy and money in more pressing stories that need attention.

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Walters was not solely responsible for this corrosive phenomenon. Still, she certainly contributed to the disagreeable emergence of “star” hosts whose only discernible on-air talent is to play the interviewing equivalent of T-ball with a bunch of agreeable celebrities.

  alJazeera

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.