Barbara Walters, a broadcast legend and pioneer who became the first woman to co-host a morning and evening newscast, died at age 93, ABC News announced during a live special report Friday.
“Barbara Walters died quietly while surrounded by her loved ones at home. She had no regrets about how she had lived “Cindi Berger, her spokesperson, provided a statement to USA TODAY. She paved the way for all women, not just female journalists.
Walters was remembered on television by ABC News’ David Muir as a “amazing human being, journalist, pioneer, and icon.”
Barbara Walters had an impact on all of us, he claimed. “She broke down walls off camera and in the background. People spoke to her in ways they never would have to a different journalist.”
After her father went bankrupt, Walters, a nightclub owner’s daughter, turned to television to help maintain the family. She continued her profession by interrogating the public and private lives of the influential, wealthy, famous, and infamous.
No other female television journalist has a lengthier career filled with more successes and failures, scoops and snitches, accolades and scorn.
In 1956, while working as a writer for CBS’ “The Morning Show,” she and four other young women debuted on television by posing in modest one-piece bathing costumes.
She was named “Today Girl” by NBC in 1961, and the first female “Today” co-host in 1974. She and Harry Reasoner were a terrible pairing as co-anchors of ABC’s “Evening News” in 1976.
