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Mark
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Kevin McCarthy update: He still don’t have the votes.
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My first in-person encounter with Barbara Walters occurred when I was a boy. It happened in the green room of “Today.”
I am saving the details for my memoirs, but suffice to say, I was, even at a young age, able to divine in Ms. Walters a singular presence, a unique determination, and a mind constantly whirring in several directions at once.
Many of Barbara’s former colleagues have already rightly paid homage to her trailblazing career as a journalist who happened to be a woman. Add my voice to those in awe of her record and accomplishments.
I am going to focus on her competitiveness, by which I mean her determination to be the very best at what she did, which is a great thing.
Whether it was booking, producing, performing on camera live or recorded, Barbara always, always wanted to be the best. And she took every possible steps to make that outcome a reality.
In the unprecedented (before or since) constellation of TV stars assembled by Roone Arledge, Barbara competed fiercely with her colleagues Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel, Charlie Gibson, Diane Sawyer, and Sam Donaldson, all hardworking and legendary figures, but none of whom surpassed Barbara in sheer determination.
Although we both worked at ABC News for many overlapping years, I only occasionally worked directly with Barbara, most closely during the OJ Simpson criminal trial coverage.
Based on that experience alone, I can say without fear of contradiction that when the final history of television is written, it will be clear that there has never been ANYONE (woman or man) like Barbara in the business.
I will close with something I heard this morning in a rebroadcast of an interview that Larry King did with Barbara in, I believe, 2010.
Early in the conversation, Barbara offered up that she was no longer nearly as competitive as she had been early in her career.
A bit later, the conversation turned to the duo’s record interviewing murderers in the past.
Barbara brought up the killer of John Lennon, Mark David Chapman. Larry noted that he had interviewed him.
In prison?, Barbara asked.
No, Larry said, he was not in the prison.
I interviewed him in prison, Barbara retorted, the meaning of her tone not subject to interpretation.
The discussion switched to the Menendez brothers, who famously murdered their parents.
I interviewed one of the brothers, Larry put forth conversationally.
I interviewed them both, Barbara replied, trying to sound simultaneously casual and emphatic.
Perhaps, in the very last years of her life, Barbara had indeed become less competitive.
But for as long as she worked in one of the most driven, visible, and high stakes businesses in the world, Barbara fought aggressively for everything – every guest booking, every program, every scoop, every second of airtime.
There’s something in TV called “the producer gene” that allows those who have it to confidently solve every logistical challenge with steely determination.
Barbara Walters did not invent the producer gene, but she had more of it crammed into her DNA than anyone I ever met.
It was an honor and a trip to know her.
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ESSENTIAL READING
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired three short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters in its latest weapons display on Saturday, a day after rival South Korea launched a solid-fueled rocket as part of its efforts to build a space-based surveillance capability to better monitor the North.
Tensions between the rival Koreas rose earlier this week when South Korea accused North Korea of flying five drones across the rivals’ tense border for the first time in five years and responded by sending its own drones toward the North.
* Oh, George Santos:
1. Politico has a real-life roundup of the latest, including the resignation of his press person.
2. The Wall Street Journal pumps the theme that remains among the most important: Long Island Republicans want the chap gone.
3. The New York Post on the latest OMG – the guy is still raising money!
* Per a New York Times investigation on the 2022 polling that suggested a Red wave:
[A] New York Times review of the forces driving the narrative of a coming red wave, and of that narrative’s impact, found new factors at play.
Traditional nonpartisan pollsters, after years of trial and error and tweaking of their methodologies, produced polls that largely reflected reality. But they also conducted fewer polls than in the past.
That paucity allowed their accurate findings to be overwhelmed by an onrush of partisan polls in key states that more readily suited the needs of the sprawling and voracious political content machine — one sustained by ratings and clicks, and famished for fresh data and compelling narratives.
The skewed red-wave surveys polluted polling averages, which are relied upon by campaigns, donors, voters and the news media. It fed the home-team boosterism of an expanding array of right-wing media outlets — from Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast and “The Charlie Kirk Show” to Fox News and its top-rated prime-time lineup. And it spilled over into coverage by mainstream news organizations, including The Times, that amplified the alarms being sounded about potential Democratic doom.
The last line of the piece should (but won’t) inspire everyone’s New Year’s resolutions:
“I think people should pay less attention to the polls.”
* True?
