60 Minutes pioneer Mike Wallace (1918-2012)

[Vahan]

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.co...-pioneer-dies/

11:10 a.m. | Updated Mike Wallace, a pioneer of American broadcasting who confronted leaders and liars for the newsmagazine “60 Minutes” for four decades, has died, CBS News said Sunday morning. He was 93.

His death was announced on CBS. Bob Scheiffer, the host of “Face the Nation,” said that Mr. Wallace died on Saturday night at a care facility in New Haven, Connecticut. “His family was with him,” Mr. Scheiffer said.

Mr. Wallace had been ill for several years.

“It is with tremendous sadness that we mark the passing of Mike Wallace,” Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS Corporation, said in a statement. “His extraordinary contribution as a broadcaster is immeasurable and he has been a force within the television industry throughout its existence. His loss will be felt by all of us at CBS.”

As one of the original correspondents and hosts of “60 Minutes,” which was started in 1968, Mr. Wallace helped to establish the television newsmagazine format. “Without him and his iconic style, there probably wouldn’t be a ’60 Minutes,’” said Jeff Fager, the executive producer of the program.

A staple of Sunday nights for many families, the newsmagazine is now the most popular such program on American television. CBS said that it would dedicate a special edition of “60 Minutes” to Mr. Wallace on April 15.

Mr. Wallace was perhaps best known for ambush interviews of crooks and cheats. Mr. Wallace “invented a new paradigm for television news, creating a signature technique that would become a standard in the industry,” the biographer Peter Rader writes in a new book, “Mike Wallace: A Life.”

In an essay for CBS News, Morley Safer, a “60 Minutes” correspondent, recounted his colleague’s career thusly:

Wallace took to heart the old reporter’s pledge to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. He characterized himself as “nosy and insistent.”

So insistent, there were very few 20th century icons who didn’t submit to a Mike Wallace interview. He lectured Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, on corruption. He lectured Yassir Arafat on violence.

He asked the Ayatollah Khoumeini if he were crazy.

He traveled with Martin Luther King (whom Wallace called his hero). He grappled with Louis Farrakhan.

And he interviewed Malcolm X shortly before his assassination.

Mr. Wallace entered semi-retirement in 2006, but returned to “60 Minutes” for interviews with Mitt Romney, Jack Kevorkian and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He last appeared on “60 Minutes” in January 2008, when he had an exclusive interview with Roger Clemens, a baseball legend who had been accused of steroid use.

Weeks after the interview was shown, Mr. Wallace underwent a triple bypass surgery.

Mr. Wallace was noticeably absent in January when CBS held a memorial service for another legendary “60 Minutes” figure, Andy Rooney, who died in November at age 92.

In a recent interview, Mr. Wallace’s son Chris, who is the anchor of “Fox News Sunday” on Fox, said that his father “is 93 and showing it for the first time.”

“He’s in a facility in Connecticut. Physically, he’s okay. Mentally, he’s not,” Chris Wallace said. “He still recognizes me and knows who I am, but he’s uneven. The interesting thing is, he never mentions ’60 Minutes.’ It’s as if it didn’t exist. It’s as if that part of his memory is completely gone. The only thing he really talks about is family — me, my kids, my grandkids, his great-grandchildren. There’s a lesson there. This is a man who had a fabulous career and for whom work always came first. Now he can’t even remember it.”

In interviews after he retired, Mike Wallace said he would want his epitaph to read, “Tough But Fair.”

[Zoneboy]

This is really sad news, Mike Wallace was a legend in Journalism and will be missed. I hope that 60 Minutes will do some sort of tribute show in his honor. I read a quote several years ago that I believe was from TV Guide, I haven't been able to find it online but when asked by an interviewer what he would do to beat his son, Chris Wallace at getting a news story first, Mike replied, I'd cut his parachute strings to get it.

[AKA]

Man. Ed Bradley, Don Hewitt, Andy Rooney, Mike Wallace. It's been a tough half-decade or so for the more legendary personalities of 60 Minutes.

Rest in peace, Mr. Wallace.

[Mr. Television]

My parents would watch 60 Minutes every week when I was a kid. I never paid much attention back then but Mike Wallace was always there. From decade to decade, he was the one constant. He was a true journalist...one of the few on TV. R.I.P. Mr. Wallace.

[catlover79]

I won't remember him so much for 60 Minutes as I will his tireless work raising awareness of clinical depression. He took his own battle with depression and used it to help others. God bless him.

[AB]

Rest in peace.