You Knew It Was Going to Happen

The WSWS has an obituary rather than an appreciation of the career of Mike Wallace. It's not as harsh as many of its obits, but it'll do:

Wallace had no such episode in his career. In general, he jumped on a bandwagon after it was well under way. For instance, his famous “interrogation” of John Ehrlichman in June 1973, a key figure in the Nixon White House and the Watergate scandal, came only after the tide was turning against the administration and Ehrlichman had already been thrown to the wolves.

And Wallace was daring enough to go after the PLO’s Yasser Arafat, Manuel Noriega of Panama, the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, all individuals in official America’s black books.

It is open to question whether Wallace was even a garden variety liberal, although he kept his “moderate” political opinions largely to himself. His decades-long friendship with the Reagans is suggestive. And there is this. In the wake of the 1968 election, at a time of large-scale protest against the Vietnam War and broad radicalization, president-to-be Richard Nixon thought Wallace sufficiently politically reliable to offer him the post of White House press secretary. According to Fordham University media and communication professor Beth Knobel, “He [Wallace] thought about it long and hard because he really liked Nixon… But in the end, he chose ‘60 Minutes.’”

It's worth reading for a different viewpoint.

Mike Wallace Interview

Rod Serling, 1959:



Not on the University of Texas website.

Cartoons of the Day

Mike Wallace Interview

For those who are interested, here are many interviews Mike Wallace conducted on his television series, The Mike Wallace Interview, broadcast from 1957-1960. This show is the one that really put him on the map as a serious interviewer/journalist.

Apparently he donated these shows and transcripts to the University of Texas, Austin. You can see him peddling Philip Morris cigarettes on these shows.

Only Wallace could make somebody like Gloria Swanson look guilty of something.


In a more recent interview, he talks about the famous documentary, The Uncounted Enemy, and the lawsuit following it:

It Happens to All of Us Sooner Or Later

Newscaster Mike Wallace, only 93 years old, has died. He died last night surrounded by family.

Wallace is best known for his ambush-style interview questions demonstrated during his long, long tenure at 60 Minutes. He was one of the original correspondents of the series along with Harry Reasoner when it debuted way back in 1968.

He retired from the series in 2008 following his last interview and triple-bypass surgery.

Decades before his 60 Minutes success, Wallace was already known to millions. In the early days of broadcasting, with no line between news and entertainment, Wallace did both in the 1940s and '50s. He appeared on a variety of radio and television programs, first as narrator/announcer, then as a reporter, actor and program host. On his first network television news program, ABC's "The Mike Wallace Interview," he perfected his interviewing style that he first tried on a local New York television guest show called "Night Beat." Created with producer Ted Yates, "Night Beat" became an instant hit that New Yorkers began referring to as "brow beat." Wallace's relentless questioning of his subjects proved to be a compelling alternative to the polite chit-chat practiced by early television hosts.

He'd have made a good prosecutor.

I

went down and saw the flick Frost/Nixon, which was okay. I had a hard time, though, accepting Frank Langella as Nixon, for he looked nothing like him. Michael Sheen was good as David Frost.

And speaking of Frost, here is the 60 Minutes clip from 1977 of Mike Wallace with David Frost about RN:





I'd like to see the original interviews, but unfortunately they aren't all available on DVD. The four 90-minute specials were available on VHS many years ago.

As the World Turns.

Mike Wallace's defense of serial killer Jack Kevorkian is as embarrassing as those interviews theocrat James Dobson did with Ted Bundy before the latter was executed in January of 1989.

Awful.
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Naturally abortion used for sex selection has led to a shortage of females.

Hardly a great achievement for women's rights.
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A washed-up rocker tries marriage once again.
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Thanks to his handling of the Duke Lacrosse fiasco, Mike Nifong's legal career is kaput.
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Prince Harry can't seem to stay out of the tabloids.
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The 60 Minutes

interview with glorified serial killer Jack Kevorkian was nothing short of sickening.

Naturally it was totally one-sided.