Interviewing: Mike Wallace Was Here

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Today’s WORD on Journalism, April 9, 2012

Mike Wallace, Super Hero, 1918-2012

“It’s hard to believe, but when Wallace was born in 1918 there wasn’t even a radio in most American homes, much less a TV. As a youth, Wallace said, he was ‘an overachiever. I worked pretty hard. Played a hell of a fiddle.’

“At the University of Michigan, where his parents hoped he’d become a doctor or lawyer, he got hooked instead on radio. And by 1941, Mike was the announcer on ‘The Green Hornet."” . . .

“It was 65 years from Mike’s first appearance on camera—a World War II film for the Navy—to his last television appearance, a ‘60 Minutes’ interview with Roger Clemens, the baseball star trying to fight off accusations of steroid use.

“65 years!

“It’s strange, but for such a tough guy, Mike’s all-time favorite interview was the one with another legend, pianist Vladimir Horowitz. The two of them, forces of nature both: Sly, manic, egos rampant. For Mike—a red, white and blue kind of guy—Horowitz played ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

“It almost brought tears to the toughest guy on television.

“‘It’s astonishing what you learn and feel and see along the way,’ Wallace said. ‘That’s why a reporter’s job, as you know, is such a joy.’”

—Morley Safer, newsman and longtime Wallace colleague,
“Remembering Mike Wallace, 1918-2012,”
CBS News Sunday, April 5, 2012
Image: Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press

• Editorial Comment: Green Hornet, hunh? Evil-doers everywhere are breathing easier today. RIP, bulldog.

More on Mike Wallace
• The Associated Press obit: “NEW YORK (AP) — ‘Mike Wallace is here to see you.’”
• The “60 Minutes” obit
• Video: Best of Mike on “60 Minutes”
• NPR’s Scott Simon with Wallace on tough interviewing, 2005
• New York Times obit
• Video: “Last Word: Mike Wallace,” New York Times
• TIME: “Mike Wallace and the legacy of 60 Minutes”
• In Memoriam, ABC News video
• Wallace Reaction.
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