The Term ‘Deeply Saddened’ Is An Understatement With Regards To How I Feel About The Recent Passing Of NBC and ABC News Journalist Barbara Walters.

When Barbara Walters was hired away from NBC by William “Bill” Sheehan (who was Roone Arledge’s direct predecessor as the President of ABC News) to work for ABC; all of the male News Reporters who were working for ABC at the time had loathed her. In due time, Barbara Walters had earned all of the respect that she deserved from her male colleagues at ABC, and then some.

After Barbara Walters was hired by ABC, and after a failed attempt by ABC to compete with Walter Cronkite’s CBS Evening News with ABC’s own Evening News Program, prior to Roone Arledge creating “World News Tonight” with Frank Reynolds, Peter Jennings, and Max Robinson; Bill Sheehan had paired Barbara Walters with Harry Reasoner (who was recently hired away from CBS) to jointly anchor an earlier ABC Evening News Program.

This earlier ABC Evening News program was a failure, mostly because of much of the nation’s audience being dyed in the wool with regards to their viewing habits consisting of Walter Cronkite’s CBS Evening News; but also because of Harry Reasoner wanting to co-anchor the program with another journalist who was into Hard News, Hard News was not Barbara Walter’s forte, Harry Reasoner had an anathema towards Barbara Walters, this earlier Evening News program by ABC had folded, and Harry Reasoner had gone back to work at CBS; where he would report for “60 Minutes” right up until his retirement in 1991.