THE END OF AN ERA IN TELEVISION HISTORY
CBS News announced today that after 38 years since it's debut in 1968, Mike Wallace will retire as a regular correspondent for it's newsmagazine "60 Minutes".
Wallace is 87 years of age, and has often said that he would retire "when my toes turn up".
"Well, they're just beginning to curl a trifle, which means that, as I approach my 88th birthday, it's become apparent to me that my eyes and ears, among other appurtenances, aren't quite what they used to be," he said.
That doesn't mean that you won't see the veteran correspondent altogether. He will continue to do occasional reports for the Sunday evening programme, and will keep an office at the network's 57th Street headquarters.
This will be the first major "changing of the guard" at "60 Minutes" since Jeffery Fager replaced the show's original executive producer, Don Hewitt, who retired in June, 2004.
Considered one of the hardest hitting reporters in television, he will definately be remembered with the greats of CBS along with Murrow, Cronkite, Edwards, Trout, and Mudd, among so many more who helped make it "The Tiffany Network" in it's day.
1 Comments:
Mike Wallace was NEVER among the greats like Murrow, who actually despised the man. Most people have forgotten, but older ones will remember that throughout the '50s and early '60s he had an interview program that was about as scurrilous as they come. One of his favorite techniques was to blind-side interviewees (such as Eleanor Roosevelt, in one infamous broadcast) with allegations they were communists and then frequently step on all attempts to respond.
For most of his years with CBS -- and certainly in his prime -- Mike Wallace was the Joe McCarthy of television, the very antithesis of Ed Murrow.
The fact that he is retiring to accolades like yours simply underscores the benefits of living long and burying as many people as possible who REALLY knew you when...
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