Barbara Walters was one of the best things that happened to ABC, and her longtime producer Bill Geddie often had the best possible seat in order to witness the mastery that she displayed. Geddie, who had been partnered with Walters at ABC for multiple years before they created The View in 1997, recently offered special insights into her life in the wake of her passing.
Geddie went on to recall that when he had initially started working with Walters, she was just a few marks under 60 years of age, while he was just over 30. As the new Executive Producer of her specials, which were naturally quite highly rated, he was informed by a bunch of TV executives, who told him to not get too comfortable at the job- for people probably wouldn’t want to see a 60-year-old woman on Television for more than a few years. But as it turns out, the job lasted 27 years, and by the time Walters was in her mid-80s, she was doing live Television five days a week.
Bill Geddie Remembers Barbara Walters
Geddie went on to sum Barbara Walters up by stating that while it was impossible to quantify Walters’ total impact on the entire broadcasting agency, what was quite clear was that she kicked ageism and sexism squarely in the butt. Throughout her career, which did span for over seven decades, Walters had been quite a vocal opponent of sexism in the workplace.
In a 2015 video of Oprah’s Master Class, Walters went on to tackle the double standard that women faced in TV News. She stated that the audience didn’t want to accept the voice of a female doing the so-called hard news. A woman journalist or reporter couldn’t be asked to go into the war zones- nor could she ask the tough questions.
Barbara Walters did have quite a special message for women who were trying to get in on the broadcasting gig. She asked them to fight the big fights, and not complain about the mere trivialities that they would inevitably come across.
