“The View”: Present at the Creation

The name Barbara Walters is synonymous in public memory with Serious Big Time Television Journalism. She conducted a wealth of probing, thoughtful interviews with presidents and kings, world leaders, scientists, movie stars and their consorts. The Reputable and the Disreputable. It’s not an exaggeration to say she interviewed just about every major newsmaker in the world in her long career.

And her status as the woman who broke the glass ceiling that had kept her and her sister journalists in the kitchens and the fashion showrooms is legendary.

Now comes a new documentary, “Barbara Walters Tell Me Everything,” brought to us beginning June 23 by the streaming channel Hulu. It’s a retrospective that chronicles Walters’ amazing journey from morning network hostess to anchor of evening hard news broadcasts and some very special specials.

Much of the story focuses on “The View,” her daytime talk show that brings together proponents of many different points of view to discuss and analyze the major issues and problems of the day. All the panelists are women – a huge breakthrough for daytime television.

I was privileged to cover “The View” from its first broadcast on August 11, 1997. To be there at the creation of a new staple in daytime television.

When I was teaching, I told my students that journalism is the best career in the world. “You get to meet people and become an eyewitness to history,” I told them. Here’s one of my favorite examples:

In 1997, I was working as a columnist for United Features Syndicate when ABC Daytime invited me to attend Barbara Walter’s new daytime talk show “The View.” I was thrilled, of course.

Barbara Walters was the greatest hero of my generation of women journalists. The A Team of serious television news reporting was dominated by the likes of Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Peter Jennings, and on and on. Daytime was for women, who were supposed to confine their pretty selves to chirpy chats about fashion, food, and movies, with the occasional dose of holiday sentimentality. Walters fought her way out of such soft features and into the men’s world of hard news.

“The View,” which she co-founded with Bill Geddie, featured her and four co-hosts: comedian Joy Behar (I had interviewed her previously for VH1), newswoman Meredith Vieira, attorney Star Jones (also from VH1), and a very inexperienced but enthusiastic young woman named Debbie Matenopoulos.

On premiere day I went to the West Side studio where the show was being taped in a building which was quite familiar to me. It also housed the “All My Children” studio.

When I talked to Walters after the show, she said she was pleased with the start of this unprecedented venture. “I’ve always wanted to produce a show with women of different generations and backgrounds,” she said. “Women who have something to say and need a place to say it.”

From that day on the guests were fascinating. On the show was everyone from Hillary Clinton to world leaders like Barack Obama and John McCain—and famous entertainers. Each day Barbara would close the show with, “Take a little time and enjoy the View.”

When I went backstage that first day I was immediately grabbed by Star Jones. She said, “You’re not leaving here until you tell me all the good ‘All My Children’ gossip.” I tried not to let her down.

Jones loved the soap as much as I did and she gave me an interview about it. “That’s one of the reasons I took this job,” she said. “So I could ride the elevators with soap stars. I love Michael Knight (Tad) and I love David Canary (Adam) and I am genuinely in love with Jack (played by Walt Willey).” And, of course, like me, Star was a major fan of Erica Kane (played by Susan Lucci).

Ever since my first day at “The View” I have loved the show. Walters retired in 2014 and Whoopi Goldberg, who I found to be a brilliant woman when I interviewed her, became moderator.

Walters passed away in 2022. But to long-time viewers like me, her spirit is still felt on ABC every day in the 11 a.m. time slot the show still owns.