Mike Wallace announced yesterday that he will be stepping down as correspondent for 60 Minutes this year after 38 years there. He will be assuming a new title as Correspondent Emeritus, which is really just a formal way of saying well still see his name listed in the show's credits, but his appearances will be virtually non-existent. Wallaces news comes in the wake of his relatively new memoir, Between You and Me: A Memoir, a book that looks back on Wallaces professional conquests both hard news-based: interviewing the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Shah of Iran, and interrogating LBJ on his attitude towards Vietnam and his less cerebral work: interviews with celebrities like Barbra Streisand, Morgan Freeman, and Shirley Maclaine interviews. Most recently, Wallace was unfavorably depicted (as the " incarnation of opportunism," no doubt) in the film The Insider:
There is such an aura of power around Wallace that it's surprising to learn that he still has to answer to ''the suits." Such was the case when CBS backed off on an anti-tobacco story after coming under pressure, an episode later depicted in the movie ''The Insider." Of the film, Wallace wryly notes that the fact that he was played by the handsome and urbane Christopher Plummer was obviously typecasting.
Beth_Gottfried
Cambridge, MA
March 2006
MAR 15, 2006 02:32 PM