Generally, I do like Barbara Walters. She seems a fun enough person as evident on her appearances on David Letterman. And I find her interviews with celebs to be pleasant enough to watch. But, yes, she can also be very pretentious, self-promoting and self-important.
Some plusses, though, are that when she left NBC for ABC, it was her way of telling the world that NBC was -- and still is -- applying double standards when it came to their practices regarding men and women after a "certain age." Men were glorified and women put out to pasture. I've still never forgiven NBC for what they did to poor Jane Pauley...just forced her off the
Today Show so that Bryant ("I Love Me, I hate Willard Scott") Gumbel took first chair and they brought in blonde Deborah Norville to do news and later moved into Pauley's spot (and NBC laid a bomb there, they did). Katie Couric did to Bryant what Bryant did to Jane, and Matt Lauer never had a prayer of supplanting Couric. But even Katie Couric defected to CBS when NBC would not consider her as a replacement for evening news anchor. Not that Couric lit any fires at CBS or with the public as Dan Rather's replacement. But the point was made that NBC found aging men more viable than aging women and preferred to preserve their biases rather than engage in positive social changes.
NBC...boo...hiss...!
And I loved Walters' sticking-up for Rosie and speaking out when Starr Jones was trashing "The View."
