GOLD STANDARD
Chris Wallace marks 50 years in broadcast news
Newsman Chris Wallace will celebrate his 50th anniversary in the broadcasting industry this summer — dating back to his first job working as a “gofer” for the legendary Walter Cronkite at the Republican National Convention in 1964. Before becoming host of “Fox News Sunday” in 2003, he has carved out an award-winning career as a reporter and anchor for CBS, NBC and ABC. His first full-time TV job in news was a 1973-75 stint working as a reporter for WBBM-Channel 2 in Chicago.
Q. You had two father figures who were broadcast news giants — your dad, Mike Wal-
lace, and your stepfather, onetime CBS News president Bill Leonard. What was the best advice they each gave you about the business?
A. I would say with my stepfather, it was that life is marathon, not a sprint. So, just keep plugging away. With my father, it was the idea of preparation and hard work. He always felt there were a lot of people who had more innate talent than he did, but if you outworked them, you could beat them.
Q. You were born in Chicago and also grew up in New York, but when you think about Our Town, what comes to mind?
A. I’ve really lived in four cities in my life: New York, Boston, Chicago and Washington. I think more than any of the others, Chicago is the great American city. When we think of an American city and the melting-pot aspect and all the different ethnic groups. I don’t know if it’s still true, but when I lived in Chicago in the early 1970s, there more Greeks in Chicago than any city in the world except Athens, and more Poles in Chicago than any city but Warsaw. It was also a wonderful city to be in the news business. I covered Richard J. Daley — and that was like a time capsule of a great old political machine.
Q. What was it like to be a 16-year-old kid getting a front row seat to watch Cronkite at work?
A. It wasn’t just him. The anchor booth at the 1964 Republican Convention outside San Francisco was amazing. Along with Walter Cronkite, there was Eric Severeid. Fred
Friendly was the head of the news division. Then there was Robert Trout, Roger Mudd. . . . I feel very blessed to have had that kind of grounding, training and experience.