Veteran Broadcast Journalist Mike Wallace Dies at 93 - East Idaho News
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Veteran Broadcast Journalist Mike Wallace Dies at 93

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GETTY N 040812 MIKEWALLACE2?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1333896850951Evan Agostini/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Veteran broadcast journalist Mike Wallace has died, according to CBS News.  He was 93 years old and had been in declining health in recent years.

Wallace is best known as a correspondent on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” since its premiere in 1968, where he earned a reputation as one of the toughest interviewers in the business.  He spent 38 seasons with the program before announcing his retirement in 2006. 

Even so, Wallace remained as correspondent emeritus with the program and still occasionally contributed to the news magazine, as well as other and CBS News platforms, after the 2005-06 season, according to his official CBS News biography.

When he announced his retirement, Wallace told CBS News’ Bob Schieffer that the job has been a quite a journey.  “To go around the world, to talk to almost anybody you want to talk to, to have enough time on the air, so that you could really tell a full story,” Wallace said. “What a voyage of discovery it was.”

Over the years, Wallace sat down with seven U.S. presidents as well as other world leaders, celebrities, sports stars and controversial figures like Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Jose Canseco, Yasser Arafat and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

His investigative reporting in the 1990s and controversial interview with tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand inspired the Hollywood movie “The Insider.”

Wallace began his journalism career in the 1940s as a radio news writer and broadcaster for the “Chicago Sun.”  He joined CBS News in 1951 and later returned to the network in 1963 after leaving in 1955.  He also made his name as a war correspondent in the 1960s covering Vietnam.

During his remarkable career, he won more than 20 Emmy Awards and numerous other honors.

Wallace also wrote several books, including “Between You and Me,” with Gary Paul Gates, and “Heat and Light: Advice for the Next Generation of Journalists” in collaboration with Fordham University journalism professor Beth Knobel.

Wallace’s passing is another big loss for the CBS News family following the death of Andy Rooney, who died at the age of 92 on November 5 of last year.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

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