Journalism provides space for diverse people and provides the right place for everyone who pursues becoming a knowledgeable journalist and strives for success. However, the path to prosperity is more challenging than pie, it requires a lot of work. This area is burdensome to master, because a journalist works not only with people, but also for people, and therefore must constantly consider the main goal of his work. Only the best and most resilient deserve to become the highly profitable journalists of our time.
Chris Wallace is widely known as an American television journalist. During his 50-year journalism career, he has tried various roles at CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox News, and is currently at CNN. He adheres to the ideal formula of conducting an interview: tough, but truthful and factual, which earned him a lot of audience sympathy. His character fascinates, inspires, and gives hope to everyone, otherwise, why would he be considered the most reliable anchor in 2018? To get to know him better, let’s consider his life path.
Life Path
Chris Wallace was born into a Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois on October 12, 1947. Due to the early divorce of his parents Mike Wallace and Norma Kafan when Chris was 1 year old, the role of father was replaced by stepfather. His stepfather, Bill Leonard, was president of CBS News and encouraged Chris in journalism, giving him early access to political journalism. Thanks to his stepfather, Chies was hired as Walter Cronkite’s assistant at the 1964 Republican National Convention.
The foundation for his career was not only the support of his stepfather but also quality education at the Hotchkiss School and Harvard College. He is an honor student at Harvard because he was the first to break the news on WHRB, Harvard’s student radio station. Politics was never an indifferent topic for him, so during the student occupation of 1969, he took an active part in covering these events. He is known to have been arrested by Cambridge Police and has been reporting to WHRB directly from the Middlesex County Jail on remand.
Despite his successful application to Yale University, he decided to go to work for The Boston Globe. This work opened his eyes to the power of television, and its influence and provided him with many development opportunities. Even in those times, he was already characterized as a determined and aggressive journalist who would reach his goal and had all the means to become famous. In this work, he was distinguished by the fact that he was the first to visit the city hall during the time of Kevin White, and then he became a traveling journalist.
Chris’ distinguished career as a network journalist at NBC spanned 14 years, after which he moved to NBC’s Washington bureau to work as a political correspondent. 1982 was a golden year for him because he got the opportunity to be a co-anchor and news reader with Bryant Gumbel and Jane Pauley for the Today Show. In the same year, his career as a White House correspondent (1982–1989) did not pass, he was the host of the Sunday NBC Nightly News (1982–1984, 1986–1987), and the moderator of Meet the Press (1987–1988).
In 1985, his first joint interview occurred as part of a special edition of NBC News, during which the 40th American President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Reagan were interviewed at Camp David. The 1988 Republican National Convention allowed him to interview many political figures who were important to America at the time, including then-real estate mogul Donald Trump. Later that same year, he changed jobs and started working at ABC News, where he was a crucial figure for the boss, Sam Donaldson. His work at ABC News allowed him to be the main correspondent for Primetime Live and, in addition, to host the nightly broadcast of Nightline.
In 2003, he decided to change course and go to work as an anchor for Fox News. Chris had his own Fox News Sunday show with Chris Wallace, which earned him a strong reputation as a journalist on the network. Throughout his time at Fox, he participated in almost every major political event, kept abreast of all news in America and the world, conducted numerous opening interviews, and was the first from Fox to interview Barack Obama (2009). He was assigned the status of ‘the best journalist in the business’, and commonly, work at the Fox TV channel positively contributed to the flourishing development of his journalistic career.
Currently, Chris Wallace is working for CNN and running two shows: The Chris Wallace Show and Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? . In the first show, he tells the major Saturday news of America and the world, and the second show became famous for having only one guest per episode. In the first season, Chris interviewed director Quentin Tarantino, actor George Clooney, journalist Kara Swisher, musician Clive Davis, chef José Andrés, and many others. In the second season, he interviewed actress Eva Longoria, James Cameron, and USAID Administrator Samantha Power. The show already has 4 seasons and 5 in production.
The Most Significant Interviews
- The first jaw-dropping interview from a politically critical series for America was the Third Presidential Debate in 2016 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Chris Wallace was the first Fox anchor to host a political debate at such a high level, and he did a fantastic job. Chris took this job not simply to briefly introduce both political sides but to conduct a comprehensive survey of both candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, to show every American citizen all the pitfalls and pros and cons. According to Chris, the presidential election is not just putting a cross somewhere on a form, it must be a conscious choice of every citizen, and to help cultivate awareness, it is necessary to conduct many introductory lectures, develop critical thinking, and be able to look at the world in a global sense, and not in only satisfying own short-term needs. Although he could be quite tough in the polls, his activities were noted very positively and admired in society, and also really influenced the choice of Americans.
- A controversial and potentially dangerous interview in his career was an interview with Vladimir Putin in 2018. Despite all the threats, Chris visited Russia and the interview took place precisely in St. Petersburg. It was difficult for Chris to get this interview, because Putin refused, but eventually changed his mind after the announcement of the Helsinki summit. Chris asked Putin inconvenient questions, including questions about the mysterious deaths of opponents and questions about the role of Russian agents during the 2016 US election. The interview lasted 34 minutes and immediately collected 3.4 million views. Putin tap danced around the questions and was discouraged by Chris’ insistence, for which Chris was awarded an Emmy Award. Putin also said that Russia would react negatively to the expansion of NATO, and blamed the civil war for Russian aggression in Syria.
- An interview with Donald Trump in 2020 helped Americans open their eyes to many hidden facts. 2020 has been a difficult year for America due to COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests over the killing of George Floyd. Chris used pressure tactics on Trump because Trump slandered Joe Biden that he wanted to bribe the police during the protests. Chris also questioned Trump’s claims about the high death toll from COVID-19 and disease, to which Trump responded convincingly that he would be right sooner or later. Colleagues of Chris’ father noted that the apple does not fall far from the tree, which he adheres to in a style of questioning and assertiveness. Chris managed to throw Trump off balance with this interview, significantly affecting his rating.
Controversial Incidents
Every famous figure had incident situations where one was involved on one’s own and against one’s own will. Fortunately, Chris Wallace didn’t have many such situations, and these were just side effects of his directness and toughness. This rule has always worked in the world – the one who tells the truth at an inconvenient moment or exposes the hidden will be criticized.
In March 1987, during President Ronald Reagan’s press conference, Chris questioned Reagan about silence and denial of Israel’s involvement in the arms trade for Iran when Reagan admitted that America was selling weapons to the hostages. His direct question caused criticism and was regarded as a controversy. Perhaps this criticism of Chris was just a scare tactic to cover up the president’s lies.
While working for ABC News and hosting Nightline, Chris was involved in reporting on Iraqi Scud missile attacks during the 1991 Gulf War. A misunderstanding with the Israeli authorities resulted in Chris reporting the exact location of the strike, at a time when Israel was adamantly against it. Reporting the exact location of a hit during an explosion can lead to re-hitting and adjusting fire, which is critically dangerous to the injured party. In the episode, Chris reported the location of the strike in Tel Aviv, describing it enough. Nevertheless, his colleague Ted Koppel cut the segment and asked him to describe the general area, not to focus on specifics. A mistake like that could cost lives, so a journalist should be aware of it.
The dismissal from Fox was also quite scandalous. Whether it was years of accumulated complaints against management and colleagues, or some personal problems, the final point of his dismissal was a complaint against colleagues Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. According to Chris, these hosts were spreading false information about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol and the results of the 2020 presidential election. He was unhappy with the rise of conservative opinion anchors, especially with the firing of two more journalists who made the bitter but true statement on election night that Biden had won in Arizona. Concerns about Tucker Carlson’s “Patriot Purge,” raised more questions from Chris to Fox management. Although he left Fox quietly enough and with honors, he still exposed many of Fox’s imperfections. With sadness, he left this job and opened another door for himself at CNN, with increasing work opportunities at his venerable age.
Laurels and awards
- Peabody Award for heading the investigation unit in 1977
- Emmy Award for the NBC News documentary, The Migrant in 1980
- The George Polk Award in Journalism for Foreign Reporting for his work on ABC News’s Primetime Live in 1992
- DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton Award for Excellence in Television Journalism in 1993
- Paul White Lifetime Achievement Award by the Radio Television Digital News Association in 2013
- The Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 2014
- Emmy Award for Outstanding Live Interview in 2018
- Sol Taishoff Award for Broadcast Journalism
- Panetta Institute’s 2021 Jefferson-Lincoln Award
- Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism in 2020 and was named #1 on Mediaite’s Most Influential in News Media
Activity Outside Journalism
Chris Wallace is also a New York Times bestselling author. His achievements include titles such as “First Lady: A Portrait of Nancy Reagan”, “Character: Profiles in President Courage”, and “Hiroshima 1945”. In October 2024, he plans to publish a new book called “The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the 311 Days that Changed America’s Politics Forever”, and thanks to the intriguing title everyone is looking forward to it.
Chris has also been involved in social work and investigations, including groundbreaking investigations into waste and fraud in Medicare, food stamps, and federal disability programs. In 2018, he attended the Brett Kavanagh sexual assault hearing. Although the victim’s testimony was perceived as too emotional, Chris was convinced of the truth of this testimony. He was very attentive to this case and insisted on the girl’s rightness, which testifies to his awareness of crimes against women.
Life credo
Chris Wallace is considered a veteran journalist and despite his age, he has brilliant experience and continues to share it with new generations of journalists. When Chris is interviewed, he emphasizes that you don’t need to focus on the outcome and what your industry needs to become, but you need to be focused on the process and your trajectory. Concrete plans for several years ahead are ineffective because our plans will seldom coincide with the world around us. You have to decide, grab new opportunities, and live by planning for now.
Top tip and a friendly reminder from Chris Wallace: “Life has a way of setting its own timelines”. This expression should inspire us to solve our work issues, to think about what we want from life, how exactly we want to develop, and constantly improve ourselves. It also reminds us of the ephemerality of time and the great changeability of all plans – even plans B, B, and D may not come true.
