It takes a long time for barriers to break in the news business.
One milestone took place on October 4, 1976, when Barbara Walters joined ABC Evening News alongside Harry Reasoner, becoming the first female co-anchor of a prime-time network newscast.
Walters, who cut her teeth in television in the 1950s, started working at NBC in 1961, first as a writer and then as a regular on The Today Show.
In 1976, ABC lured Walters, who won a Daytime Emmy for her work on Today, with what was then an unprecedented contract of $1 million a year, making her the highest-paid journalist in the country. The salary instantly generated criticism and jokes from others in the media as they complained that she was being treated like an actor rather than a serious newscaster.
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