There have been many remembrances of indefatigable newsman and U of M alum Mike Wallace in the last 24 hours.
Seymour Hersh writes about being scooped by Wallace in the New Yorker ("The Old Man had shown me his moves, and taken my candy away.")
The Atlantic has posted links to his "greatest hits."
And reporter David Folkenflik put together this Mike Wallace remembrance on NPR. Folkenflik reports on some of the criticisms leveled at Wallace.
"The problem became this," Wallace said. "We became a caricature of ourselves. We were after light, and it began to look as though we were after heat."
But who can remember Wallace best, but his colleagues at CBS News?
Watch below as Morley Safer remembers Wallace with his report, and as Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer is clearly moved.
In the report, Wallace admits to trying to take his own life, and shows how he never held any interest in retirement.
But as the specter of retirement bore down, Mike fought it with customary defiance. Safer: "Did you feel like it's time to maybe pack it in and reflect?" Wallace: "Reflect about what? Give me a break. Reflect. What am I going to reflect about?"
The last thought in the report came from Wallace...
"[It's] astonishing what you learn, and feel, and see along the way. And that's why a reporter's job, as you know, it such a joy."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykX3X1omhnU
Update 1:30 p.m.
And here are two more Wallace tributes...
In his piece, The Day I almost killed Mike Wallace, Ron French of Bridge Magazine recalls when an 84-year old Mike Wallace got out to push French's stalled Mazda Protege in Ann Arbor.
I told people that while he was pushing, I’d said a prayer. “Lord, please don’t let Mike Wallace have a heart attack,” I said, “Or if he has a heart attack, can you wait until we get to the top of the hill?” Neither was true, but that wasn’t really the point. It was a story. And Mike Wallace knew how to make a good story. Even if he had to give it a little push.
And this fascinating interview with Mike Wallace by the New York Times. In The Last Word: Mike Wallace, Wallace talks about his reason for staying with journalism after his son's death in 1962. And he recounts his battle with depression after a libel lawsuit brought by retired General William Westmoreland.
