Although the personal story of Walters' life is the best part of her new memoir, "Audition" (Alfred A. Knopf; 612 pages; $29.95), the story of her career, with many ups and one near-catastrophic down in the mid-'70s, makes for great reading as well.

Walters started out as a writer, first in public relations, later for CBS and then NBC's "Today" show, hosted by the mercurial Dave Garroway and a memorable chimpanzee named J. Fred Muggs. Bit by bit, Walters moved from being a writer to being a reporter on the show, but in those days, TV executives thought that actresses like Maureen O'Sullivan would make better set decoration than female reporters. As for the hosts, they were always male. Even J. Fred Muggs.

At the suggestion of Hugh Downs, NBC put Walters in as the "Today Show" reporter. "They hired me for 13 weeks and I stayed 13 years," she says, sitting at her glass-topped desk in a corner office at ABC headquarters.

"Those were formative years, and if probably I made a difference for women in this business, it was because I hung in there, because I went out of the studio to get my own interviews, because I made a reputation for myself, both good and bad - 'Pushy cookie, who does she think she is?' " Walters says with a shrug.

Tense times

Although Downs may have been a fan, one "Today" show host, Frank McGee, was not. In fact, he insisted that during any in-studio interview, Walters would not be allowed to ask the first three questions. His reaction to having to share the anchor desk with a woman oddly foreshadowed the biggest event in Walters' career, when she was lured to ABC in 1976 with a then-record-setting salary of $1 million a year to become the first woman to co-anchor a network evening news show. Her deskmate, Harry Reasoner, was not only insulted at having to share the spotlight with a woman but openly hostile to Walters on air as well.

"These two men were really quite brutal to me, and it was not pleasant," Walters says today. "But for a long time, I couldn't talk about that time without tears in my eyes. It was so awful to walk into that studio every day where no one would talk to me."

Until newly installed ABC News Chairman Roone Arledge rode to the rescue, "sent Harry back to CBS and bet on me," Walters thought her move to ABC "was the worst decision I could have made.

"I was a total failure, my career was over. So many people have gone through these kinds of desperate times, and I had to work my way back. I was then taking care of my parents and my sister and my daughter, and I had to work."

Given what Walters went through 30 years ago, she says she has great empathy for what Katie Couric has been struggling with since leaving a successful job co-hosting "The Today Show" to become the first female solo anchor of an evening news program, at CBS. Despite all the publicity, and Couric's strong morning fan base, the experiment has left CBS often trailing in the ratings among the three traditional network news shows and, more recently, has the rumor mill grinding out the prediction that Couric will leave the anchor chair early in 2009.

"I am very fond of Katie," Walters says. "We are friends, and I think she'll be fine because I think she is very talented and a very good reporter. But I do know how difficult it is, and I do see the comparisons. But she keeps her head up and she does it."

The business is changing

But Walters also knows that the whole business of reporting the news is going through volcanic changes.


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