Chris Wallace
Christopher Wallace is an American broadcast journalist. He is known for his tough and wide-ranging interviews, for which he is often compared to his father, 60 Minutes journalist Mike Wallace. Over his 60-year career in journalism he has been a correspondent, moderator, or anchor on CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox News, and CNN. In 2018, he was ranked one of America's most trusted television news anchors. He has won three Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, a George Polk Award, the duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton Award.
As a teenager, Wallace became an assistant to Walter Cronkite during the 1964 Republican National Convention. After graduating from Harvard University, he worked as a national reporter for The Boston Globe. He transitioned towards broadcast news at NBC, where he served as a White House correspondent, the Sunday anchor for NBC Nightly News and moderator of Meet the Press. He then worked for ABC, where he served as an anchor for Primetime Thursday and Nightline. He is the only person to have served as host and moderator of more than one of the major American political Sunday morning talk shows, which he did during his time at NBC.
From 2003 to 2021, he hosted Fox News Sunday and took high profile interviews with Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin. He made history when he became the first Fox News journalist to moderate a United States Presidential debate in 2016 between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. He returned to moderate the 2020 debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. In 2021, he left Fox to join CNN as host of the interview series Who's Talking to Chris Wallace? and anchored The Chris Wallace Show. In November 2024, Wallace left CNN following the expiration of his three year contract.
Early life and education
Wallace was born in Chicago, Illinois, to longtime CBS 60 Minutes reporter Mike Wallace and Norma Kaphan. Wallace is Jewish; both his parents were Jewish. He was named Christopher because he was born on Columbus Day. He had an elder brother, Peter, who died at the age of 19 after a mountain climbing accident. His parents divorced when he was one year old; he grew up with his mother and stepfather Bill Leonard, President of CBS News. Leonard gave him early exposure to political journalism, hiring him as an assistant to Walter Cronkite at the 1964 Republican National Convention. Wallace did not develop a relationship with his father, Mike, until the age of 14.Wallace attended the Hotchkiss School and Harvard College. He first reported news on-air for WHRB, the student radio station at Harvard. He memorably covered the 1969 student occupation of University Hall and was detained by Cambridge policemen, using his one phone call to sign off a report from Cambridge City Jail with "This is Chris Wallace from WHRB News reporting from Middlesex County Jail in custody."
Career
Career beginnings: The Boston Globe
Although accepted at Yale Law School, he decided to work for The Boston Globe, where his boss described him as an "aggressive and ambitious reporter". He first covered City Hall during the time Kevin White was mayor of Boston and later became a roving national reporter. Wallace noticed the power of television when he saw all the reporters at the 1972 political conventions were watching the proceedings on television instead of in person. For a time in the early 1970s, he worked for the Chicago station WBBM-TV, which is owned and operated by CBS.1975–1988: Network journalism debut at NBC News
After seeing the impact television had on news at the 1972 Republican National Convention, he focused on working on broadcast news, first at NBC. Wallace began his network journalism career with NBC in 1975, where he stayed for 14 years as a reporter with WNBC-TV in New York City. Wallace then transferred to NBC's Washington bureau as a political correspondent for NBC News and later served as Washington co-anchor and news reader for the Today show with Bryant Gumbel and Jane Pauley in 1982. That same year, he also served as chief White House correspondent alongside contemporaries CBS's Lesley Stahl and ABC's Sam Donaldson. He later served as anchor of the Sunday edition of NBC Nightly News, and moderator of Meet the Press.On May 18, 1985, as part of an NBC News special, Wallace did a joint interview with Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan at Camp David. Some journalists have described Wallace's style as confrontational. During President Ronald Reagan's news conference in March 1987, when Reagan admitted to dealing arms for hostages, Wallace asked Reagan why he had denied that Israel was involved with the arms sales to Iran "when you knew that wasn't true." In 1988, Wallace covered the 1988 Republican National Convention for NBC News, where he interviewed political figures, including real estate tycoon Donald Trump questioning him about flirting with running for political office.
1989–2003: ABC News correspondent
Wallace left NBC in late 1988 for ABC. Sam Donaldson, ABC's outgoing chief White House correspondent, said he was "delighted" and "very pleased" that Wallace, his journalistic rival, would be joining the network saying, "I've always liked his work, I think he's going to be a plus." At ABC News, Wallace was the senior correspondent for Primetime Live and occasionally hosted Nightline. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991, he reported from Tel Aviv on the Iraqi Scud missile attacks. At the time, the Israeli government did not want to advertise where the Scuds landed to prevent the Iraqis from adjusting their launchers. On one episode of Nightline, Wallace started describing the location where a Scud missile landed in Tel Aviv. Host Ted Koppel cut him off and asked him to point to a general area rather than give a specific location.2003–2021: Fox News and presidential debates
''Fox News Sunday''
After 14 years at ABC, Wallace left in 2003 to join Fox News. Wallace began hosting Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace in 2003 after replacing Tony Snow. Wallace and Shepard Smith gained a reputation at Fox for their reputable status as journalists on the network. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Howard Kurtz wrote, "Fox seems to be inching toward more conventional journalism." When asked about his political opinions, Wallace stated, "Do I have political opinions? Absolutely. But I vote for the person, and I've voted for Republicans and Democrats and independents over the course of my life. I feel very strongly that you try not to let that affect the way you report the news." Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes called Wallace "one of the best interviewers in the business.... I have no idea what he thinks personally, but he asks tough questions of everybody."Throughout his 18 years at Fox, Wallace had participated in coverage of nearly every major political event and secured several high-profile interviews with dignitaries and U.S. leaders. In February 2009, he secured Fox's first interview with President Barack Obama. On March 3, 2016, Wallace joined Bret Baier, and Megyn Kelly in moderating the 2016 Republican Party Presidential debate on Fox News. In 2017, he interviewed President Donald Trump in his first interview since being elected.
Debates, coverage, and interviews
The Commission on Presidential Debates selected Chris Wallace as moderator of the third and final 2016 Presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The debate was held on October 19, 2016, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. This was the first time a Fox News anchor had moderated a general election presidential debate. After he was selected, Wallace said, "it's not my job" to fact-check candidates, but that it was the job of the opposing candidate. Wallace stated, "I take it very seriously, this is not a TV show. This is part of civics, the constitution, if you will, in action, because this is helping millions of people decide who we're going to elect as the next president".He received notable praise from both sides of the aisle for his tough questioning of both presidential candidates at that last presidential debate of the 2016 election. Afterward, Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post said that, despite her strong disapproval of other Fox News commentators, "No one could watch the final debate and deny that Chris Wallace is among the best in the business." The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Wallace mixed humor with scolding and persistence with patience to guide his charges toward the most substantive encounter of an unusually vicious election."
Interview with Vladimir Putin (2018)
In July 2018, Wallace interviewed Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Wallace questioned Putin about why so many of his political opponents end up dead, and sought to hand Putin papers containing the indictment of 12 Russian agents for interference in the 2016 election. Putin declined to touch the papers. According to The Washington PostIt was the first News & Documentary Award nomination in Fox News' history.