Barbara Walters was a one-of-a-kind television personality and skilled interviewer. She persevered in a male-dominated industry that often rejected her, never hesitating to ask deeply personal questions that probed into the lives of the rich and famous. During her 2011 interview with the Kardashians, she delivered her blunt assessment in her distinctive voice—a mix of Boston accent and slight lisp: “You don’t act. You don’t sing. You don’t dance. You don’t have any—forgive me—talent.”

Her relentless pursuit of the full truth from interviewees showcased the calm authority of a woman in control. But behind the scenes, Walters battled insecurities. She struggled with self-doubt about her appearance. Her intense career focus strained her relationship with her daughter, Jackie, and many of her connections were transactional. According to her biographer, “she didn’t always have the strongest moral compass.”

The new documentary Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything, which premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival and is now streaming on Hulu, balances her triumphs and flaws. Produced with ABC News Studios, the film weaves archival interviews so Walters tells much of her own story posthumously. Former interviewees—including Oprah Winfrey, Monica Lewinsky, and Bette Midler—reflect on what it was like facing Walters’ tough questions decades later. She had a rare ability to draw out emotional revelations: Winfrey first publicly disclosed her childhood sexual abuse in an interview with Walters, and her exclusive with Lewinsky drew an estimated 70 million viewers.

Director Jackie Jesko, who spent her first six career years as an ABC producer, was a natural choice for this project given her deep ties to broadcast journalism. Vogue spoke with Jesko about her initial impressions of Walters, the challenges of sourcing interviews, and how she views Walters’ legacy. The conversation has been edited for clarity.

Vogue: Barbara Walters was largely before your time as a news icon. What did you think of her before this project?

Jackie Jesko: I started at ABC News right after college and worked there for six years. She was this legendary figure—still occasionally around when I was there, though she retired during that period. Mostly, I knew her from The View. I think I saw the Monica Lewinsky interview, but she was this grand dame. It was fascinating to go back and learn how she started, the incredible path her career took, and all the obstacles she overcame.

Vogue: You worked with ABC News Studios to incorporate past interviews, letting Walters tell her own story. Where did those interviews originally come from?

Jesko: Surprisingly, not all were from ABC News. It was a mix—some were done by ABC for her memoir Audition, but most were from her book promotions, recorded for posterity. My favorite was Charlie Gibson’s 2008 interview with her—it ran two hours for what became a much shorter segment. We also used NPR interviews and one for the Television Academy. We didn’t know how much of her voice we’d have, so it was a great surprise to find so much.

(Photo: New York Daily News Archive/Getty Images)Our archival producer uncovered so many interviews from various sources. I liked that this documentary doesn’t avoid the tougher parts of Barbara’s life, like her difficult relationship with her daughter and her friendship with Roy Cohn. Do you think a certain moral flexibility is necessary for a career as successful as Barbara’s? Or did you want to say something about ethics in media careers?

Barbara Walters with Roy Cohn in 1983. Photo: WWD/Getty Images

It’s interesting. I think Barbara understood the importance of social connections—that was huge for her. She cultivated those relationships. She was friends with all kinds of people, including some, like Roy Cohn, who most of us would consider pretty questionable. But it’s fascinating to hear her talk about it, which she does briefly in the film. He helped her when she really needed it, like getting her father out of trouble. Some people see her as transactional, but what’s interesting about Roy Cohn is that she stood by him even when it no longer benefited her. She testified at his disbarment hearing late in his career as a character witness—we didn’t include that in the film, but I thought it was telling. It actually counters the idea that she was purely transactional. I think she just wanted to be around powerful people. That was her world.

I imagine you watched countless hours of her interviews. Did you borrow anything from her interviewing style when you spoke to subjects for this film?

Oprah once said about Barbara that she approached every interview with intention—and after watching so much footage, I saw that too. We took the same approach with our interviews. We didn’t just want people who knew her professionally. We spoke to her friend Cindy Adams, the Page Six gossip columnist, and also people who had been on the other side of the interview table with her—like Monica Lewinsky, whose interview with Barbara was the highest-rated of all time. What was it like for her to be at the center of that media frenzy Barbara won? We wanted these interviews to show different sides of Barbara. We even talked to her autobiography’s editor, who saw a side of her most people don’t—almost like an armchair psychologist’s take. But that sense of intention was something we really focused on.

Was there a favorite or most revealing interview you did for this project?

I don’t like picking favorites, but I have to say Oprah—because, well, it’s Oprah. Sitting across from her, talking for about an hour, was incredible. And she really shared some deep insights. When she started talking about how Barbara influenced her decision not to have kids, I was stunned—I don’t think she’s ever discussed that in detail before. I wanted to handle that topic carefully. I’m a working mom. Our executive producer, Betsy West, is a working mom. Sara Bernstein, who runs Imagine Documentaries, is too. The last thing I wanted was to rehash that tired “can women have it all?” debate. It’s exhausting. But Barbara lived in a very different time. Things are easier now, even if they’re still hard. And Barbara and Oprah are at a level of success where just their first names say it all. I could never presume to stand in their shoes and judge.Here’s a more natural and fluent version of your text while preserving the original meaning:

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I might not agree with all the decisions she made, but I’m definitely curious about her reasoning.

Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey in 1999. Photo: ABC Photo Archives/Getty Images

As a Gen-Z media professional, I’m struck by how many historic interviews she conducted. From her 1989 sit-down with Muammar Gaddafi (in that iconic pink Chanel suit) to her exclusive with Monica Lewinsky, she was always at the center of political and cultural moments—back when media still had a shared cultural influence. That era is long gone. There will never be another Barbara Walters, but what can young journalists today learn from her legacy?

I think it’s always valuable to understand your roots, and that applies to media too. Barbara’s career spans the last 50 years of broadcast journalism—really, the entire history of American TV news is tied to her story. It wasn’t that long ago that she was the undisputed queen, drawing 70 million viewers to a single interview. That was only about 25 years ago. But so much has changed since then—social media and the fragmentation of news have reshaped everything. Back then, people trusted figures like Barbara because there were only a few sources of information. Now, trust in media is low, and the sheer volume of information (and misinformation) is overwhelming. I’m not sure where the right balance lies, but I do think we’ve lost something—maybe a shared sense of what matters, a common media reality. Without voices like Barbara’s guiding us, saying, This is what you should pay attention to, this is what’s important to America, everything feels fractured. It’s hard to imagine anything today commanding that level of collective attention.

Call Her Alex, another Hulu documentary, explores podcaster Alex Cooper’s life. Like Walters, Cooper interviews everyone from pop stars to politicians and isn’t afraid to ask personal questions. Would you consider her a modern-day Barbara Walters?

She’s probably the closest comparison—others have made it before, and it makes sense. Her podcast draws massive audiences, and she gets people to open up about uncomfortable topics. But one thing we’ve lost without a figure like Barbara is that public figures no longer have to face tough questions to reach people—they can just go straight to their audience. If there’s nostalgia for Barbara, I think it’s because she held people accountable. Even if her style might seem pushy by today’s standards, she made people answer the questions the public wanted to hear.

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