'20/20' Barbara Walters plans to leave show

She's going to do without the daily pressure.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
For once, Barbara Walters was the one who wept.
When Walters walked into ABC's conference room Monday to tell her "20/20" staff she would step down in the fall after 25 years, she was greeted by a standing ovation.
"It made me cry," says Walters, 74, queen of the "get" and the tearful reaction. "It was quite touching, quite a compliment."
A certifiable legend who has interviewed virtually every newsmaker from Fidel Castro to Monica Lewinsky, Walters will leave "20/20" as co-anchor in September to transition into what ABC calls "a special role."
Will do specials
Maintaining her palatial office, Walters will do five or six news specials a year, including her annual Oscar-night telecast. She'll continue as a regular on "The View," which she owns and produces.
"I wanted more flexibility," Walters says. "This gives me everything I want, without the daily pressure. I'm very excited and happy. There's no 'back story.' No intrigue. It's just what I'm saying."
CBS's Mike Wallace, 85, who cut his "60 Minutes" workload to about eight stories a year, can relate.
"I don't blame Barbara," Wallace says from Amsterdam, where he's reporting a "60" piece. "She's of a certain age now. She doesn't want to keep getting on planes. She's very wise to do what she's doing."
Walters also is weary of the increased competition for the hard-to-get interview and the emphasis on stories that will appeal to younger viewers. Celebrities draw big ratings, but don't feed Walters' journalistic soul.
"This is a country where we hope young people will vote, never mind care about world events," she says. "I have gone with the change, as all the programs are doing, but it does become a pressure.
"... I've been fortunate because I'm well-known and get so many of them [celebrity interviews]. Some, I haven't wanted to do."
Walters has interviewed such world leaders as China's Jiang Zemin and Russia's Vladimir Putin, as well as every U.S. president since Richard Nixon.
Celebrities
Her celebrity roster ranges from Katharine Hepburn to Barbra Streisand. Walters' 1999 heart-to-heart with Lewinsky (her first on TV) drew 48.5 million viewers -- a record for a broadcast news program.
Walters also snagged the first TV interviews with actor Christopher Reeve after his paralyzing accident, with murder suspect Robert Blake, and with Martha Stewart following her indictment on obstruction of justice.
Walters has 18 months remaining in her contract, with an estimated salary of more than $7 million a year. She says she'll negotiate a new deal that includes her redefined duties.
Walters began her TV career in 1963 on NBC's "Today," later becoming the show's first female cohost. She defected to ABC in 1976 as the first female co-anchor of a nightly newscast. (Her on-air pairing with Harry Reasoner was short-lived and miserable.)
Walters co-anchored "20/20" with Hugh Downs until his retirement in 1999. He was replaced by ABC's John Miller, who left the network in December 2002. "20/20" correspondent John Stossel was named co-anchor in May.