Mike Wallace was born Myron Leon Wallace May 19, 1918: Brookline, Massachusettse Mike Wallace, a tough newspaper journalist and spot reporter, was given his own forum on CBS in `950, his then signature was a sponsor's cigarette burning between two fingers of his right hand. His interviews with celebrities bordered insulting, as shown here, when he insinuated neither Jean Sebearg or Steve Allen had what it takes to endure stardom. This caustic approach to investigative reporting would flow on to "60 Minutes."

Wallace made his mark in television journalism as an aggressive interviewer who spent 37 years as co-host of the CBS news program 60 Minutes. A 1939 graduate of the University of Michigan, Wallace worked in radio in Michigan and Chicago, then served in the United States Navy during World War II. After the war he returned to Chicago and worked a variety of radio jobs until 1951, when he moved to New York City. By the late 1950s he was on TV and nationally known for his adversarial style of interviews, thanks to programs like Night Beat (1956) and Mike Wallace Interviews (1957-58). Wallace joined CBS News in 1963 as a correspondent and was named in 1968 as one of the co-hosts for 60 Minutes, a TV news "magazine" that has been a Sunday night staple since the mid-1970s. Some critics derided Wallace's aggressive reporting techniques -- which included hidden cameras and "ambush" interviews -- but the dramatic stories he told brought big audiences to CBS and international celebrity to Mike Wallace. Over the years he has interviewed dozens of newsmakers, from Malcolm X to Ronald Reagan. He's also been in the news himself a few times, including when U.S. General William Westmoreland sued him for libel in 1984 (the case was settled in 1985), and when he was depicted as knuckling under to the tobacco industry in the 1999 Russell Crowe film The Insider. Wallace has also been open about his battle with depression (which he says was triggered by the 1984 lawsuit) and has worked to educate the public on the issue. He retired from 60 Minutes in 2005, but in 2006, at the age of 88, he signed a new four-year contract with CBS.

Edward R. Murrow was born April 25, 1908, in Greensboro, NC., He died April 27, 1965, in Pawling, N.Y. Murrow was a radio and television broadcaster considered the most influential and esteemed figure in American broadcast journalism during its formative years.

Murrow graduated from Washington State College (now University), Pullman. He served as president of the National Student Association (1929–31) and then worked to bring German scholars displaced by Nazism to the United States. He joined the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in 1935 and was sent to London in 1937 to head the network's European Bureau. Murrow's highly reliable and dramatic eyewitness reportage of the German occupation of Austria and the Munich Conference in 1938, the German takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1939, and the Battle of Britain during World War II brought him national fame and marked radio journalism's coming of age.

After the war Murrow became CBS vice president in charge of news, education, and discussion programs. He returned to radio broadcasting in 1947 with a weeknight newscast. With Fred W. Friendly he produced Hear It Now, an authoritative hour-long weekly news digest, and moved on to television with a comparable series, See It Now. Murrow was a notable force for the free and uncensored dissemination of information during the American anticommunist hysteria of the early 1950s. In 1954 he produced a notable exposé of the dubious tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had gained prominence with flamboyant charges of communist infiltration of U.S. government agencies. Murrow also produced Person to Person (1953–60) and other television programs. He was appointed director of the U.S. Information Agency in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy.

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