Mike Wallace, long considered one of the most fearsome interviewers in broadcast news, has died. He was 93.  A spokesman for CBS told the Associated Press that Mr. Wallace died Saturday night.

Mr. Wallace went into a kind of semi-retirement from regular appearances on 60 Minutes in 2006 but kept a promise made upon announcing his slowdown to do occasional new reports, profiling Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2007 as well as "suicide doctor" Jack Kevorkian.

Over the course of his 6 decades as a newsman Mike Wallace frequently went toe-to-toe with the famous and powerful in interviews legendary for their confrontational and emotional nature. As the A.P. reports in his obituary, Mr. Wallace once managed to break through Barbra Streisand's intensely controlled public persona:

In the early 1990s, Wallace reduced Barbra Streisand to tears as he scolded her for being "totally self-absorbed" when she was young and mocked her decades of psychoanalysis. "What is it she is trying to find out that takes 20 years?" Wallace said he wondered.

"I'm a slow learner," Streisand told him.

Mike Wallace was also one of the pioneers of the ambush interview, in which a news crew unexpectedly confronts a subject. He also disavowed this approach in later years, stating that it was a dramatic approach but ultimately not particularly informative.

Mr. Wallace leaves behind his fourth wife, Mary Yates Wallace, his son, Fox news stalwart Chris Wallace, stepdaughter Pauline Dora and a stepson, Eames Yates.

Mike Wallace's inimitable style has few imitators today. Aggressive, skeptical, challenging, wickedly well-prepared, he eschewed chummy, softball interviews designed solely to maintain journalistic "access" in favor of tearing his way through to whatever might be the truth. He wasn't the only journalist long-lived enough to have reported from hazy studios, cigarette in hand then later in videos broadcast over the Internet, but he was easily among the most feared and memorable.

Today, members of OWS (but not OWS itself, since, as a member of the press team told The New York Observer by phone, the still-existing General Assembly did not pass this motion), citizen journalists, and anyone else who isn't afraid of getting arrested will be protesting outside of Mayor Bloomberg's house for the ethical treatment of the press.

Full memo below:

New York, NY—Outraged New Yorkers and Occupy Wall Street (OWS) members will protest ongoing NYPD interference with members of the press including citizen journalists on Friday, January 6.  In recent months NYPD has refused to recognize press credentials, summarily seized press credentials, harassed, physically blocked, assaulted, and arrested--without cause--members of the press.

WHAT:          Vibrant and visual protest including street performers.  Many photographers, videographers, and livestreamers will participate and film.

WHEN:          Friday, January 6, 3pm-8pm

WHERE:        Bloomberg mansion, 17 East 79th St., NYC - assemble at 5^th Ave. and 79^th St.  Protesters will vigorously assert their

First Amendment rights to be within sight and sound of the mayor’s residence.

WHO:             Outraged New Yorkers, members of OWS, journalists and media makers who have been subjected to harassment and arrest for covering Occupy Wall Street and other political protests.

The protest will bring this issue to the doorstep of New York City’s billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg.  In recent remarks Bloomberg called the NYPD his “own  army.” The mayor, a member of the wealthiest 1% of the country, ordered the forcible removal of Occupy Wall Street from Liberty Square on November 15^th.   The working press was prevented from covering that police raid – either ejected from the site or prevented from being close enough to do comprehensive reporting.  This week a group streaming live video of Occupy Wall Street activities was forcibly evicted from a space in Brooklyn and arrested.

So...several questions. Will Mayor Bloomberg be home at 3 p.m. on a Friday? Will that fake press secretary be there? And can OW-sympathizers convince journalists that they're protests are still worth covering if they make said protests about journalists?

Unfortunately, The New York Observer won't be able to attend due to conflicting schedule appointments, but we'd love to hear how it goes down! Photos and video welcome for submission.

Protesters in the free speech zone during Obama's midtown fundraiser (via Mother Jones)

Last night, demonstrators who arrived in midtown to protest a Barack Obama fundraiser found themselves corralled into a "free speech zone" on 53rd Street and 7th Avenue. Reporters--like Josh Harkinson from Mother Jones and Meg Robertson from MSNBC --were not allowed near the penned-in demonstrators, despite Commissioner Ray Kelly's recent orders that the NYPD was to play nice with journalists covering OWS. This directive came after the events of the November 14th raid of Zuccotti and the Day of Protest on the 17th left 26 reporters arrested.

Gothamist reports that journos trying to get near the pen were told by police officers that the demonstrators were in a "frozen zone," and not able to leave. Journalists were barred from speaking to them.

A video of Mr. Harkinson and Andrew Katz, a reporter for The Brooklyn Ink after trying to question protesters who say they were being held captive, was put online on Mother Jones' website. The video also shows the police leading them away from the pen, being told "You can't stand in this area.":

It is unclear whether Mr. Harkinson or Mr. Katz had NYPD-issued press badges, or any sort of marker indicating them as members of the press instead of civilians. Not that would have made a difference.

Photo by David Dunlap, the New York Times

Over on City Room there's a charming little history of a forgotten area of Cypress Hills Cemetery once reserved for "friendless journalists," like The Sun's John B. Wood, whose spare copy earned him the epitaph the “Great American Condenser.”

The New York Press Club closed during the Great Depression and its 276 unoccupied plots were purchased by a Taiwanese-American fraternal organization (the Press Club's current iteration, re-founded in 1948, has no stake in the Cypress Hill plot), but visitors can still see the New York Press obelisk.

Read it for the puns!