Essay first published in Newsday.

Mike Wallace, the groundbreaking TV newsman who died Saturday at 93, worked hard at earning his tough-guy image. During some of the most volatile events of our times, he asked pointed questions of powerful people: members of the Nixon administration, cigarette manufacturers, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Louis Farrakhan, champions of the Vietnam War.
He tossed aside his nervy image, though, to highlight a problem that many men have difficulty admitting: depression. This revelation by a highly visible tough guy has encouraged untold numbers to seek help.

Wallace spoke publicly about his depression for the first time during a “60 Minutes” retrospective of his career in 2006. He told the camera that he had tried to commit suicide.

Before Wallace went public, his doctor advised him against owning up to the illness. “‘That’s bad for your image,’” Wallace quoted his doctor as saying, in an interview with the Saturday Evening Post. “But finally, I had to face up to it.”

Although it’s more common for women to suffer from depression, men with this affliction more often end their lives, according to research published in the journal “Suicide” in 2008. Because families and the press are reluctant to make suicides public, it’s not widely known that suicides are far more common in the United States than homicides – an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 each year. (more…)