97-year-old Jerusalem Post columnist holds record as oldest journalist

When Walter Bingham moved from London to Israel in 2004, following a long career as a host on British radio, he applied for a job at Kol Israel, one of the country’s leading broadcasters. 

At the interview he was rejected; 80 years old was past the station’s mandatory retirement age.

Other journalists might have given up, but Bingham defied the ageism that is prevalent in Israel, and undeterred, kept finding opportunities to work. 

More than 17 years have passed since then and Bingham is still not retired. Recently, at age 97, he was certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest working journalist.

“We are thrilled to inform you that your application for Oldest Journalist has been successful and you are now the Guinness World Records Title Holder!” he was informed in an email sent on April 8 by the Records Management Team. “Congratulations, you are officially amazing!”

It’s the second such record for Bingham. In 2017, he was certified by Guinness as the oldest active radio talk show host — one of a series of accolades that include the M.M., the British Military Medal awarded for bravery in the field. Bingham also received the highest French honor, the Legion D’Honneur.

“I actually feel quite young,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency while sitting in his studio at home, just steps away from downtown Jerusalem’s busy Hillel Street. “On a good day I feel like I’m 40; on a bad day 50,” he said.

 

 He hosts the weekly “Walter’s World” programs on Israel National Radio, and The Walter Bingham File on Israel Newstalk Radio – both in English. Bingham is a fixture at media tours, news conferences and other events across Israel. Known for his signature blue breton cap, audio recorder and handgun kept in a holster on his hip, he is a familiar sight to members of the foreign media here, whose companionship Bingham cites as one of the reasons for feeling so young.

His print articles appear regularly in The Jerusalem Post and The Jerusalem Report.

“I have a lot of young friends,” he said. “And when I am with them, I feel young. The only time I realize that I’m old is when I pass a mirror.”

Born Wolfgang Billig in Germany in 1924, Bingham was a teenager when he was brought to England as a refugee, one of thousands saved as part of the Kindertransport, an action to rescue Jewish children from the Nazis. His father died in the Warsaw Ghetto. His mother survived the concentration camps and was rescued to Sweden.

During the war, he joined the British Army, where he changed his name to Walter Bingham, so that he would not be mistreated if captured by the Nazis. He served as an ambulance driver during the 1944 invasion of Normandy. 

“I never killed anyone, just saved lives,” Bingham said. 

He rescued soldiers under heavy enemy fire. After the Germans had knocked out his ambulance, wounding his medic and killing the officer who helped to load his ambulance, he crawled away, still under fire. He returned to the battle with another ambulance and evacuated the wounded. 

Bingham, a native German speaker, was later transferred to the Counter Intelligence service, where he was involved in scrutinizing Nazi documents. He also conducted initial interrogations of captured Germans. 

“One was the Nazi foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, who looking at me with a straight face denied any knowledge of the Final Solution – the extermination of Jews,” recalled Bingham. “When pressed further, he claimed to have read it in the newspaper.”

Von Ribbentrop was the first to be hanged, following the Nuremberg Trials. 

Back in Britain after the war, Bingham worked in various jobs before answering a “Help Wanted” advertisement at a local radio station. His initial task answering the phones for a call-in show led to a series of “little jobs” before he eventually became a host for Jewish-themed programs on the London stations, Spectrum and Sound Radio.

He also got degrees in philosophy and politics and achieved the highest rating as private pilot. In 1971, Bingham piloted his plane solo from London to Tel Aviv and back.

To make some extra money, he branched out into modeling and acting. He described a series of jobs over the years, that included playing Charles Darwin in a documentary, a wizard in the background of two Harry Potter movies and Santa Claus at the Harrods department store.

He once pretended to be a homeless man begging on the street for a feature in The Daily Mail while a photographer hid in a nearby cafe. Like many of his other gigs, Bingham said he was given this job because of his large, bushy beard. 

That news article is now framed next to the door of his office alongside clippings of advertisements featuring his distinctive facial hair, styled into outrageous designs. One, for Virgin Cola, features Bingham with a forked beard wearing sunglasses.

 

Bingham has one daughter, who also lives in Jerusalem. He proudly showed photos of his family that includes two great-grand daughters. 

He always wanted to live in Israel, but his wife preferred to stay in London. She died in 1990 and in 2004, at the age of 80, he made the move alone.

Prior to arriving in Israel, he was contacted by Yishai Fleisher, who at the time hosted a show on Israel National Radio. Fleischer asked Bingham to document his preparations in an ongoing series of 10-minute daily spots. 

Just after his arrival in Israel, Bingham was offered his own weekly program, “Walter’s World,” which is now in its 17th year. The show opens with the Superman theme song and introduces Bingham as “the doyen of the airwaves.” 

On a show in early January, he pledged that his New Year’s resolution was to learn a few words of Hebrew every day. 

Bingham’s office at his downtown Jerusalem home functions as a memorabilia room for his career of some 70 years. Its walls are covered with certificates of achievement, military awards, his Guinness records and pictures he’s taken with prominent figures such as former president Reuven Rivlin, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, John Bolton and many more. The room is dominated by a massive desk with radio equipment, at which he produces all his work.

Of course, technology has changed significantly from when he began, Bingham said, describing once having to cut out sections of reel-to-reel tape and splice it back together with special tape – a process that has been replaced with SD cards and audio-editing software.

But while the gear has evolved, the craft remains the same, he said, insisting that it is critical for young journalists to learn how to listen and not interject their own opinions into an interview.

“Often I see supposed interviews where the interviewer talks more than the interviewee,” he said. “Ask questions and let them answer fully. Don’t keep interrupting. If it’s prerecorded, you can always edit out parts [in which] you think the interviewee was going on for too long.”

While Bingham says that he is open about his opinions, he believes that many contemporary straight news reporters allow their unconscious biases to affect their work.

“Today it’s all opinions,” he said. “This is the main change that I see. When you read a newspaper it’s opinion, not the facts.”

Fleischer, now the spokesperson for Jewish settlers in Hebron, is one of Bingham’s many admirers, telling JTA that he “has a unique tenacity for life and tenacity to get the story but also tenacity to live fully.”

Fleisher said that Bingham brings a “tremendous amount of perspective of history and shows a lot of personal courage, and has a zest for life.”

Steve Linde, a longtime friend of Bingham and editor of the Report, said that Bingham’s attaining the Guinness world records is a testament to his persistence. 

“What I admire most about him is that he never gives up,” Linde said. “I once asked him why he doesn’t use a walking stick, and he replied that if he starts using one, then he’ll always depend on it. He’s fiercely independent and holds strong opinions on just about everything. But it’s his passion for life, people and the truth that are, perhaps, his most outstanding qualities.”

Does Bingham ever plan on retiring? Before answering, he quips that he had to look up that word in the dictionary. 

“I will not retire,” he said. “I will keep going so long as I can.”