The Media Interview

The worlds of US politics and journalism are still reeling from the sudden death on Friday of Meet the Press host Tim Russert. The 58 year old Washington bureau chief for NBC news had just finished taping The Tim Russert Show for CNBC and was working on voice-overs for Sunday’s Meet the Press when he collapsed and died of a heart attack.

Russert took over the helm of Meet the Press in 1991 and was the longest-serving host of the 60 year old institution. Many people have quoted Russert as saying it wasn’t his show - he was only a custodian of it - but Lawrence K Grossman, the president of NBC news 1984-1988, gave this assessment to the NY Times:

[Tim Russert] saved ‘Meet the Press,’ which had been in big trouble because it was not being watched, it was a half hour, it wasn’t different from the other programs. It had launched the whole Sunday morning information programming but had been very disappointing and nothing seemed to fix it properly until he came along.

I’ve gathered some quotes about Russert’s interview style from the many TV tributes over the weekend.

Betsy Fischer, Executive Producer for Meet the Press, commenting on how Russert’s legal background helped him:

…the way he would structure the questions was very lawyerly. He always knew how a candidate was going to respond - he was prepared enough to know that - and he would sketch it out in his mind: I’m going to ask A, that’ll get us to B, that’ll get us around to C, and then… there’s D. And he knew how to get you into that cycle and he was very skilled at that.

Political strategist James Carville, who prepared many politicians to be on Meet the Press:

… it was a very easy show to prepare for, in the sense you knew he was not going to ask you any questions out of left field, you knew his thing was going to be entitlements, you knew his thing was going to be past statements, you knew… you knew where he was coming from. So, in one sense it was a very hard show, but you could prepare for it, because it was very fair, always very fair.

As one of the other commentators put it, it was your own fault if you messed up on Meet the Press because you didn’t do your homework the way Russert did.

Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, appearing on Larry King Live, was someone who experienced firsthand Russert’s penchant for finding old quotes and playing them back for guests:

It was such an honor to be on his show and yet it was terrifying, I’ve got to tell you. …we would all get ourselves ready and prepared to be on the show and I ah, heard some of your other guests talking about these quotes that he would put up. I remember the first time it happened to me, I came back to my office and I said ‘You guys are not going to believe this - Tim had me debating with myself.’ [Laughter] You know, how could I have said that? And so, it was really an amazing method of extracting information, but the part about it too, Larry, was that he always let you answer and really be able to explain yourself, even if it sometimes it was difficult.

I haven’t been able to find the quote, but someone else mentioned that Russert was very good at really listening to what a guest had to say - he didn’t just throw out these quotes and then move on, he listened to the response and followed up with relevant questions.

Barbara Walters was on CBC’s The Hour recently to talk about her new book Audition, and host George Stroumboulopoulos asked her:

Stroumboulopoulos: Who would you like to be your last interview?

Walters: (long pause) Osama bin Laden… [banter] …I have said that I don’t want to get any more big “gets,” but if Osama bin Laden called, I’d pack.

Barbara Walters on one of the main reasons she stopped doing the TV newsmagazine 20/20 back in 2004:

…it seemed that every celebrity, every murderer…had a lawyer or a press agent all interviewing the interviewer to determine where they could get the most airings for their clients, what kind of questions would be asked, and how much promotion and advertising would be guaranteed. The interviewer had to audition to land the interview.

From her memoir Audition, p.561.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporter/anchor Wendy Mesley comparing the styles of some current anchors with legendary CBC Radio interviewer Barbara Frum:

A lot of anchors these days - male and female - think their presentation of the question is more important than the answer. Barbara was really only interested in the answer. She was sort of the queen of the four-second question - ‘No way! Why?’ and ‘Really? Tell me more!’ - rather than pontificating, taking all the air out of an interview.

From a profile of Mesley - She Asks The Tough Questions - in Good Times magazine, April 2008

Larry King gave a good demonstration last night of what not to do as a guest. He was on Anderson Cooper 360, being interviewed by John King about Dr. Jan Adams walking off the Larry King Live show.

Larry King was constantly looking away from his interviewer and at the camera. Breaking eye contact in order to look at the camera creates a bad impression; suddenly you’re no longer in a conversation - you’re playing to the lens and it feels disingenuous. Perhaps King was still in “host mode” and forgot that he’s the interviewee talking with someone in a studio (as opposed to via satellite). Whatever the case, I’m sure he doesn’t like it when his guests do such a thing.

The plastic surgeon who operated on Kanye West’s mother the day before she died, walked off CNN’s “Larry King Live” during an interview tonight.

Larry King opened the hour by saying that it wasn’t clear if Dr. Jan Adams would appear as promised. King said that West’s family had formally asked Adams not to go on the show, but that he was still conferring with his lawyers. King then proceeded to interview several entertainment reporters who had been lined up for later in the show.

Then came word that Dr. Adams would in fact appear, so King broke for a commercial. When they returned, Dr. Adams was seated across from King and it looked like everything was fine, until he proceeded to explain why he wasn’t going to do the interview. Dr. Adams then removed his mike, shook King’s hand, and walked off the set, leaving Kin to hastily go to another commercial:

Interviewed later on Anderson Cooper 360, King discussed what it was like having a guest walk off his show:

..I used to say ‘nothing has ever happened before that hasn’t happened before’, in other words I’ve had everything happen to me in fifty years - except THAT! I’ve had fires in the studio, I’ve had people fight… but I have NEVER had a guest rip off the mike and walk - and remain friendly; he stayed til the end, he was there at the end of the show; he was very friendly to me - he was - he took out - he said he was taking my producer to dinner because she had gone through so much over this.

Perhaps for halloween I’ll go dressed as a “famous interviewer,” as the costume companies carefully describe him.

Entertainment Wise says celebrity interviewer Martin Bashir is trying to set up an interview with Britney Spears and Kevin Federline:

A source tells The People, “As far as Martin is concerned it would be all of his Christmases come at once if he could secure a deal with both of them.

“He is really keen to do an interview that would blow the lid off their private lives. It would guarantee millions of viewers worldwide. In an ideal world, he would love to get them both in the same room.”

My Christmas wish? Higher aspirations for Martin Bashir and no more publicity for Britney.

In Cindy Adams column in the New York Post today, she quotes Barbara Walters on why, when Paris Hilton’s people withdrew demands for payment for the heiress’s first post-jail interview, Walters turned down a free interview. After all, ABC had originally offered $100,000 for the “get”:

Look, I’ve done prison interviews before, but people like the Menendez Brothers were really important news stories. This wasn’t. And even though I’d already written my questions, when all that pay-for-play stuff happened, I suddenly felt this was not up to my standard. It . . . felt . . . sort of . . . tawdry. The whole thing somehow was beneath me. Besides, it was a no-win. If I did a tough piece and her tears started to flow, it would be, ‘Oh, there’s Barbara Walters making people cry again.’ Too soft, and I’d be criticized.

If the context and accuracy of this quote are right, it seems that Walters is standing on some shaky ground:

1. The importance of the story didn’t change between the time of the ABC offer and Hilton’s decision to not seek any payment.

2. The no-win problem also didn’t change in that time frame.

3. How is the haggling over different offers any less “tawdry” than making an offer of $100,000 for an interview with a famous-only-for-being-famous celebrity?

I can perfectly well understand Walters coming to realize that she had been party to a struggle to perpetuate and cash in on the Hilton phenomenon, and wanting no part of it any longer (I could applaud that), but it would require a very different explanation than the one she’s apparently giving here.

And the winner is - well, maybe “winner” isn’t the word because I personally don’t see getting an interview with Paris Hilton as anything to be proud of - CNN’s Larry King.

After ABC’s $100,000 offer for Hilton’s first post-jail TV interview was rejected, and NBC pulled out and denied any deal had been made, and the Hiltons started denying that they were seeking any money for any interview… the NY Times reported over the weekend that Paris will do an hour-long segment on Larry King’s show this Wednesday:

A spokeswoman for his program, Bridget Leininger, said yesterday that no money had been paid for the interview. “Larry King never pays for interviews,” she said.

What was interesting was that even after the Hilton’s said they would not take any money for photos and videos, including a $300,000 deal they’d set up with People magazine, ABC and NBC still turned down the interview.

The trick these days is that deals are made to purchase materials such as photos and videos that accompany an interview - that way, no one is technically paying for the interview. And where does Larry’s King’s show stand on that?

Ms. Leininger said she was unsure whether the program was going to use any photos and whether any fee would be paid to Getty Images, a photo agency that had previously made a deal to acquire rights to the first pictures of Ms. Hilton home from jail.