The Media Interview

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.

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.

Finally got to watch the second half of the Barbara Walters special 30 Mistakes in 30 Years. Like the first half of this prime-time special it was first and foremost an entertainment show, but there were useful tidbits throughout.

Walters directly addressed the issue of crying in this part of the special, acknowledging that “I have a reputation for making everyone cry”. There’s a great clip of Halle Berry ending her interview with a triumphant ‘Look, no tears!’ and another of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles turning on the waterworks. According to her statistics, though, only a dozen or so of the roughly 300 people she’s interviewed have broken down in tears. If that’s true it does seem surprising, but on reflection I think her reputation is the result of the fact that, early in her career, breaking down in an interview was still relatively rare on American TV so it stood out in people’s minds.

As I mentioned in my first post, some of the “mistakes” she lists are those made by guests, such as #10: “If I say you’re fascinating - please don’t deny it.” Walters proceeds to show a string of clips in which celebrities say “really?”, “I’m not sure why”, etc. She made a similar point about beauty in one of the earlier “mistakes” and in both cases I think she’s being disingenuous. I really don’t know what she’s expecting by asking such questions. I don’t think it’s even a question of false modesty - people simply haven’t any idea how to respond. If you asked them about a specific accomplishment, or even a specific character trait, and they said “it’s nothing” or “I don’t think that’s anything special” then I think it’s reasonable to accuse them of being disingenuous.

I found her 8th mistake interesting: “The entire [1990] Warren Beatty interview.” Apparently they taped for 2 hours but could barely get a useable 10 minutes from it because he gave such short answers or no answers at all. This, despite the fact that he had agreed before the interview that he would be willing to answer her questions. At one point in the interview, Walters quotes him as saying:

I would rather ride down the street on a camel nude in a snowstorm backwards than give what is sometimes called an in-depth interview

He acknowledged having said that, and from the short clips she showed, it certainly seemed to be his sentiment.

There was a set of clips showing Walters exclaiming to guest and crew “I’ve got my ending!” and in one of them she says “I was fishing around for an ending.” It’s a good lesson for any guest - whether it’s live, edited, or for print purposes, the interviewer is looking for not only good endings but good quotes, good openings, etc.

Some signs of changing times:

Walters points out that in the early days, the crew was asked to stay silent with their reactions to what guests were saying (in particular, not to laugh) because it was considered distracting. But eventually that gave way to keeping the background sounds, part of the trend during the 90s to open up the “fourth wall”.

Her 14th mistake was “Dancing is fine - stripping is out of the question,” but keeping in mind the 6th - “Predicting the future can be dicey” - and the state of some interview/talk shows today, I wouldn’t think that’s going to be a mistake for much longer…

Happened upon a Barbara Walters special last night: 30 Mistakes in 30 Years. She calls it a “record of regrets” - some hers, some her guests - and I was hoping for some candid talk about the interview process. But being a prime time special, this first of two shows was really more of a simple retrospective dressed up as a series of mistakes (e.g. #23 Never turn down dinner with Clint Eastwood).

Still, there were some moments of interest to this blogger, particularly the admissions about her past work:

There have been times when I’ve been dreadfully sentimental.

I was obsessed in those [early] days with having stars bare more than just their souls - Playboy should have paid me…

There are good lessons to be learned too:

don’t say anything in an interview that you might later regret - like Sean Connery saying that there are some times when it’s appropriate to slap a woman.

don’t interview Tom Cruise in an airport hangar, if you want to be able to hear him, or do a walk and talk with Ricki Martin on a public beach or John Goodman in a crowded street in New Orleans’s French Quarter.

don’t do interviews when you or your guest haven’t had enough sleep

The other 15 “mistakes” air tonight (Friday) at 10pm on ABC - UPDATE: here are my comments on the second half.