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 [...]

Canada’s CBC Radio is running a six-part series about the news media and public relations Spin Cycles: A Series About Spin, The Spinners And The Spun. I only happened upon the fourth episode this past Sunday, but I’m catching up on their website, which not only has the broadcasts, but also full (or at [...]

Fascinating story of CBS Chairman William S. Paley’s reaction to the staging of reverse shots of TV interviewers, from a column by Thomas Griffith in Time magazine, Dec. 05, 1977:
In his new book Clearing the Air, [Daniel] Schorr tells of a [1962] luncheon in Paris during which Paley congratulated him on a CBS documentary about [...]

One of the big buzz words these days on the internet is transparency - and the posting of interview transcripts is a commonly touted as a key to providing transparency.
As I was reading Powells.com’s online interview with Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch, his description of the origins of this venerable literary magazine struck a chord [...]

Love this story about Ernest Hemingway being interviewed by George Plimpton, as told by Philip Gourevitch, the current editor of the Paris Review, who was interviewed on Powells.com by Dave Weich.
Gourevitch: A few days ago I was in L.A., and I was talking about the book [The Paris Review Interviews, Vol I] with Stephen Gaghan, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Imagine you’re doing an interview and the guest drops dead right in front of you. Heard Dick Cavett say Sunday night that’s exactly what happened one time on his show. I did a bit of googling and found out it was in January 1971 - pioneering health food advocate Jerome Rodale died of [...]

Dick Cavett has one of the most unusual interviewing styles you’ll ever see. Don’t know if you caught Sunday night’s airing of a brand new interview with Mel Brooks on TCM, but the old style was still very much in evidence: the digressions, the stumbling for words, the sometimes long story-telling leading to [...]