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Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

I look forward to checking this out. Gross is a very skilled interviewer, and this looks like a filter for the better stuff. Off the top of my head, the relatively recent interviews with Philip Glass and Tara Westover are fantastic.

There are also some interviews that did not go so well. The tension when Gene Simmons came on the show (https://freshairarchive.org/segments/gene-simmons) was brutal but I've heard her say before that it's been the most listened-to online episode since it originally aired in 2002.

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Terry Gross is the best regular interviewer in the US. She prepares well, is thoughtful and respectful, thinks on her feet, asks good follow-up questions, and focuses on getting the guest to talk.

I could not disagree more. She talks far too much. I think she lets her personality as a Personality get in the way.

I know this is subjective, and I don't need you to agree with my opinion. I'm only responding because I listened to her for almost two decades and have never been able to tell anyone these thoughts except for an undeserving ex-gf and a hapless hitchhiker.

>> She prepares well, is thoughtful and respectful, thinks on her feet, asks good follow-up questions, and focuses on getting the guest to talk.

> I could not disagree more.

Someone could talk too much and all of these things could still be true. Which part do you disagree with?

>Terry Gross is the best regular interviewer in the US.

This is the part i disagreed with. All of your other statements serve to qualify this assertion. I have great respect for her staff, but i find her interview style over-the-top and self aggrandizing.

But seriously, can you point to a good example of that? Your criticism is shocking to me as my perspective as a long-time listener is that she's NEVER "over-the-top and self aggrandizing".

> She talks far too much

I think we must be listening to different shows. Can you link to an example interview where you think she talked too much?

Many other interviewers regularly interrupt their guests, and impose their own (often idiotic) opinions / ideology instead of letting the expert explain. Gross does not do this.

Maybe point to a counter example?

> I listened to her for almost two decades

Normally that would be part of an endorsement...

Sensationalism creates attention.

There was a sour Interview on the old show 'Q' with Billy Bob Thorton that ended worse. But brought a lot of attention to the show and the host. Been instructed to only talk about Music/The Band and not to bring up Acting etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJWS6qyy7bw

The Howard Stern interview is great too.

Joe Rogan, while not the best interviewer, is getting better. When he prepares, he can ask good questions and gets the guest to come out of their shell. He's one of the only places to go for good long form interviews.

Rogan’s interviews are largely a thinly-veiled excuse to push right-wing BS to the impressionable young men that comprise his audience.

As someone who’s had to talk people out of racist and misogynistic ideology that they were pipelined into through Rogan/his guests, I really wish he didn’t have so much purchase. I know he has a very polished “chill” veneer, but his long-time friendship with Alex Jones should clue people in to what he’s actually after. He even appeared on Jones’ show a week after one of the Sandy Hook parents who had been targeted by Jones’ listeners killed himself.

https://slate.com/culture/2019/03/joe-rogans-podcast-is-an-e...

Rogan is not "right-wing," and people saying that have not listened to his views thoroughly. He is open-minded (sometimes to a flawed degree), and had Jones on and it was the funniest thing I've heard. Jones is a lunatic, and Rogan exposed that. The pseudo-architectural anthropologist was also pretty funny.

I’ve listened to many hours of his show, his interviews with far right types like Gavin McInnes and Stephen Molyneux. I had to in order to talk a friend down from some really dark thinking he was encouraged toward through Rogan’s show. But I’m sure that when I heard him denigrating Muslims or talking about how trans women are actually just confused gay men, I just needed to listen more “thoroughly.”

His interview with Russel Brand is hilarious and deeply insightful, which was really surprising. I don't listen that often but will put it on when someone like that is on. Bound to be some entertaining banter.

As a 25+ year NPR junkie, I can say Gross brought on the trend of hosts thanking their guests "so much" for being there. This started somewhere around 2011.

I used to believe Gross was the best interviewer until I heard some Stern interviews from 2014. While Stern talks a lot more, he is able to elicit more genuine responses from the guests and his interviews are real-time, not edited. Fresh Air suffers from having to break every 10 minutes.

I believe the parent was referring to Gross's recent two part interview with Stern. It's actually reveletory to hear them discuss interview technique (for example, interviewees are physically present with Stern and are not with Gross) although it's not a major part of the interview.

One observation: Stern was not always as effective an interviewer as he has been in recent years.

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