> Barbara Walters was once our national interviewer, in a flashier style defined by a desire for spectacle.
Baba Wawa (can't ever not think of her as that, after Gilda Radner) was all "Look at me, look at me! Oh yeah, you're here, too."
However, Rick Beato beats Terry out, in the category of certain musicians at least. He's not afraid to just let them talk.
I find interviewers like that almost unwatchable. Sorry, I’m here to see the guest, not the interviewer. It’s unbelievably arrogant for an interviewer to behave like that.
The best interviewers say almost nothing at all, yet manage to get their guests to really open up and talk about many interesting things. It’s like some kind of superpower, the ability to say just a few, carefully chosen words and have the guest talking for hours.
To me a great interviewer is someone who can get to the heart of the issue at hand and elicit an interesting and enlightening answer to an important question as efficiently as possible, especially when it is a question person really doesn't want to answer. Sometimes it does take hours to get there and that is fine, but if you can get answers you are looking for in 15 minutes then there is not no need to waste anybodies time and just let your guest ramble about whatever is one their mind.
Almost all the other people we're talking about here are "entertainment." You can say "that's not an interview" but I don't think you get much traction with that argument. Perhaps "interrogation" is the term you want.