nah, he was really good at interviewing people and directing interesting longform discussion on a huge variety of topics. better than pretty much anyone else.
No, he was really good at getting great guests onto his show, with a long-enough format to have some time for conversation.
He was absolutely atrocious at the actual interviewing part.
He would constantly make stupid paragraph-long statements and then at the end ask “don’t you agree?”, then when the guest started to explain that no the statement was wrong or oversimplified, he would interrupt them and repeat his point again. He was constantly shitting all over guests who he disagreed with or didn’t think were cool enough, telling them they were wrong and trying to get them to repeat whatever he happened to think, even if they were world-class experts on some topic he didn’t know anything about. He was constantly kissing up like crazy to anyone he thought was rich or famous or powerful, in a way that was really uncomfortable to watch (his numerous sycophantic interviews with Tom Friedman make my skin crawl). He never seemed to listen very closely to what anyone was saying: I don’t think I ever heard a poignant or insightful follow-up question in the hundreds of his interviews I have seen. Instead he would often interrupt right in the middle of some complicated interesting thought, and throw in a non-sequitur, jolting the conversation to a new (often stupid) topic.
My favorite Charlie Rose moment was sometime like 15 years ago when he had on (if I recall correctly) Bill Joy. Charlie made some incredibly banal and obvious paragraph-long statement with a question mark at the end, and then looked at the guest, who was just staring at him. There was a long uncomfortable pause, after which the response was, “well, duh.”
If you want to see a stark comparison, find any week where the same guest was interviewed by both Charlie Rose and Terry Gross, and listen to the two interviews back to back.
I'm sorry, but I disagree and find you to be twisting and exaggerating a huge volume of work. There are miles and miles of treasure in his archive from people that never spoke for long unstructured amounts of time with anyone else.
Terry Gross has big flaws, the biggest of which is how she approaches her interviews much more from a political activist's lens, to the point of being absolutely obnoxious about certain topics or people. There are a wide array of issues I would never want to hear her interview someone about.
There are many treasures in Charlie Rose’s archives because of the guests. Again, his show was often worth watching despite him. I’m not just cherry-picking examples though. He did that crap constantly. Almost every interview of his I’ve ever seen was at least mildly frustrating, and often I want to throw my shoe at the screen and tell him to SHUT UP AND LET THE GUEST TALK. Try watching a few of them now, and paying attention to the times that Rose interrupts the guest, makes some sycophantic flattering comment, or repeats his point multiple times after being told it is wrong.
The nature of interview shows is that often topics are inherently political (e.g. interviewing a politician, a journalist, an economist, or a political biographer), but Terry Gross is one of the least political interviewers in the media (apart from maybe some late-night comedy hosts who do 5-minute bits), and frequently gets her guests to talk deeply about their lives and families and hobbies even when they originally came to discuss some political topic or shill their latest book or whatever.
She approaches her interviews with careful preparation every time (e.g. she actually reads the books), universal politeness, and close listening, and responds to what her guests are saying with interesting topical follow-up questions rather than sticking with a canned script.
You might be misinterpreting knowing something about the topic (as Rose typically does not) as “political activism”.
You’re getting downvotes for no good reason (disagreement is a bad reason).
I quite strongly agree with you btw. The fact that Charlie Rose is held up as some high standard of interviews should be an inditement of the entire profession in the US because he - compared to actual maters like David Frost, Louis Theroux, and so on - is quite poor.
He pioneered that format, pursued great guests, gave them the space to convey their thoughts in long form, structured the arc of the interviews to pull good stuff out of people over time, and worked relentlessly.
And unlike Gross, he kept his own politics closer to his chest, which, in combination with everything else, gave him access to everyone.
Who else is out there from a younger generation on the way up? Weirdly enough, like the other person said, the Hot Ones guy is the closest I can think of. Maybe someone from the podcast realm, but it's hard to think of someone with the range and intellect. I guess it will be a more fractious world.
I'm with you on Friedman, and Rose's railroading of guests, but you lost me at Terry Gross. She always prefers to talk about why her guests felt a certain way and how that might have affected their work, rather than their interesting work itself. The only time I can listen to her show is when there is a guest host. After all, she does get good guests.
