No surprise there. For someone with a nationally-broadcast interview-based radio show, Terry Gross is a pretty piss-poor interviewer at times. She seems to have very little ability to improvise, or to ask searching follw-up questions. Even some of her prepared questions are awful.
Her recent efforts with Paul Krugman and Grover Norquist were good examples of this. She seemed woefully uninformed on the issues at hand, and made very little effort to ask questions that might expose the inconsistencies or ellipses in her guests’ reponses.
I still listen to the show fairly frequently, because she gets some excellent guests, but i accept that it’s going to be little more than a speech, and that Terry Gross is really not going to be of much help in eliciting extra information from the speaker.
I just listened to it. Yeesh, couldn’t he have just said, “Terry, can we pause the tape a minute? I really have to piss,” rather than make up a reason to end the interview? Good Lord, he really had to work to make it look like the Queen of the Softball Radio Interview, NPR’s answer to Diane Sawyer, was doing a “hatchet job” on him and he only succeeded in convincing himself and maybe his listeners that she did.
I listened to that interview with Monica. She was very nervous through the whole thing, as Terry’s questions were essentially along the lines of, “What the hell was going through your head when you were going down on the President?” Terry prefaced it by saying she’d agonized over whether to conduct the interview at all, and twenty minutes into the interview, Terry cut back in, saying that Monica had abruptly ended the interview, explaining off-microphone that she’d thought it’d be a puff piece on her new book, not a probe into her psychological failings.
Maybe Terry never re-aired it, but she definitely aired it.
The interview with Bill yesterday was repugnant. I expected it to be funny, but I came away from it really angry at O’Reilly. What an asshole.
That was repugnant. I’m surprised Gross didn’t ask “When did you stop beating your wife?”
Now, I used to watch O’Reilly frequently, and still watch it on occasion. It’s clear that O’Reilly is pretty puffed up about himself, but then he has accomplished quite a lot.
That said, this was one of the most condescending things I’ve ever heard. I’m surprised that O’Reilly didn’t walk out after the first 10 minutes.
Some of her choice questions (paraphrasing): [ul] [li]Are you sorry you sued him? [referring to Fox News’ lawsuit against Franken for the title of his book] []People speculated that you pressured Fox to file the lawsuit–you didn’t? [][referring to the Jeremy Glick interview] You invited him to give his point of view, and then kept telling him to shut up. How much of that is theater and showmanship? [/ul] He said that he was supposed to be interviewed about his book. She asked him no questions about his book. She spent most of the time reading Franken’s book to him. That’s an interview? Reading talking points from Franken’s book?[/li]
And when he challenged her on it, she admitted that she did not question him the way she did O’Reilly. Why not? She took Franken at his word and doubted everything O’Reilly said. Um, bias?
Dio - well, that’s why I said “If”. Since the party registration was, in fact, pretty recent, and certainly close in time to his statements about being registered “Independant”, my suggested alternative is no longer available and we’re back to tom’s. thanks for the info (I try really hard to not find out stuff about him)
The Fox lawsuit was filed at the urging of Bill O’Reilly. Irt was completley frivolous and was laughed out of court. It is perfectly fair to ask O’Reilly if he has any regrets about pushing a stupid, bullshit lawsuit that was an embarrassment to his network.
With the Glick question, she was trying to give him an out for his inexcusable behavior in verbal attacks and physical threats against a 9/11 victim by suggesting that maybe he didn’t really mean it. O’Reill responded by lying through his teeth about what Glick said on the show (O’Reilly alleged that Glick had said that Bush was behind the attack. Glick said no such thing. He said that previous administrations had supported bin-Laden and the Taliban which is true. O’Reilly was making an absurd extropolation). Gross did not challenge O’Reilly on his blatant falsehoods but moved onto the next question.
O’Reilly has spent a lot of time launching idiotic personal attacks on Al Franken and has repeatedly recounted a fantasy about murdering him. Why shouldn’t he be asked questions about that?
He was given ample time to pimp his own shitty little book but there’s no reason to spend the whole show on it. O’Reilly frequently invites guests onto his show under false pretenses. It’s his own MO.
Franken has nothing that he needs to be challenged on. He’s not a liar or a bully. What exactly does O’reilly think Franken needed to be pushed on? Everything in Franken’s book is true, including everything that was said about O’Reilly.
Two questions for you, emarkp:
Do you believe that O’Reilly didn’t know he had registered to vote as a Republican?
Do you think that O’Reilly’s revelation that “I enjoy telling off a woman” is just a little bit creepy?
And if he has listened to Fresh Air as long as I (yeesh, is it nearly 20 years already?) he’d know that he got to mention his book MORE than most people who are on that show mention theirs. While nobody has ever (before this) suggested Terry Gross’s interviewing style is hard hitting she usually tries to stay away from the blatant plugging that plagues most guest appearances on radio talk shows. She seems to pride herself on asking “Gee, nobody has ever asked me that!” questions and getting people to talk about themselves as human beings. She did that with O’Reilley, too.
Did you hear a different interview than everyone else did? Gross’ interrogation was mild when compared with the hectoring O’Reilly regularly subjects his guests to. Moreover, O’Reilly is a commentator. His job largely consists of voicing opinions that are, on occasion, going to invite controversy and debate. The problem with O’Reilly is that he loves his opinions (and the sound of his voice) so much that he gets all defensive and pissy whenever anybody says anything that even remotely challenges them. Gross had every right to ask him if he was behind Fox’s absurd decision to sue Al Franken because the public rumour was that his employer had done this to balm his hurt feelings rather than, say, buy him a gift basket or a Mini-Cooper. In any case, I’m almost sure O’Reilly was planning to walk off the show regardless of the tone of Gross’ questions.
Did you actually listen to the whole interview, or just see excerpts on O’Reilly? O’Reilly talked about his book at length multiple times, usually awkwardly appended to the end of an answer to an unrelated question. That interview had no shortage of promotion of O’Reilly’s book – how would more direct questions about the book have improved the interview? The interview is with him, about him.**
No, it’s actually because they’re two different people with very different jobs and personalities. If Bill Clinton does an interview, he can’t reasonably point to the fact that the last guest didn’t get asked about the blowjobs he’d recently received as evidence of bias against him.
Terry Gross asked questions about recent public events involving Bill O’Reilly and he acted like she had been going through his garbage can. Who goes on an interview show and doesn’t want to answer questions about recent events you were involved in? Especially someone who makes such an issue of the facts speaking for themselves. If he thinks that’s a hatchet job, he’s completely out to lunch.
Personally, I thought that the interview was pretty weak. Terry really should have followed up on some of her questions and not just sat quietly while he made long rambling speeches. She seemed totally unprepared for his blustery forceful style, which should have been no surprise to anyone who’s ever seen him speak.
O’Reilly says he was invited on to discuss his book. Yes, he has people on, mentions the book and then interviews them, but when I’ve seen those interviews he’s actually referred to the book. Has asked questions about the book, etc. Gross didn’t ask a single question about the book or its contents. We’ll never know the exact details of how they asked him on the show, but the introduction suggests that they specifically timed the interview to look like it had something to do with the book, but really wasn’t planned to talk about the book at all. If true, it’s pretty slimey. However, I’m willing to give Gross the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to a more colorful introduction, and assume that the intent of the interview was to talk about the book as well as the Franken stuff.
I would really appreciate a credible source for this. Even Gross said she “assumed” it (around 2:05):
“A lot of people speculated”? That’s hardly conclusive.
Um, yeah. It was a crappy question, akin to (like I said above) “when did you stop beating your wife.”
Nice dodge. Asking questions about O’Reilly’s comments sure. Asking questions about every allegation made by Franken? When they didn’t ask Franken about the validity of his claims? I’m not impressed.
Okay, well I guess we know where you stand. :rolleyes: I mean, I didn’t realize that Franken was an oracle of truth and his editors were flawless.
This is the first time I’d heard about it. His response seems reasonable to me. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, just like everyone else. I have no axe to grind or agenda to push here. I’m interested in the truth.
I would, except that’s not what he said. He said, “I actually enjoyed telling the woman off.” Not a woman.
Given the sloppiness with facts that O’Reilly’s detractors seem to have, I’m willing to continue giving him the benefit of the doubt.
This thread is the first I’d heard about it. I listened to the whole interview. Though I did listen after reading the article, so I may have focused more on the claims here and missed his references to the book. But none of her questions were about the book. Every time I’ve seen an author interviewed when a book is out, the interviewer (this includes O’Reilly) asks questions specifically about the book (the research behind it, the reasons for the book, some of the opinion in the book, etc.).
Nearly every question was related Franken’s book (and the introduction practically set it up as intended to be a companion to the Franken interview) or the Glick interview (she even admitted not even reading the full transcript of the interview!).
IMHO,
O’Reilly should’ve taken the questions about Franken’s allegations as an opportunity to set the record straight. Gross was giving him time to have his due as it were. O’Reilly could’ve just said, “Well, you know that Al. When he said such and such, that wasn’t really how it is. It’s really like this…,” and so on. Instead he went into a sort of self-important paranoia about a some sort of a culture war. [Terry Gross- Culture Warrior come on.] He could’ve taken the high road abut all of it and said things like, "Well when you achieve the name recognition that I have, it’s only natural that people will say negative things about you. Well, until after you die. Then everyon was your best friend/confidant/supporter. But while you’re alive and kicking these kinds of allegations and such will come up."
Or even a simple, "I’d rather talk about the contents of my book."
[JB]But Nooooooooo![/JB] He launched into a spiel abut how They were out to get him. The Liberal Media Conspiracy[sup]TM[sup] was involved in a “culture war” and he was on the frontlines being shot at. Gimme a break Willis. Today on his radio show, he called his interview w/ Gross a “shooting match.”
Culture war my butt. Either he was just putting on a show or was having a temper tantrum.
Well, as a regular Fresh Air listener, I can tell you that this is a common practice on the show – often, the person is more interesting than their book/movie, and the book/movie takes a backseat to the person themselves.
In fact, here is a recent interview with Terry Gross about Fresh Air, where she discusses exactly this issue:
In addition to allowing O’Reilly to reference his book repeatedly and talk about it at length several times, she announced his name and the book title every 5-10 minutes throughout the show. What more do you want?**
Actually, no. There were maybe three questions total about those things. There were a couple of questions about his attacking book reviewers on his show for mildly negative reviews about his book. There were several questions about his opinions and childhood.
What would you have considered a fair interview? One which didn’t mention Franken or any of his controversial shows? What’s the point?
Actually, I considered this his clearest lie. Unlike the majority of entertainer/interviewers, Gross is noted for the fact that she always does read the latest book of her guests, but her interviews rarely focus on promotional questions. Her specialty is getting inside the person she interviews (so that her interviews of Krugman and Norquist were weak for those of us who see such interviews as opportunities to inspect the politics or the economics rather than the person). However, where O’Reilly lied that he was there for the book to be “reviewed,” (It would be interesting to see whether anyone from Fresh Air ever made such a claim with the invitation or even whether it was his publicist that set up the interview), what Gross actually did was provide him an opportunity to defend himself from any charges launched by those who deride him. She asked questions about embarrassing incidents and then allowed him to spin them his way. She did not try to nail him on his lies, but, in her typical fashion, only sought to get him to explain himself.
(She also gave him a solid 8 - 10 minutes to plug the book, which is more than many guests get, so he is lying if he claims the book was not addressed.)
It was apparent early in the interview that he was actually hoping for more confrontation (which led me to suspect his later walkout was staged). Repeatedly she would ask a general question based on news reports, often quoting direct sources, and for the first 15 minutes of the interview, every one of his responses began "YOU may believe. . . " or "YOU want to say. . . " It looked like he was baiting her to attack him while she was giving him the opportunity to explain attacks by other people.
O’Reilly was pure, self-serving hypocrisy with a side order of lies.
Love Terry Gross. Bill O’Reilly is Bill O’Reilly. It certainly wasn’t Gross’ finest hour. Nor was it O’Reilly’s.
Gross clearly doesn’t like Bill O’Reilly. Surprisingly, it showed. Attacking guests is bad form, be it from Bill O’Reilly OR Terry Gross. So shame on her for bringing a “guest” on and then treating him poorly. From the first question, her aggressive questions led him to immediately be put on the defensive and that set the tone for the interview. She did exactly what he accused her of doing, and that is a waging a thinly veiled attack on him in the guise of an interview. Hint: Don’t read the most unflattering quotes about your guest, from your guest’s adversary’s book time and time again, and then wonder why your guest has become hostile. I love Fresh Air and don’t like Bill O’Reilly, but even I cringed at her “questions.” (“So when you are nasty to your guests and tell people who don’t agree with you to “shut up,” are you just being theatrical?”)
Nope, not her best interview.
He, on the other hand, is so full of himself that I’m surprised his head actually fit in the door. His shameless plugs for his book, the name of which I won’t mention because it would please him immensely, were embarrassing. He suffers from one of the most serious character flaws I can imagine, and that is utter lack of humor. As others have said, even Rush Limbaugh has SOME sense of humor about his own buffoonery. O’Reilly needs to learn to laugh at himself and scale back the aggression a degree or 180. His ideas aren’t THAT outrageous. But his delivery is downright alienating.
And he should learn the definition of DEFAMATION.
Most ridiculous quotes:
Bill O’Reilly: “My book (as opposed to Franken’s satirical book) is better because I’m trying to HELP people.”
Terry Gross: “Let me read you this quote from your adversary, the People magazine critic (who LAMBASTS you, then we can all snicker at how you must be squirming in your chair.)”
That was an attack? It looked to me as though it was an opening to let him provide his side of the story–after which she never really challenged any of his bombast.
On the other hand, his responses to even the innocuous questions were all issued with little digs that she was “trying” to make something of nothing, even though she was letting him say whatever he wanted, unchallenged.
PunditLisa, the People magazine quote wasn’t that bad. “Consistency is not his best virtue” is not exactly a horrible insult. O’Reilly critisizes the reviewer for reviewing him and not the book, and then calls him a pinhead. You don’t see that as hypocritical?
Could anyone understand what O’Reilly was getting at with the “I never said we won a Peabody; I misspoke” line of reasoning? Isn’t misspeaking still speaking?
I listened to that interview with Monica. She was very nervous through the whole thing, as Terry’s questions were essentially along the lines of, “What the hell was going through your head when you were going down on the President?” Terry prefaced it by saying she’d agonized over whether to conduct the interview at all, and twenty minutes into the interview, Terry cut back in, saying that Monica had abruptly ended the interview, explaining off-microphone that she’d thought it’d be a puff piece on her new book, not a probe into her psychological failings.