Missed the edit window -
Basically, I think King is just lazy, and not having to research his guests allowed him to make big bucks while still only having to spend an hour a day or so at work.
James Lipton disagrees, and James Lipton is a much, much better interviewer than King.
They can be. But I can’t count how many times I’ve seen him interrupt a guest making an interesting point to make a not particularly funny (IMHO) joke.
The first (and last) interview I ever watched from beginning to end by Larry King was probably a decade or so ago, with Eric Clapton. Eric Freaking Clapton. It was obvious from alomst the first question that King knew nothing, forcing Clapton to correct him on several topics (“First of all, it said “Clapton is God” on one train car, not all over London” etc…) and Clapton got visibly more agitated by the incompetence of his interviewer as the show wore on. I could not have been more appalled. And, some time later, when I heard that King deliberately goes into interviews knowing nothing, my head just about exploded. That attitude is 100% wrong and is an utter insult to every journalist who actually takes pride in his/her work.
I was going to mention Linehan. I can’t count the number of times he would quote – from memory – some obscure passage from some years-ago interview in some minor publication and have the subject’s eyes go wide and immediately reply, “I can’t believe you know that. I don’t even remember that and I said it!” That guy was not only supremely well prepared for his job, but he also knew how to follow questions up and keep the process lively, engaging, and fascinating. It was a sad day when he passed away.
Stephen Colbert said in an interview that Stewart is the fastest reader he’s ever met.
My all-time favorite interview program has not been mentioned yet - Later with Bob Costa. Amazing television, a bright, well-prepared interviewer who could make anyone come across as interesting as well.
Bob Costas, and I agree. I remember staying up till 1am to watch that show as a teenager. Bob’s totally wasted as a sports reporter. (Ok, maybe I just don’t care about sports.) He’s an absolutely top notch celebrity interviewer. I really felt like I got to know his interviewees.
This philosophy contributed to Larry King’s appearance of pathetic, infuriating senescence as early as 1985.
I suppose it may have worked for him, in the sense that he continued to interview people for decades in spite of the observable fact that he sucked at it - but you could pick practically anybody out of managed care to give an interview at least as good as Larry King ever did.
Jesus Christ, I’m glad he’s finally off the fecking air. He used to drive me into apoplexy regularly, back when I was watching CNN regularly.
I also loved it that he took the Martin Short SCTV parody of him with such grace.
I’ve conducted interviews as part of an oral history project. While I didn’t know everything about the people I interviewed, I certainly knew about the organization they were involved with, what was going on in the organization when they were members and other similar pertinent information. Without some background information I would have been unable to ask intelligent questions. Worse than that, I would not have been able to maintain focus when the interview went off on a tangent. So the less an interviewer knows the less effective the interview is.
I’m curious where Craig Ferguson falls on this spectrum - he makes a point of ripping up the prepared questions at the start of each interview, but he is much smarter than he usually lets on, and he seems to know everything he should know about his guests and asks good questions and still keeps it interesting and funny and pretty much goes wherever the guest takes him.
Yeah, but watch that clip… Larry King clearly says “You gave it up, right? So they didn’t cancel you. You cancelled them.” He knows the facts. Seinfeld’s just flying off the handle over some misinterpretation of King’s intent.
He comes of as if he heard a rumor he’s trying to confirm, not that he knows the facts. If he wanted to come of knowledgeable, he could have asked
“So, you quit your TV show while it is the number 1 rated TV show on television. What motivated you to do that?”
Instead he asks,
“So you gave it up, they didn’t cancel you, right?”
One is informed and directing the question, the other is laughably idiotic. Guess which one King asked.
You are right, and I actually think Jerry Seinfeld was pretty petty about the whole thing. It sounded as if it was something King knew, but decided to address it as a question.