All of the recent celebrity confession interviews begs the question: Is there a TV journalist alive who is actually capable of a hard-news interview, capable of a televised examination of a person's character and actions? All we seem to have left are the soft, fluffy interviewers or the self-promoting, bloviating blowhards who don't actually listen to the answers or ask follow-up questions.
Back in the day, Tom Snyder interviewed Ayn Rand and, very gently and without malice, exposed her as the evil creature that she was (that interview should air nightly on MSNBC). Edward R Murrow could do fluff to pay the bills but also pushed subjects in interviews to their respective breaking points. The Frost Nixon series, the veterans of "60 Minutes," the guys with cigarettes in one hand and an index card in the other who made people express genuine remorse as opposed to marketing-coached remorse -- where did they all go? Surely in this age of deconstructing everyone and everything, there is a market for candid, intelligent, and sometimes (when called for) brutal hard interviews? The only candidate I see for a decent interviewer is Jon Stewart, but I think he'd be the first to point out how sad that is and how far the bar has been lowered for that to be the case. And with Stewart, if he isn't personally engaged with the subject or the topic, he's no better than Leno or Letterman or any of the others who phone it in. Anyone else have any candidates? -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
