2008 Woodie Awards
Terry Gross, NPR Fresh Air host, visits ISU
Melissa Cisneros
Issue date: 4/20/05 Section: Life
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Listening to National Public Radio is a lifestyle of sorts, a daily habit that some people find addictive. And every evening at 7:00 p.m. you'll find those people not watching "must see t.v." but listening - listening to Terry Gross and her show "Fresh Air." Her guest and topics range from asking tax questions to Grover Norguist, head of American for Tax Reform and reputed architect of President Bush's tax cuts, to an interview with Tommy Chong, promoting his latest endeavor the play "The Marijuana-Logues". There's no formula, no gimmicks, just a little Q and A with the worlds news makers.
Award-winning NPR host Terry Gross will be making a stop here today in Pocatello at ISU, with her presentation "Lively Interviews About the Arts and Times". Gross hosts "Fresh Air" a daily nationwide syndicated radio show carried on 330 NPR station with 2.9 million listeners in the United States and Japan.
Harvard University has called Terry Gross "NPR's most seductive voice," and with a brain to match Terry Gross and her show "Fresh Air" are unlike any other talk-show on the broadband. Admired by many for her ability to interview anyone, Scott Simon of NPR called her "the best interviewer in the English language bar none."
When Gross graduated from State University of New York in Buffalo with a B.A. in English, her first job naturally was teaching English, it lasted six weeks. Gross said that her statue of just over 5' feet and her inability to be an authority figure ended any aspirations of teaching. Eventually Gross got a job in 1973 at WBFO in Buffalo, NY , and fell in love with public radio. In a July 2000 interview with the magazine Mother Jones, Gross talks about what it was like being 23 when she started "Fresh Air" and her experience with that.
"When I started out I was 23 and looking much younger...Everybody I interviewed seemed so much older and wiser, and my approach was based on, "Hey, I'm almost still a kid: share your wisdom, tell me what you know," said Gross.
Three years later Gross was living in Philadelphia, as producer and host of WHYY's "Fresh Air." The rest, as they say, is "history"
Since her September 1975 arrival at WHYY, Gross has interviewed everyone on her wish list including Dennis Hopper, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Walken, Stephen Sondheim and Stephen King.
Not all interviews have been a pleasure and one of her most infamous interviews happened when Gross interviewed Kiss lead singer Gene Simmons in February 2002. The interview went so bad that the interview transcripts became unavailable to the public. Gross herself received over 3,000 e-mails about the incident, mostly sympathy for having to deal with Simmons.