ISU Bengal

Issue date: 4/27/05 Section: Life

Terry Gross, host of NPR's Fresh Air meet with some of ISU's mass communication students before her presentation Wednesday night, giving them the opportunity to ask her questions about her show, her interviewing style and some of her past guests. Here are some of the more interesting points from that meet and greet session.



Terry Gross: "I have a set of ground rules that I follow for the people that I interview, and therefore I have two sets of rules. Some of the interviews are with artist, actors, comics, musicians, and writers, but the other set of rules that I use has to deal with politics and politicians. With artists I have them draw the line between what's right and wrong in the questions. They are telling about personal things, but maybe a question is too personal. So I tell them "if I ask you anything too personal, you let me know." The freedom to draw the line, is a license to do anything. However I don't do that with politicians. They walk into an interview with their answers already composed. I know that they have a private life, but they also serve an elected office. When politicians are passing legislation that is going to regulate our private life, then I think that it's legitimate to ask that person anything. "



Student Question: You pre-record your interviews, so how does that influence your interviews and your guests answers?



Gross: "I will tell the guest that "if at any point you figure out what you want to say after you have already answered the questions, feel free to back up to an earlier part of the answer." Is that bad journalistically? My whole product is me asking and them answering. If it's a confusing answer, or sentence, if it's not coherent, or clear or precise it's not useable. That unfair answer is not going to help anybody, it's not going to help our guest or our listens, and I want to give them a second chance to get it right. Because I know that the interviews are gong to be edited, I try to arrange them in a narrative order.



Student Question: What's your advice about interviewing people?



Gross: "Here is my theory about interviewing - go with your strengths. Develop that part of yourself and make it work for you. The last the thing you want to do as a journalist is be phony, it's bad. You don't have to be aggressive to get the story. The producers get the person to give the interviews, so I am lucky in that respect."



Student Question: How has media changed?

Continued...

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