Charlie Rose gets lots of inside access and high-powered guests because his MO is to kiss up to powerful people, ask softball questions, and follow whatever plan he made for the interview, regardless of the answers he gets. He almost never asks useful follow-up questions, often doesn’t seem to pay any attention to what his guests have to say, and asks lots of moronic paragraphs-long yes-or-no questions (my favorite answer to one of these was from IIRC Bill Joy from maybe 15 years ago “[3 second pause] Well, Duh.”). As an interviewer qua interviewer, he’s the worst in public broadcasting. But of course, his show is still sometimes worth watching, because he ends up getting lots of great guests.
I cant disagree with you more . I am long time hn lurker and this is my first post. I have been religiously watching Charlie Rose for the last decade . He is one of the best interviewers in the game . I learned more about the NSA surveillance program from this one hour interview than every other newsgroup ( tv , reddit , hn etc ) combined over the last week.
He really is a genius . He gets more out of the guest than anyone else. People sometime think that interviewer should be aggressive try to catch the interview off guard , make home slip etc. This approach doesn't help anyone.The guest just become defensive and tries to pick and chose every word while the interviewer just comes off the as dick.
I takes a long time to appreciate Charile's Rope-a-dope style of interviewing.He just keeps sucking up to the guest lets him get through all of their talking points they have memorized and then the magic happens.
I’ve been watching Charlie’s interviews since I was in middle school in the late 90s, and his interview style can be roughly broken into two categories as follows:
1. (If the guest someone powerful and mainstream of high status and inside access, someone like a business tycoon or politician or beltway pundit.) Ask inane softball questions, talk the guest up, agree with everything said, and generally make himself seem like an enormous ass-kisser. Praise the guest’s wisdom and insight. (For the most obnoxious examples of this, see his numerous interviews with the invariably clueless Thomas Friedman.)
2. (If the guest is a more marginal figure, e.g. an academic or an activist, or really anyone with an opinion that Charlie hadn’t considered before or doesn’t want to hear.) Interrupt the guest, ask inane questions, when they answer in a way he doesn’t want ask the same question over and over again until they’re thoroughly fed up. Condescend as much as possible. Intentionally chop off their interesting sentences halfway through and redirect the conversation back to whatever “setup” thing Charlie is thinking about.
The occasional sports star, movie director, etc. ends up with a somewhat better interview, because in those cases he’s not spending all his effort trying to push his own point-of-view and sometimes he even listens to the guest.
Find any week when the same guest was on both Charlie’s show and Fresh Air. Listen to Terry Gross’s masterful interviewing in delight. Listen to Charlie’s awful awful interview and bash your head into the wall until all that remains is a dent and some bloody pulp.
