I’m happy to report that Fresh Air, my favorite NPR production, is now availble as a free podcast. Terry Gross may very well be the single best interviewer I have ever heard. She can take what would be a mundane chat with an entertainer and turn it into a dialogue that tells us something profound about that individual and their approach to their art.
I have to mention that some accuse Terry Gross of “flirting” with her guests on occasion. I think she’s just a genuinely nice person who doesn’t feel the need to browbeat her guests for no reason. She doesn’t throw softballs at guests Like Larry King, but she also doesn’t feel the need to make them cry like Barbara Walters. It’s alway clear that she isn’t the center of the interview. It’s all about the subject.
For evidence of the show’s greatness, download the Fresh Air interview with Win Butler and Régine Chassagne of Arcade Fire. She gets more out of them than I would have ever expected.
(Note: A little birdie told me that only the 10 most recent episodes will be avalaible on iTunes. Of course, once you download them, they’re yours.)
[...] way I can describe the program, and its host, is to say that is is a sort of hipster version of Fresh Air. The host is a young, seemingly-cool, definitely smart, Canadian lad. On consecutive nights, I saw [...]
It’s hard to beat Howard Stern for a truly outstanding interviewer. He gets people to say really unpredictable things that they’d never say anywhere else.