I am hooked to Charlie Rose. I think this is a great night-time program - it has become my favorite program to watch on TV just before I fall asleep! I have mentioned before, somewhere in my blog, that I love interviews. Interviews are tricky and good ones are rare. From the interviewer's perspective, it must be a tough job because they have to stay very focused thorough out the period that the interview lasts and then, of course, ask the right/relevant questions. Attentive listening, quick analyzing of answers and following-up on those correctly must be hard. Charlie does all these things very well. His open-ended questions allow interviewees to be as elaborate or as short in their thoughts as they want to be. He clearly does a lot of research beforehand. Also, as he interviews people from all walks of life, can you imagine how intellectually rich he must be!All his interviews are archived on his website. A few of them that I enjoyed watching very much were with:
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
- Bill Clinton
- Lawrence Summers
- Mark Halperin
The only thing is that at times he interrupts his interviewees! And sometimes he may have asked a really key question but we may never hear the answer because he would have stopped them and asked another question...this is the most annoying part of his interviews. The other thing is this: while I think he is really good at US politics, he still doesn't have a full grasp of foreign politics and history, specially the middle east. The interview with the Iran president, Ahmadinejad, was particularly irritating because of Charlie's lack of understanding of the culture and people there plus his defensive and accusatory tone. I thoroughly enjoyed the interview, mainly because of the president's responses and demeanor, but Charlie should have been more respectful to him, no matter what! Given the complexity of situation in the middle east, he should be more of a 'listener' when he talks to leaders of that region rather than a 'talker'.
Interviewing is a talent and requires a brilliant journalist which I believe Charlie is. He has accumulated a lot of experience from so many years of working in television. He mentioned in one of his interviews that as a kid his mom was very happy with him as he used to keep to himself inside his room with a book. His happiest moments used to be when the bookmobile stopped outside his house and he would run to it every time it came by!
In general, interviews are such eye-openers. We hear and read about our politicians, authors, scientists, sportsmen, business leaders etc all the time but to really listen to them talk for an hour really gives great insight into who they really are, their thoughts, personality, family, upbringing etc. And you can learn so much from all of this, its fascinating!
