[jacobolus]

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.