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For decades, the television interview has been its own art form, with interviewers whose fame often equaled their subjects. In 1953, CBS began broadcasting Person to Person, a spontaneous talk show hosted by the revered war correspondent Edward R. Murrow, who chatted with movie stars and other public figures at home. The blurred line between news and entertainment goes back a long time. These shows could have a big influence in those days before cable and some broadcast channels streaming. In its global reach and impact, the last actual interview is a throwback.
But even in a different television era, interviews that changed the trajectory of narrative like Oprah’s, or provided quotes that entered the culture, were rare. There was a multi-part conversation from David Frost in 1977 with a defensive, post-Watergate Richard Nixon, who said of his crimes: “When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.” Frost was skeptical, but the claim had repercussions during the Trump years. Resounding with the last royal interview, in 1995 was Martin Bashir with Princess Diana, who famously said: “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.” There was no going back for her after that.
But for every jaw-dropping interview like that, there are plenty more like Diane Sawyer’s widely viewed chat with Michael Jackson in 1995, scheduled to promote a new album and the first Jackson had given since he was accused of child sexual abuse two years earlier. Sawyer’s weak follow-ups allowed him to evade any hard-hitting questions. The Los Angeles Times said that “the media was left to use,” and the Vanity Fair headline called the broadcast The Jackson Jive, arguing that “Many with detailed knowledge of the case were dismayed … by the lack of preparation. of Sawyer or his inability to follow within the format dictated by Jackson’s forces. “
Today, Oprah may be the only person who could have obtained a substantial interview with the Duke and Duchess. As she pointed out at the beginning of the two-hour special, they are her neighbors from California and she was invited to their wedding. that gave him a main dish that few people could claim. For us mere deadly journalists, celebrity interviews are based on a useful artifice. We meet for coffee, or over the past year at Zoom, we have a nice talk where the subject tries to get his message across, the journalist pushes for something new, and we both go back to our real lives. But talking to these royals is Oprah’s real life. Rather, Frost had to pay Nixon to sit with him. CBS reportedly paid Oprah’s producer $ 7 million for the American rights, but as noted at the beginning of the interview, none of that was for the Sussexes.
The journalistic strategies in these groundbreaking extravagances were effective in very different ways. Bashir simply leaned back and gave directions to Diana. She was ready to speak and he stayed out of her way. (There have been allegations that Bashir used false documents to persuade Diana to participate, but the Metropolitan Police have ruled out any criminal activity.) Frost was armed with a wealth of facts and used them to calmly pressure Nixon on legal and moral issues. Above all, he used the evidence to allow Nixon, who had been hoping to rehabilitate his image, to hang himself. The most memorable television interviews, like these, enter popular culture. Peter Morgan turned verbal combat into Frost / Nixon, a 2006 play, and then a 2008 film starring Frank Langella and Michael Sheen, both versions with a style and volume more dramatic than real-life inspiration.
