The interviewer is interviewed: Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross.

AJR: One interesting thing about your questioning

technique is that you often ask your guests “How did you

feel?” when key events happened in their lives.

TG: Here’s the thing. I never went to journalism

school, but I think that journalists are usually taught not

to use words like “feel” when what you’re trying to get at

is something that’s more objective. But part of what I’m

interested in when I’m interviewing somebody is their

inner life. So I’m in that murky territory of feeling and

perception. That’s where I try to go, and that’s why the

word “feeling” gets used a whole lot.

Interesting to hear what other interviewers she admires, and the tidbits about the number of people who have walked out on her — Nancy Reagan, Monica Lewinsky, and Jan Wenner of Rolling Stone. Her description of the way she bludgeoned Wenner over the head with some embarrassing data about him, making for the shortest interview she ever did, at less than three minutes before he bailed out, is what some people cherish about her but what makes me cringe every time I hear her wading right in there. Interviewing is, after all, the bread and butter of psychiatric practice…

American Journalism Review

In other NPR news, you’ll recall my coverage of the bitter breakup between the erstwhile host of the nationally syndicated talk show The Connection, Christopher Lydon, and the Boston NPR station where it originated, WBUR. While Lydon is, personally, abit pompous and impatient, especially in response to call-ins from the public, his interviewing skills and helmsmanship of his talk show were unparallelled and made for the consistently most enlightening and listenable talk radio anywhere, at any time. I felt The Connection was Lydon, and would be dead without him.

I got no charge out of the succession of guest hosts WBUR put on the show while waiting to select a new permanent host, whom they’ve now found in one-time Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Dick Gordon (who?). Boston Globe The guest hosting (or “ghost hosting”, as one Lydon-supporting wag put it) interval showed that even very interesting print journalists make stiff radio hosts; the only interesting substitutes were NPR veterans like Nina Totenberg (who couldn’t do much beside politics), Robert Siegel (who would never be lured away from All Things Considered for this!) and Neal Conan (who was in contention with Gordon). Meanwhile, NPR is considering distributing a new syndicated Lydon show. Would WBUR pick it up? The station manager who fired him says she doesn’t want to talk about it. Boston is lucky, however, to have two NPR stations, so I hope WGBH would take a crack at it.