The New Yorker Radio Hour - Terry Gross Talks with David Remnick

Episode Date: January 3, 2020

David Remnick has appeared as the guest of Terry Gross on “Fresh Air” a number of times over the years, talking about Russia, Muhammad Ali, and other subjects. Hosting “Fresh Air” for nearly forty-five years, Gross is a defining voice of NPR, and is perhaps the most celebrated interviewer of our time. In October, 2019, the tables turned, and Gross joined Remnick as his guest for a live interview at The New Yorker Festival. They spoke about how she first found her way to the microphone, the role of feminism in establishing NPR, the limits of her expertise, and what she has had to give up to prepare for serious conversations day after day. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. I've got a little confession to make. When I first started doing this program, I was more than a little anxious. I've been a print journalist all my life, a writer and an editor. But talking to you in my own voice, on the radio, or a podcast, felt a little alien. So to prepare myself, I decided to study the great ones. And at the very top of that list has got to be Terry Gross. Gross has been the host of fresh air for nearly 45 years. And over that time, she's interviewed thousands and thousands of guests from Ray Charles to Hillary Clinton to, I don't know,

any summary of her big guests doesn't actually do her justice. Terry is perhaps the best interviewer of our time. Let's strike the perhaps. She is. Terry Gross joined me in October 2019 at the New Yorker Festival. We're the crowd welcomed her like a rock star. Terry, I'm basically going to steal tips from you. I don't really care about them.

I want to know how you do it because when you go into an interview, it's obvious to me, and I think all your listeners from the get-go, that you are so grounded in the knowledge that's necessary to have for an extended. for an extended real conversation. I'd like to know about process. What goes into your week? How does it work? Well, okay, I do the research

the afternoon and the night before. And then in the morning, I write up the questions. My interview is often at 10 in the morning. So I don't have a lot of time to do anything, really. And then after that, I'm reading the copy to introduce guests. while the show is actually on the air, so to speak, I'm in the studio just in case,

but I've tried to pre-record all the introductions, and I'm writing copy for tomorrow's show while our show is on, and then back to the rest. And you don't do it all yourself. God knows, even on our modest show, I have a team of people that works very hard to do research and book people and all the rest. You've had some of the same people for a very long,

time. Yeah, we have a great generational mix on our show. People are in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. We try so hard to keep up with pop culture. It's not possible anymore. There is just too much to keep up with. So they go to the film festivals and watch all the Netflix stuff that's coming out and all the screenings and TV shows. And then they'll give me like little film festival things. They'll show me scenes from earlier movies. I'll see the new movie. and maybe I've seen some of their old movies already, but then they'll show me scenes from movies. Or if it's one of those like 20 episodes,

they drop at the same time kind of things, the producers will watch the episodes, give me a good sense of like the highlights, show me scenes. But when it comes to the book, with few exceptions, I will be the one who reads the book and reads the research and, you know,

do all the processing of that. One of the distinguishing features of your show and being on it is that we're never in the same, very rarely in the same room with you. I've been interviewed by you, as a lot of people at the New Yorker have, and what they do is they go to a public radio studio and they put on headphones, and sooner or later, after the usual, what did you have for breakfast to get sound levels, you come on and you welcome us and you give us a few rules.

What are they? Okay, the advice I always give, it's kind of like the Bill of Rights that I read, to people. And I tell them that since we're recording, they should feel free to take advantage of that. If at any point in the middle of an answer, if they feel like they figured out

what they really wanted to say, or they just thought of a clearer, better, more concise way of putting it, and they want a second crack at it, they can back up to an earlier part of the answer and say it again. But if they do that, they should start at the beginning of a sentence so we can make a clean edit. And if I ask them

anything too personal, they should let me know, and I'll move on to something else. and I'll also tell them, like, if I make a mistake, interrupt me and correct me. That way I can say it again and get it right. We can edit out the error and prevent it from going on the air and prevent it from being on your Wikipedia page forever. Now, I think you probably know what's coming next. I was raised in print journalism, and if I were interviewing Henry Kissinger,

and it slipped out of his mouth, tomorrow I'm going to bomb Cambodia and then he said wait a minute I didn't mean that I wouldn't and we were on the record I wouldn't give him a backseat I wouldn't let him redo it

I understand it completely for lots of other fields and of endeavor but particularly in political conversation consequential Yes and I neglected to say I do not do that with politicians So who would you not do it with Anybody who's in elected office

or running for elected office. But I don't interview them anyway. Yeah, you don't like doing politicians, do you? No, because for two reasons. One is I feel like they walk in with their talking points and no matter what you ask them, that's what they're going to tell you. And the other thing is, I think if you're interviewing a politician,

you owe it to your readers or to your listeners to know the difference between the bullshit and the truth. and if you're not following them on a regular basis, you're not going to necessarily be able to catch that. If I'm doing, say, like, three hours of research, even if I'm taking off a day just to prepare for that interview, I'm not going to know enough to know when they're just being hypocritical or denying an action, covering up an action.

If you're following them, if you're covering them on your beat, you will know the difference. be able to catch them in that. So I feel like unprepared and therefore inept at doing that. I just don't, I take politics too seriously to be in the position where I'm letting somebody get away with something. How soon into an interview do you know this is going to be good or this is going to be not so good? Sometimes I feel like I know on the sound check. Sometimes somebody is so kind of grumpy and just like, oh, they made me be here. It says that my contract, I have to be here to promote and I'm here. What do you want for me? And you can just tell. Sometimes you get past

the first few questions and suddenly you hear a shift. And you hear like somebody's kind of clicking in and engaging. And that's, it's great when that happens. And there's an advantage to being in Philadelphia by yourself. It seems paradox. to me because you would think, as in the conversation we're having now, despite the fact that there are all these other people, we have physical cues. We have ways that our eyes work or our hands or something to indicate confusion or ask me more or back off or something. You don't have that, but maybe you're listening better. I don't know. Well, I was thinking the best of all possible world since we're both just hearing each other, that we're making better radio because everything

has to, all the cues have to be in our voices. And whether that's actually true or not in terms of being effective, I don't know. But there is something incredibly surprisingly intimate about having somebody's voice just fed into your ears directly kind of into your head and your brain. Terry, you grew up in Brooklyn, I grew up in New Jersey, same radio air. if we're being honest with ourselves in when we were kids and you're just a little older than me there were no women on the radio there was alison alison steel the night bird the night bird w-n-wfm yes kind of purring into the exactly into the microphone the night will soothe you like a tender mother folding you against her soft bosom and hiding you from the harm of the world

in this brief hour you are master of all highways And the universe nestles in your soul. So come, fly with me. Allison Steele, the nightbird at WNAW FM in stereo. And that was it. What were you listening to and what excited you? Well, when I was very young, I was listening to AM radio. Marie the K was my favorite.

I used to love how he would, he'd play the instrumental part, talk over it, knew exactly how many seconds it was going to take. And as soon as you stop talking, the vocal would start. And it would be just like perfect timing. Yes, we're in a care of the Beatles, and we're talking to you from London, England, where it's all happening over here. What you're about to hear happened in Miami. Ringo and I sitting on the beach.

Now, there was a period of your life where you kind of, as I understand it, a little on the directionless side. I think the Amish would call it a room springer. When you're in your early 20s and you go to sort of shed your identity from Sheep's Head Bay a little bit, you were in a hippie commune, am I right? Well, to be precise. When I was in college, we called it a collective, not a commune, in the sense that at least for a long period we'd share our money and the cooking and the cleaning and all that, which I think is a very sensible, you know, arrangement to have. And then we did something really silly. We spent the summer on a professor's land, living in 10th.

And when it would really storm, we'd go to the Dunkin' Donuts. And that would be my favorite part. I was so not cut out for, like, living in tents. Yeah. You know. You wouldn't have done well at Woodstock, I don't think. Oh, I went to Woodstock. Yeah.

Yeah. What did you think you were going to do with your life? You're in Buffalo and you were studying to teach. You were a teacher for a little while. I was a teacher. I got fired within six weeks because I was that good. That's a bad teacher. How'd you get fired in six weeks?

Well, it was kind of easy. It was eighth grade English junior high and Buffalo, New York's toughest inner city junior high. When someone from the board of Ed came to, like... Observe. Observe me. My students overturned the bookcase as if to send a direct message, like, she doesn't know what she's doing.

And I didn't. I didn't. I didn't know how to keep them in the classroom, let alone to teach. It seems harsh, though, to get five and six weeks. I was really short then, like I'm short now. And, you know, I wasn't much older than they were, and I really didn't know how to be an authority figure. They needed structure.

They needed security. Those were the things that they often didn't have at home or in the streets, and I didn't know how to give it to them. So you go back home in defeat, maybe doing some typing, I think. I worked at temp agencies where I got criticized for when there was no work to do reading. Yeah. So you decided to make a virtual. It was a terrible thing. Terrible terrible thing.

But so radio came to, it seems to me, in a pretty odd way. There was a feminist radio station or a feminist radio show in Buffalo? The famous radio show at the college station, which I had been listening to at another job I had, which was typing the Buffalo State College Faculty Policy Manual. So, you know, work doesn't get more interesting than that. So I had on WBFO the station on the college campus in the background, and like, oh, God, the shows were so good. and when my job at the faculty policy manual was over,

because I had typed everything. Efficient. I ended up having a roommate back in the house that was not a commune, who was going to be on the feminist show, and it turns out that she came out on the show, and then her girlfriend was moving to the lesbian feminist show, opening up a place on the feminist show, Which is the, right, which is a long story, but I ended up taking that place.

Terry Gross at the New Yorker Festival. When we continue, we'll hear about how being on the radio helped her overcome her shyness. You're listening to The New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The holidays are over, so it's back to work or whatever else you've got going on. And to cheer you up a little bit, we're going to feature today none other than Terry Gross.

Mary and I spoke at the New Yorker Festival about her very first time hosting a radio show. What was that first show like? What was your voice like? My voice was kind of like that. Like, it was really high? Because, one, because I was younger. Two, because when I get nervous, my voice tends to get high. And that was especially true before I understood how my voice worked. How did you do that? In other words, how did you, listen to yourself, train yourself, and make it the voice that we hear every day and love? Well, when I first heard my voice, it was really a horrible experience.

I don't know if that's true for people now because people have cell phones and you can record your voice on it, but I hadn't heard my voice. And so, you know, the way our voice is sound between our ears is very different than they sound on tape. So when I heard it on tape, it was like, oh my God, do I sound that way? And I tried to speak more slowly. I tried to not sound kind of like this. But it's hard. You know, it's hard.

But one of the smartest things I did, I think, I took Alexander lessons, which is a posture. You know about it? I don't. Oh, it's called Alexander Technique and it's posture lessons. Don't judge my posture. I'm still not very well-patured, but it's British actors take Alexander Technique lessons and a lot of musicians do too because you get tendonitis

like if you hold your wrist wrong and you're playing guitar or piano or any instrument. So they teach you like how to hold things in alignment so A, that you don't hurt and B, just so everything is aligned. And part of that, if, like, if you're talking like this or talking like that, it's going to affect your vocal cords. Okay, so teach me. I need to sit up straight.

And to breathe from the diaphragm. Oh, like a singer. Like a singer. Right. I was talking to a friend at WNYC, and she said, you know, the thing you have to understand about a career like Terry Gross

is that it was made possible by the fact that public radio paid so poorly that women came to public radio. So, Koki Roberts, Susan Stamberg, and the rest of that, the whole all things considered crew, which was quite female compared to the rest of radio. True? Okay, there's probably some truth to that, because men could get higher salaries, and public radio was brand new.

In the early 70s, right? Something like that? Yes, in the early 70s. But there's other reasons for it. One of the reasons is named Bill Seamering. Because Bill Searing, the first vice president for programming, or first head of programming, was, I mean, he was just had feminist values. And he hired Susan Stenberg, and he hired other women. He wanted women on the air.

And he was told, you're making a big mistake. But he knew he wasn't. And he set the tone. There was the voice of authority from New York. male voice, reading the news, not really hearing from people they were talking about. There weren't women on the air. I don't think there were hardly any people of color on air. So I believe that if you have the diversity of the country reflected on air, you'll have a diverse audience. If people hear their own voice, their own perspective being acknowledged, they will pay

attention. But another reason why is public radio NPR, the talent, a lot of it came from the local stations, stations like WBFO and Buffalo where I worked. And because feminism was so active on college campuses then, that was like round zero for most of the feminist movement in a lot of ways. And so feminists like me were coming to their public radio station on the college campus and getting their start there. You know, there was so, like, it was the start of the new wave of the women's movement. And you were hearing that on the local public radio stations. And it helped feed NPR because that's where a lot of the talent was coming from. You once wrote this. I often ask my guests about what they consider to be their invisible weaknesses and shortcomings.

I do this because these are the characteristics that define us no less than our strengths. What we feel sets us apart from other people is often the thing that shapes us as individuals. What do you see as your own invisible weaknesses, especially vis-a-vis your professional life? Because I don't see any. I admit I'm perfect But since you asked I'll try to find a couple Yeah

I think you know I've overcome this But I was an inherently shy person And like the microphone Kind of liberated me To ask things And to have a power That I never felt that I had

And it was hard at first I didn't know how to do it at first But I enjoyed it immediately You got off on it in a certain way. Well, it was like, you know, I like theater, but I'm not an actor. I like reading, but I never got to talk to authors. I love movies, and I never got to talk to the people who make them. And this was a way of doing things like that.

It's permission. It's permission. And it's permission, you know, I grew up socialized to be liked. You know, I'm from the generation of women where, you know, be nice, be liked, don't create a problem. And like suddenly, like, no, it's not about being liked. It's about doing your job, holding people accountable, asking, asking probing questions, asking sensitive questions.

Is there any relationship between conversation and therapy? Have you ever gone through therapy at all? I mean, I see a therapist, and I love therapy. because, you know, but it's a really different relationship and I'll try to define the difference. Like when you're in therapy, the therapist's job is to help me, right? To help me understand myself

and get through life in as painless a way as possible. Ideally, yes. And to help me think through matters that are very perplexing and that are making it hard, for me to move forward. But the job of the interviewer, I'm not there to be your life coach or to help you solve your problems. I am there to help you clarify your thoughts, to help you express the thoughts, to help shape the narrative that I'm going to try to move you through,

and to ask you questions that I think might be helpful in maybe even in framing some new thoughts. and perhaps in seeing something in a different way, but probably not. That's the best possible scenario. But you seem uniquely able to get people to unburden themselves or be honest about themselves. I look back to an interview that you did with the great artist Maurice Sendak. And his capacity to talk to you about issues of, and these are issues that you that are run throughout your interviews about mortality and illness and dying, You're not easy to talk to about anybody, much less a stranger, over a dedicated line. It's astonishing.

My tears. Did they die very recently? He died the day before, yes. Are you at the point where you feel like you've outlived a lot of people who you loved? Yes, of course. Do you have any theory of why you become this receptacle of that kind of? Well, with Maurice, I mean, I'd had, I'd been interviewing him over the years. years. So I wouldn't say we were friends, but we were interview buddies by that point.

Right. Like we'd been through it before, but I think I kind of learned as an interviewer and as an interviewee that the way to get somebody to speak honestly and openly isn't to flatter them or to show off. It's to ask questions that show your comprehension, if you can, of the work that they've done and show through your questions that it has deeply affected you, that it matters to you. Terry, thank you, and thank you all. Terry Gross, the host of fresh air since 1975. We spoke at the New Yorker Festival in October 2019. Special thanks to radio diaries and Joe Richmond, who interviewed the NPR pioneer Bill Seymory. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour and I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining me today and I hope you'll join us next time.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tuneiards with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Carrillo, Riannon Corby, Karen Frulman, Kalalia, David Krasnow, Caroline Lester, Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses, and Stephen Valentino. This week's episode was produced with help from Rhonda Sherman and David Ohana of the New Yorker Festival. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.