Charlie Rose

Charlie Rose's hour-long interview with Bernie Sanders on 26 Oct 2015 was, once again, hardly up to the standards one would expect from a televised interview series that has appeared on PBS for nearly a quarter-century.

Rose's aggressive, sometimes shabby, treatment of guests who challenge his neo-liberal bias and that of the show's funders is not new. See, for example, Scott F's comment (23 May 2015) on Rose's variable manner with other political guests:

"Two examples will hopefully illustrate {Rose's 'scrappy' biased interview style}. When Thomas L. Friedman is the guest (as he has been countless times) , I sit and wait for the moment when Charlie is going to bend forward to kiss Friedman's ring, as if everything Friedman says is as epochal as a papal homily. Contrast that with when someone from the political left is the guest (hardly ever, of course). When Noam Chomsky was the guest several years ago, Charlie attacked from every direction everything that Chomsky said, and that was after Charlie fessed up that Chomsky was one of the most requested guests ever by the viewers."

Rose made Sanders his new Chomsky. I did not count how many times Rose (a lawyer by training) put leading questions to Sanders, only to cut him off mid-sentence with additional questions. But it had to number in the dozens. Sanders took Rose's rapid-fire interruptions with good grace, perhaps sensing how many viewers would sympathize with him. And Sanders likely knew that sooner or later Rose was bound to slip up and let him (accidentally?) answer one of Rose's questions fully.

Despite Rose's persistent dismembering of Sanders' concisely articulated and well-supported explanations of his campaign's purpose, Sanders got a number of key ideas across. In the process, he nudged Rose into seeing that health care and education didn't really belong in the "social welfare program" drawer to which Rose had relegated them.

One marvels that Rose seems unaware that, to the politically savvy, the normative overtones Rose takes with guests whose opinions — left, right, economic, medical, artistic — veer from the beaten path betray him as a loyal defender of an elite-consecrated status quo.

Whatever talents Charlie Rose's decades on the air may confer, his most glaring professional deficit is his inability to get out of the way of guests who don't fit his Procrustean mold. Let them make their cases without the badgering, Charlie!

When it comes to effectively interviewing people who hold opinions at odds with his own, Rose has quite a few things to learn from NPR's Terry Gross and former late-night king Jon Stewart. Only, as a 73-year- old establishment-beholden millionaire, Rose may now be too comfortable with his Janus-faced role as darling/bulldog to sniff them out.

The ruminations on this "show" like other PBS offerings are meant more to ease the troubled brow than to inform. Which is too bad, because one thinks they're getting insight into high profile personalities; the movers and shakers of North America. But alas, it's not so. It's more or less a program designed to appease the hyperactive mind.

I recall Bill Buckley being interviewed and saying how tired he was of life. He wasn't. I remember a number of entertainment figures making similar comments that might seem to give us insight into their minds. He never did, and never will.

Well, the nation has its share of nut cases. But, when a program such as this is needed to sooth the alleged "disturbed minds", is it not time to take stock of what the values of good "emotional health" really are? Is it not the case that perhaps that which is being medicated is a matter of justice, and not a matter of medicine?

Oh well.

Watch it if you must, but you'd be better served watching mainstream broadcast sound bite media than this garbage.

In plainer language, it's more Mental Health TV.

It's an outpatient "facility" aired on PBS.

I enjoy Charlie's interviews greatly--they represent a rare oasis on television, a quiet half-hour or hour devoted to intelligent, thoughtful conversation. How rare is that?! But it kind of breaks down when Charlie is interviewing celebrities, particularly famous actors. Charlie kind of loses it with those people, becoming a bit fawning and, it would seem, a bit envious. I don't know what accounts for this--perhaps Mr Rose always wanted to be an actor, I don't know.

But this perception usually leads me to skip his interviews with actors, unless it's someone who I haven't heard from before. But there were even a couple of such programs where I couldn't get through the whole show because of Charlie's going ga-ga within minutes of the start. In those times I think of Charlie as a red carpet interviewer before the Academy Awards, except the people who do THOSE interviews usually maintain a better emotional balance.

Watched him for years with such dedication and admiration. He was my greatest mentor who opened doors enlightening my world. Has he been spread too thin or perhaps it is a problem with the producers not lining up better interviews? But, more times than naught, I have to change the channel. I think, at times, even he is bored with the hyperbole expressed by his artist or fictional writer guests. If anyone is amused by this rhetoric, it would amaze me. There is nothing they contribute to my intellect or interest. Or, perhaps he has at last, let his simple minded morning co-host Gail, a bleak match up, wear off on him. Charlie, please get back on tract, I miss you.

I love watching this show. Charlie comes across as truly interested in his subjects and unlike others in his field, doesn't tend to take sides. He has a sense of humor and he has a wide range of guests, from the Nobel prize winners to the lamest celebrity on earth. However, I enjoy watching them because Charlie Rose seems born to interview and to interview correctly for the person across from him. Tom Cruise? No, I'm sorry, I'll pass on that one. However an hour with Tom Hanks? Could that be so horrible? I doubt it. Everyone needs a break from the constant political backbiting and drum beating once in a while and I appreciate his "fun" shows. Sometimes, you just want to listen to why "Run, Forest, run" was so catchy. Lighten up!