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T A B L E++T A L K How do you parent differently from your parents? Join the discussion in the Mothers area of Table Talk - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Don't complain. Don't explain. Don't call me Mom Are we there yet? Nursing death Ballad of a bohemian childhood BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - - Mamafesto
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T U R N I N G_.T H E_.T A B L E S_.O N
________SALON GETS PERSONAL WITH NPR'S
BY LORI LEIBOVICH | Last March, in his now-defunct New York Times column, cultural critic Greil Marcus argued that the voices of National Public Radio were stale, mechanical and out of touch. Linda Wertheimer and Ann Taylor "share the remarkable ability to look down their noses while talking through them"; Robert Siegel is "terribly earnest, while at the same time suggesting he's not very interested"; and Bob Edwards of "Morning Edition" "drones with little broadcasting tics to keep your ear attuned to the blanket of syllables issuing from his mouth." Only one member of the NPR crew was spared Marcus' vitriol: Terry Gross, host of the daily, hour-long arts and culture program "Fresh Air." "Gross is characteristically eager, but not naive," wrote Marcus. "You hear enthusiasm in her voice, but also experience and skepticism." Marcus isn't the only journalist to swoon over Gross -- other colleagues speak of her with reverence, as do her listeners, many of whom say "Fresh Air" is their favorite part of the day or the only thing that gets them through a long commute. And her guests declare her unrivaled among interviewers. An icon of the intellectual elite, Gross elicits great new information from overinterviewed celebrities and public figures. She's a sympathetic, intelligent listener who can also push hard when necessary. Through Gross' intimate show -- which is part autobiography, part documentary and part kaffeklatsch -- her fans come to feel as if they know her. Her voice is vivid, her emotional range so vast that it is possible to imagine the hand gestures and facial expressions of her and her guests. Through her inflections, giggles and curiosity, she manages to sound more human and sincere than most television broadcasters look. And it is her humanity -- the sense that she is insecure and fallible just like the rest of us -- that one is struck with upon meeting her. Gross is not glamorous or gregarious, and she is not warm -- at least not right away. When we talked at the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where she was a guest lecturer in the spring, she was somewhat stiff until the tape recorder was turned off. While she is terribly reflective about her work and at times quite revealing about her personal life, she seems deeply uncomfortable with -- in fact, barely tolerant of -- being asked the questions. "Often real life is boring and problematic," she told one Berkeley audience. "I love the edited version of it." About 5 feet tall, rail thin and bony, Gross is a wisp of a woman. Her jewelry and clothes -- black pants and a blazer -- are fashionable but simple, as if to avoid drawing attention to herself. With her cropped gray hair and sharp features, she has almost a birdlike quality. Her humor and penchant for self-deprecation are two of Gross' traits that come across more strongly off the air than on. She was almost apologetic about her appearance on several occasions during her stay at Berkeley. "I am literally smaller than life," Gross told one audience. "I am an unextraordinary-looking person. I've seen people trying to hide their disappointment when they meet me, and I have to watch them get over it." The idea of invisibility is one that Gross returned to at several appearances that week. "I work in a medium where I get to be totally invisible and I get great pleasure from that, being a pretty self-conscious person," she told a roomful of journalism students. At the beginning of her career, Gross even refused to have her photograph taken, as a way of honoring the invisibility of her craft. "I know that everyone who listens to radio creates you in a visual image that they need you to have," she told one interviewer. "Whatever that is, I thought, let them have it. Let me be who the listener needs me to be and let me not contradict that with the reality of my photograph and risk disappointing them." Eventually, though, Gross was forced to give in. As "Fresh Air" grew into a daily, national program, journalists began requesting interviews, and the public wanted to know more about the woman who, some journalists argue, has the best job in the profession. "Finally [I accepted] the reality that I wasn't living in a closet, that I was actually living in the world and that people would see me," she says. "I think I also started to accept myself more. That even if I contradicted a listener's view of who I am they would have to live with it. That I am who I am, for better or worse, and we'll all get over it." Yet, for the most part, Gross is granted her invisibility. The people she keeps company with every day on her show -- musicians, actors, playwrights, authors, politicians -- rarely come face-to-face with her. "They can't expect a smile or a nod to convey anything to me," she says. "Anything we need to convey to each other has to be in the voice, so the listener will hear it too. In the best of all possible worlds, our voices will carry as much information as possible because it's the only dimension we have to communicate." While guests sit in a remote studio, Gross sits in her "little box" at WHYY in Philadelphia -- a setup that provides a kind of faceless intimacy not unlike that of confession or psychoanalysis, where the patient and practitioner face away from each other, under the theory that the obscurity will allow thoughts and fantasies to flow more freely. Perhaps that is what lures her guests into such a revealing mode. Or perhaps it's simply because she does her homework. N E X T+P A G E: Different rules for different guests
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