Barbara Walters - on her interview style and interviewing Nixon about Watergate — Transcript

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1. 0:04why don't you take us just on a
2. 0:06step-by-step process how you would go
3. 0:09about doing a piece well on the Today
4. 0:11Show and on live television you have to
5. 0:17make sure that in your introduction you
6. 0:19were telling people what they most need
7. 0:21to know I still do this with people in
8. 0:24the view you know tell me who so-and-so
9. 0:25is what is the name of that book what is
10. 0:28it about give them the salient facts
11. 0:31most of the time the people are told
12. 0:33they'll be on from 7:30 to 8:00 to 8:00
13. 0:35to 8:30 so they figure they have a half
14. 0:37hour they don't they have four and a
15. 0:38half to five minutes usually so I think
16. 0:41you have to very carefully construct
17. 0:43your questions so that you do the most
18. 0:48important questions at the top the ones
19. 0:50that you have to get through and it
20. 0:53depends on the kind of interview on you
21. 0:55know whether it's a news interview or
22. 0:56whether it's a personality interview
23. 0:57there's some difference you might want
24. 0:59to leave the last question until the end
25. 1:02but then you've got to be able to take
26. 1:04time cues and something comes to my mind
27. 1:10that I will tell you about and you also
28. 1:13have to listen to what the person says
29. 1:16I've often said it's not the first
30. 1:18question it's the follow-up what did you
31. 1:20mean by that why do you say that you
32. 1:25can't just if you're someone who wants
33. 1:26to be on television read the questions
34. 1:28especially if they're not prepared by
35. 1:30you and then just go down the line with
36. 1:32the questions and we've had people do
37. 1:33that you know someone says the worst
38. 1:35period of my life somehow was when I
39. 1:37lost my dog and I went into a deep
40. 1:40depression and then what's the next song
41. 1:43you wrote you know you've got to listen
42. 1:44so all of these are things that you
43. 1:48learn with time and you also have to
44. 1:50have an instinct for I remember doing a
45. 1:52live interview with Richard Nixon this
46. 1:55was when I was at ABC was many years
47. 1:57later and it was after Watergate and it
48. 2:02was the first live interview that he had
49. 2:05done and the first Network interview
50. 2:07that he had done after having left
51. 2:10office after being forced out of office
52. 2:12he had done one interview earlier with
53. 2:15David Frost but it was an interview
54. 2:17that he was paid to do and and it was
55. 2:19edited therefore it wasn't the same and
56. 2:22I started out asking him foreign policy
57. 2:24questions what does he think about this
58. 2:26but that and he was superb because he
59. 2:28always wasn't foreign policy two things
60. 2:32happened one he perspired tremendously
61. 2:34and I realized when I'd heard about his
62. 2:36early debates with Jack Kennedy the
63. 2:40early debates for the presidency and one
64. 2:42of the reasons this was early television
65. 2:44black and white I believed that they
66. 2:46said that that Nixon lost was that he
67. 2:50perspired so and he wasn't wearing the
68. 2:53right makeup well he had the kind of
69. 2:54some people do perspire you know and
70. 2:57when I do interviews I give him a piece
71. 2:59of Kleenex and saying I've watch
72. 3:00yourself dad okay in the middle of that
73. 3:03interview I decided that I would then
74. 3:06try to give him some questions that
75. 3:09would that would have some humanity
76. 3:11because he had been so reviled and so I
77. 3:14asked him what it was that got him
78. 3:16through all those difficult times and he
79. 3:19said because I thought he'd say my wife
80. 3:22or my faith and he said why do you have
81. 3:25to ask me these questions Barbara one
82. 3:27addresses serious things and I said well
83. 3:29mr. Nixon I I think people really do
84. 3:31want to know these things about you well
85. 3:32no they're not
86. 3:33let's get back to the important
87. 3:35questions so I started to look for my
88. 3:37foreign policy questions again and I
89. 3:39couldn't find them but I had written
90. 3:40them myself
91. 3:41so I remembered all of them and then we
92. 3:45went on in one minute this is when I'm
93. 3:47talking about time I asked for a
94. 3:49one-minute cue before the end of this
95. 3:50hour interview and I said mr. Nixon are
96. 3:54you sorry you burnt the tapes and for
97. 3:57the first time he said yes I am and he
98. 4:00had only about thirty seconds to answer
99. 4:02and it was a great climax and I remember
100. 4:06that very well because when I stood up I
101. 4:09realized that I had slipped the foreign
102. 4:11policy questions under my seat because I
103. 4:14didn't want them to mix up with the
104. 4:16others and that's why I couldn't find
105. 4:17them and the other thing is and I do it
106. 4:19to this day I write questions on little
107. 4:22cards as we talk now I'm preparing to do
108. 4:25an interview with now Vice President
109. 4:27Gore I have recently done one with
110. 4:30residential candidate George W Bush I
111. 4:33write questions on cards and I write
112. 4:36hundreds I like this is for a big
113. 4:37interview I write everything I can think
114. 4:39of I go around and I say to people what
115. 4:41would you ask if you could what would
116. 4:42you ask
117. 4:43and then I boil them down and boil them
118. 4:45down and boil them down now if you have
119. 4:46time you can do that if you don't give
120. 4:48writing like this because you may be
121. 4:50doing an interview with something that
122. 4:51happened ten minutes ago
123. 4:53but I do a lot of homework and if I'm
124. 4:56talking to young people today
125. 4:57it pays to you're on your own homework
126. 5:00it pays to write your own questions
127. 5:02it pays to learn something about the
128. 5:04editing process all of this makes a
129. 5:06difference
130. 5:14you