Who's Talking to Chris Wallace

While I don't watch every episode of this series of interviews with Chris Wallace the ones I have watched are very well done. This one on one sit down series ranges from guests from the arena of politics, entertainment, sports, music, and more. Wallace has an engaging and enjoyable interview style. He asks thoughtful and hard hitting questions, but is not outrageous for the sake of shock value. The format and timing of the series make each episode a great way to spend some time when you don't have multiple hours to be entertained. The guest clearly respect, and most of all, trust Chris Wallace and that makes this one really good.

Who's talking to Chris Wallace? Apparently nobody important. It would be better after watching this if he stayed at home and just talked to himself. Boring, horrible, predictable, biased dribble.

He's not his father, he is no Mike Wallace. No matter how hard he tries the truth of the matter is nobody wants to see his puss on TV in any format or on any TV show. What part of that does he not understand? He has no valuable offerings of any type of decent messaging other than his very biased one-sided political views and I'll tell you something, even those are very predictable.

Is HBO that desperate for content? Apparently they are.

I can't understand the negative reviews. I watched this past Sunday and found the interviews all interesting. It was a nice variation of people in different fields. It offered a sense of who the people really are. When appropriate, Wallace asked the tough questions (Ok, I'll grant he didn't push too hard when answers were evasive in the case of the doctor, but still important issues were raised. Because of that I might have given it a 9 but I wanted to counteract all the low ratings that made no sense to me). Marc Cuban came across as very human and likable. Also, it's useful to know about his prescription business which i might use Miles davis' interview offered a great overview of music history of the twentieth century. I/m definitely looking forward to the next show.

I was pleased to see the 3.6 rating when I googled this after watching episodes. I half-heartedly made it through the interview with Shania Twain, then listened to Alex Rodriguez's ego and him fall all over Warren Buffet...a lot...like I stopped listening to it and felt pretty disgusted. It occurred to me as I looked at the rest that I don't care about what any of these people are up to, and not confident Chris Wallace was going to make me care with the right questions. The two I watched struck me as very curated and scripted, lacking any real moments that come from curve ball questions or the right follow-up questions. Add on the tone and cadence of Chris' voice that harkens back to broadcasting yonder and should have died with Cronkite, and I am left wondering who gave this the green light.

The role of a journalist is to challenge and move their interviewee to defend and refute the presumptive narrative and allow them to articulate their alternative. They bring the facts, allow responses for general criticism, and refute the falsehoods. A bad journalist gives out soft ball questions or overly challenges and attacks their guest because arguing looks good on TV. There is a reason why Chris Wallace can interview anyone. Its because his interviews are challenging but fair. A great show. I have been partial to the political interviews, because interviewing actors and the like ain't that interesting to me.