Larry vs. Piers

I’m catching up on the news and on my thinking: forgive me.  But before the holidays Larry King finally spoke up on his thoughts regarding what Piers Morgan has done with his former time slot and show on CNN.  Larry had two criticisms; I’ll tell you both but focus on one

First (and not my focus) is that Piers has opinions and he shares them.  If you care about such things and follow them (and sadly, I do, on both accounts), CNN leans to the left and can be (and has been) accused of being bias towards politicians of the Democratic party.  Not shocking news, to be sure.  But they are certainly more subtle than the likes of MSNBC or Fox News, who beat you over the head with their excessively and exceedingly political biases.  So, Larry faults Piers for being too transparent in his beliefs.  It’s probably an old school journalism versus a new school journalism thing.  Personally, it’d be nice to think that all journalists are neutral but I suppose that’s against human nature.  And if it is, I rather they be upfront and transparent.

Where my thoughts have focused on this topic is regarding preparation for the interview.  Larry did no preparation and did not have a research staff.  Apparently he approached every interview truly clueless about the subject and used his questions for the purpose of revealing for himself—and his audience—the story behind the subject.  He wanted no bias going onto the set and truly approached each guest with a sincere wonderment and curiosity.  He was known for sometimes even asking the most basic of questions, leaving his audience wondering if he was the only person left on earth that didn’t know something.  But what you saw was genuine and real and for those in the audience who didn’t know much of the guest, Larry was asking the questions they would ask if they had just such an opportunity.

Piers, on the other hand, has a full research team.  He goes in fully armed and prepared with his questions.  He tries to find out things that everyone else doesn’t already know and attempts to pick up where other interviews or questions left off. 

This all got me thinking what might make an appropriate approach for interviewing applicants.  I always review whatever we have on a student before I meet them.  If we don’t have much, I request we try to gather some basics when the appointment is scheduled or at least have a full inquiry form completed upon their arrival.  Doing this allows me to pick up on a theme in an essay they wrote or to inquire about the community service projects they have listed.  It is as though I’m entering the conversation already half begun.  And, of course, I expect the same of them.  Don’t waste my time asking if we offer soccer.  If that’s important to you, you should have figured out long before your visit to campus.

But what if I went the route of Larry King?  What if I read nothing in advance and approached each applicant interview genuinely curious and sincerely in need of starting at square one?  Would it seem I didn’t care enough to prepare or would I appear truly interested?  Interviews would certainly be longer as I tried to gather the basics but maybe they’d be more engaging, the two of us truly learning about each other, from the beginning. 

As always, I don’t know.