Terry Gross Engrosses Students With Lecture

Critically acclaimed radio talk show host Terry Gross delved into the intricacies of her popular National Public Radio show “Fresh Air” on Friday before hundreds of Harvard students in a crowded Sanders Theatre.

Gross first created “Fresh Air” in 1975, and has since served as its host and executive producer, interviewing cultural icons, politicians and celebrities. While the show was initially only aired locally in Philadelphia, in 1985 it began to be broadcast nationally. Two million listeners now tune into “Fresh Air” daily, and the show is broadcast on almost 300 NPR stations nationwide.

Gross also spoke earlier in the day in a small seminar with student journalists.

She answered questions on the allure of radio and how she had become interested in the field of broadcasting. Her intense focus on her guests wouldn’t be as appropriate for television, she said.

“I’m well-suited for the invisibility of radio,” Gross said.

She is able to concentrate only on “listening with every muscle in my body,” becoming, in the process, a “huge ear,” she said.

Gross also discussed her evolution as an interviewer, citing her 26 years of experience as paramount to her improvement and success.

Her line of questioning when she started was most inspired by personal curiosity, she said, but now she is driven by a better understanding of the issues.

The Sept. 11 attacks have profoundly affected her approach to “Fresh Air.”

“I am so living in a post-Sept. 11 world that it’s hard not to connect everything to it,” she said.

In the first week after the attack, “Fresh Air” contributed interviews with experts that were used as specials to break up NPR’s continuous news coverage. In the second week, the show resumed its standard schedule, but Gross still relates almost every interview to the aftermath of the attack in some way.

Friday night’s program also included clips of the show, which ranged in topic from Rev. James McCloskey’s commentary on waning spirituality, Andre Dubus’s near-death experience and Richard Thompson’s rendition of a folk ballad to Monica S. Lewinsky.