Newswatch: Interviews, Soft or Savage

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Fallaci herself gains from the fact that some of her best subjects—like the Ayatullah Khomeini or Colonel Gaddafi—are not used to being questioned so un-deferentially. Almost all American public figures have long since been overinterviewed. Often they have nothing fresh to say. Put them before cameras, and their minds instinctively begin to work on what not to say.

Ronald Reagan is the first President to be more at ease on-camera than those who interview him. That showed in Walter Cronkite's interview. When those two top contenders for the title of Mr. Likeable were pitted against each other, the interview almost ground to a halt out of mutual agreeableness. Cronkite soon found himself compelled to question the answers he was getting with a little more sharpness than he usually does. Reagan, as he steps in or out of limousines, is also skilled at throwing out a one-line response to a question about the day's news, as if doing an unseen body of reporters a smiling favor.

Interviews are like riding a seesaw. If a player prevails too easily, one end bangs to the ground. There should be no automatic victors—neither overbearing interviewers nor subjects too slickly practiced in evasion. The real winner is supposed to be a third party, the public.