Two Women Heroes

As a very reluctant viewer (to put it mildly) of Larry King on CNN, for reasons I need not go into, lately I've been absolutely captivated by his interviews with two amazing women -- French/Colombian politician and former hostage Ingrid Betancourt, and tennis star Venus Williams.

Betancourt endured ineffable horrors as a kidnapped hostage in the Colombian jungle until her daring rescue by the Colombian military aided by American military intelligence officials. Her elegance, emotional honesty, and articulate conversation in her third language was captivating as well as horrifying.

As an experienced interviewer myself, I thought King handled this delicate situation very well. Clearly, this woman is going to be fighting many PTSD-type difficulties, not to mention Stockholm Syndrome symptoms so clearly on display during her interview.

Venus Williams is at a different point in her story -- she's literally at the top of her game. She just won another Wimbledon. Rarely have I watched a more all-American girl, modest, self-deprecating, sweet, strong and well-spoken than she is. What a poster girl for this country, as she again heads to the Olympics.

So, there you have it, hats off to Larry King. Anyone who's done interviews knows that it is an art to do them well, turning them into conversations as opposed to interrogations. I learned more about these two amazing women from these two television interviews than I'd picked up from scanning dozens of print interviews.

I still don't like TV, nor any of the practitioners of TV journalism, but every now and again, these guys do it right. When they do, they deserve credit.

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