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Terry Gross at her microphone in 2018

Terry Gross

Terry Gross is the host and an executive producer of Fresh Air, the daily program of interviews and reviews. It is produced at WHYY in Philadelphia, where Gross began hosting the show in 1975, when it was broadcast only locally. She was awarded a National Humanities Medal from President Obama in 2016. Fresh Air with Terry Gross received a Peabody Award in 1994 for its “probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insight.” America Women in Radio and Television presented her with a Gracie Award in 1999 in the category of National Network Radio Personality. In 2003, she received the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Edward R. Murrow Award for her “outstanding contributions to public radio” and for advancing the “growth, quality and positive image of radio.” Gross is the author of All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians and Artists, published by Hyperion in 2004. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, and received a bachelor’s degree in English and M.Ed. in communications from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She began her radio career in 1973 at public radio station WBFO in Buffalo, NY.

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40:27

War Correspondent Peter Arnett.

War correspondent and CNN's international correspondent Peter Arnett. He's best known for his reporting from Baghdad during the allied bombing raid which heralded the start of the Gulf War. Arnett has over 30 years of experience reporting, mostly for the Associated Press. He won a Pulitzer for his coverage of the Vietnam war . Later he covered wars in Cyprus and Lebanon. In 1981 he made the switch to television, when he joined CNN. After learning the ropes, he was sent to El Salvador, Moscow, and then Iraq.

Interview
22:18

Musical Theater Historian Robert Kimball.

Musical theater historian Robert Kimball. Kimball compiled and edited The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin (Knopf) and is artistic advisor to the estate of Ira Gershwin. Kimball knew Ira Gershwin and his wife Leonore. He also edited The Complete Lyrics of Cole Porter.

Interview
14:36

Behind the Scenes of the Clinton Campaign.

Documentary filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker & Chris Hegedus. Their film, The War Room, is a behind the scenes look at the Clinton presidential campaign from the New Hampshire primary to the election. Pennebaker and Hegedus chronicled the campaign through the eyes of its two main strategists, James Carville and George Stephanopoulos.

15:41

Television Mogul Pat Weaver.

The former head of NBC's television programming Pat Weaver (Sylvester L. "Pat" Weaver, Jr.). He began that job in the early days of the medium - in 1949 - and was the creator of two of television's longest running shows, the "Today" show and the "Tonight" show. Weaver started his career in radio, where he worked with comic Fred Allen. And he was advertising manager for the American Tobacco Company, under the eccentric tobacco magnate George Washington Hill. Weaver has a new memoir of his career, "The Best Seat in the House," (Knopf).

Interview
14:56

Former Soviet Block Countries and NATO.

British Journalist Timothy Garton Ash. George Kennan has compared Garton Ash's powers of political observation to those of de Toqueville's. ASH's beat is Eastern Europe, and he has been on hand to chronicle the popular disavowal of Communism there (Garton Ash's classic account of the Prague Uprising in 1986 is "The Magic Lantern"). His most recent book concerns the German Re-Unification, and what Germany's role will be in the new Europe: "In Europe's Name: Germany & the Divided Continent" (Random House).

Interview
22:22

The "Detective of Death."

Medical Examiner and "detective of death", Michael Baden, the former Chief Medical Examiner of New York City. Baden argues that there is a national crisis in forensic medicine. He writes that the search for scientific truth is often sullied by the pressures of expediency and politics. His memoir is "Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner" (Ivy Books).

Interview
23:25

Harry Wu Discusses his Time in "China's Gulag."

Harry Wu is a resident scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He came to the U.S. from China where he was held in a prison labor camp for 19 years. The son of a wealthy banker, Wu was a newly graduated college student when he was arrested in 1960 and denounced as an "enemy of the revolution." In the camps he endured torture, starvation, and he learned to "stop thinking in order to survive." In 1979 he was released.

Interview
16:00

The Anger and Pain of the Black Middle Class.

Contributing Editor and essayist for Newsweek magazine Ellis Cose. His new book, "The Rage of a Privileged Class: Why are Middle-Class Blacks Angry? Why Should America Care?" (HarperCollins) is about what many middle-class blacks feel, but few white americans understand: that middle-class blacks still struggle against racial stereotyping, discrimination, and alienation, despite their financial success and their best efforts to "play by the rules." Cose argues that many white americans make assumptions about Blacks which are at odds with reality.

Interview

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