What was exclusive about to her it may have been that she was the first big celebrity interviewer who dropped in to get his comments. But the mourning doctor's voice has certainly not gone unheard in the incessant coverage locally of the crime, trial and sentencing.
Sitting in his parents' house (rather than, say, Harpo studios in Chicago before an audience) Dr. Petit answered her questions in a muted voice as she bore down on him like a psychiatrist -- a psychiatrist bent on knowing what exactly he was feeling at every point.
Dr William Petit On Oprah
Her first question: "Tell us of the moment you were conscious of the fact that you had lost your entire family."
When he doesn't immediately answer, she sets the scene like a police investigator: "You're in the hospital, your family walks in... can you tell us what that was like?"
"I think I was still dazed and confused," he began.
Later, she said, a little callously, "Describe for us what this meant for you to lose your entire family?"
What is this insistence of TV interviewers to know how somebody felt at every moment? Is this the key piece of information, the holy grail, every TV interviewer must have? Can't we simply imagine what a man who has lost his family has felt? Are interviewers, in constantly asking these questions, merely poking at raw nerves in hopes of seeing some emotional response?
Dr William Petit On Oprah
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