The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show isn’t known for its interviews. And that’s not a shot at the hosts. They just have grown their statures in the news/talk radio space from their opinions, not their interview ability.
And yet, the duo challenged themselves on Monday with an interview that must be handled with the utmost delicacy: sitting down with the mother of an Israeli hostage taken during the October 7th terrorist attacks last year.
Travis is currently in the Middle East touring the Jewish state, while Sexton remains stateside. To open the second hour of their Premiere Networks show on Monday, they welcomed Idit Ohel, the mother of Alon, a hostage taken for the Nova music festival during the initial attacks from Hamas.
Talk about pressure. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton don’t generally do many interviews. And it makes sense for why they wouldn’t. Folks aren’t tuning into The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show to not hear Travis and Sexton. When they do hold interviews, it’s generally with conservative media members or politicians, so the conversations can be a little, frankly, dull.
But when you’re about to feature a conversation with a mother who has been without her son for 14 months, that’s an entirely different sandbox than where the duo usually plays.
Travis asked the first question of the interview with a succinct query: “We appreciate you joining us. Can you tell us about your son and what October 7th was like for you? How did you become aware to what happened to him?”
Off the bat, it’s a good question to start with, because the expectation is to introduce the audience to a new narrative, a fresh perspective. However, it’s a double-barrelled question. Maybe even a triple-barrelled question. “Can you tell us about your son? What was October 7th like for you? How did you become aware to what happened to him?”
Those are three separate questions grouped together, all with somewhat differing expectations of an answer. There are two problems with asking that many questions at once. First, it sets the expectation to the guest that “You’re supposed to talk for a while.” And because the first question was really three questions, Ohel spoke uninterrupted for the next five-and-a-half minutes. Which, if you think about it, accounts for roughly 15% of the total content time in the hour.
Now, obviously, you’re not going to interject while a mother talks about how her son was kidnapped and she hasn’t spoken to him in more than 400 days. But that’s a big chunk of time for listeners to punch out of the radio station, podcast, YouTube video, or however they’re consuming the content.
Secondly, it gives the subject the opportunity to answer what they want to talk about first, rather than the interview controlling the conversation. However, that downside is mostly negated when you’re attempting to bring awareness to an issue rather than to get valuable information for your audience.
Travis asked the follow-up question, too. Which, again, was two questions: “What has it been like to have a son held hostage for over 400 days? How have you and your family been dealing with that?”
Those two questions from Travis — while being separate — are both looking to accomplish the same thing. But they’re good questions.
Because while Travis is asking for Ohel’s perspective, the question he essentially asked was “Why should our listeners care?” Which is a great question! Listeners are selfish. They want what they want, when they want it, how they want it. So for Clay Travis to give the floor for someone to explain what the emotional toll has been on them as they deal with tragedy in the wake of terrorism is an insanely compelling portion of the show.
And Ohel delivered beautifully on what the last 14 months have been like for her and her family. It was enthralling radio. Even the most hardened listener could empathize with the guest as she explained her situation. And it was because of a good question, despite the formatics being slightly off.
Unfortunately, that was all the available time in the segment. So while in reality Clay Travis asked five questions to the guest, they were done over two chances for him to speak. There was not much back-and-forth, give-and-take, or however you’d like to phrase it. Now, the nature of the topic doesn’t lend itself to a lively conversation to begin with. It’s a delicate topic and one that needs to be handled with the utmost amount of care. Which I think Clay Travis accomplished. You could tell by the tone of his voice that he cared and empathized with the guest. And that disarmed her, making her feel more free to speak openly about the situation.
Meanwhile, the segment was also completely devoid of Buck Sexton, which — in reality — makes sense, since Travis is the one on the ground in the Middle East. But if you tuned in at any portion of the conversation, it would be very easy to question “Where the hell is Buck?”
Overall, the questions asked by Clay Travis elicited compelling answers. And isn’t that what radio is all about? It almost feels as if it’s an example of “While this might not be the most perfectly mastered art of the interview, it does show that you can fall outside the rules and still find success,” situation. At least in my opinion.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
