Conventional Wolf (continued)

Q: How do you avoid that?

A: Well, when you have good news judgment and experience, and you have talented journalists, you can avoid that.

Q: What do you think the future of cable news is?

A: I think the future’s great. I think people are interested, and it’s a big country; in fact, CNN’s got a big world out there: we’ve got 240 countries that get CNN, CNN International. I think people are hungry for information, they want it presented well, smartly. So I think there’s a great future.

Q: You started out in print journalism. How was that transition?

A: The basic qualities, the basic skills are the same. You’ve got to be inquisitive, you’ve got to be responsible, you’ve got to be compelling — you want people to read what you’re writing, and you want people to watch what you’re putting on television. But television is a visual medium; print, you can write a third paragraph of a story, and if it’s complicated and the reader doesn’t understand it, they’ll go back and reread it. On television, you’ve got one shot. Although now with TiVo, you can pause, go back, rewind — "I didn’t understand what Wolf just said; hold on," and then roll back and see what I said and then continue on. But it’s basically the same skills: you tell the story, and you try to tell it fairly and responsibly.

Q: Are you ever tempted to go back to print?

A: I write a daily column on CNN.com. And you know what? Our scripts, we write ’em. I’m working behind a keyboard just as much now as I ever did. So I’m not tempted. I like television, I love what I’m doing, I love the immediacy of television, I love the impact of television, the visual strength of television. So I’m pleased.

Q: Do you ever worry that people are too dependent on TV for their news?

A: No, I’m not worried about it. People can get their information from the Web, they can get their information from print, they can get it from radio, television. It’s a big country; there’s a lot of opportunities out there.

Q: Do you have a favorite interview?

A: One favorite was when I went with President Clinton to Africa, and we were in South Africa, after he met with Nelson Mandela; I got that interview with Nelson Mandela. We ran it on our Sunday Late Edition program. He spoke about his 20-plus years in a prison, and I was interviewing him in the presidential mansion in Cape Town, and the contrast was incredible. But this was a man who had no bitterness, no anger. Can you imagine spending 20-plus years in jail and coming out and being a nice guy, gracious, and not hate the people who did that to you? So that was a memorable interview.

I interviewed Jacques Chirac on one visit to, I think it was the G8 in Cologne, Germany. He didn’t want to speak in English, although his English was good. He had been a student at Harvard. But, you know, the French are sensitive about speaking in English. But I convinced him to do it, and that was a good interview. He did it in English after all, and all of his staff were impressed that I convinced him to do it in English, so I was pretty happy about that.

Q: Any interviews stand out as being most difficult?

A: When I interviewed President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky [situation], and we had to talk about the whole investigation, that was a difficult interview to do, but we did it. It was a good interview. But he’s the president of the United States, and you want to ask him these very awkward questions — that was a difficult interview. If you’re prepared for an interview, and you’ve done some research going into it, and you know the subject, the interviews are not difficult. You know what you want to ask, and you just do it.

Q: Do you keep a wish list of people you want to talk to whom you haven’t talked to yet?

A: I would like to interview the pope, because I know he’s getting older and older. I’ve really been blessed in this business: most of the people I’ve really wanted to interview, I’ve had a shot at. And it’s not just me, as much as I think I’m a great journalist; when you represent a company like CNN, a news organization with an international reach, a lot of people are willing to talk to you.

Q: What about your job makes you most excited?

A: Learning new information. This is an education for me. I learn something every single day. When I was the Pentagon correspondent for CNN, I learned a great deal about the military, national security. And then when I left to become the White House correspondent, I said, well, now I’ve got to know a little about a lot. But guess what? I had to learn a lot about a lot. Because people who watch CNN by definition are intelligent, they’re news junkies. There’s a whole group that knows a lot more about that subject than you do, and if you’re faking it or winging it, and you don’t know what you’re talking about, you hear back quickly. So the bottom line is that I love learning, I love exploring, I like gathering news, breaking stories. I like everything about it. And I get paid to do it.

Q: What do you say to people who complain that the media are biased?

A: Look, this is not a perfect science. We all bring our prejudices and our personal perspectives and biases into these issues. When you’re a professional journalist, you try to get beyond it, and you try to make sure the other side has a fair shake, and you let that view get through. Yeah, there’s bias in the news media. But you know what? There’s a lot of news media organizations, and anybody who really wants to find out what’s going on has a full menu out there.

Q: Tell me about your name.

A: My maternal grandfather’s name was Wolf, and my mother and father named me after him. So it’s my real name; I did not make it up.

Q: Tough name as a kid?

A: There were moments in Buffalo, New York, where the other kids would say, "What’s your real name?" and I’d say, "Wolf," and the bigger kids didn’t like that answer. It wasn’t that tough. Would I recommend a name like that, or a weird name? I’ve been asked this; especially after the first Gulf War, all these pregnant women were writing me, "I love your name. Should I name my son Wolf?" And I consistently said, "I think it’s tough enough growing up with a normal name, let alone with a weird name." Although if you take a look at Barack Obama, he didn’t do too bad with a weird name himself.

Q: And Wolf Blitzer’s a great name for a journalist.

A: It’s a good name now. As a kid growing up in Buffalo, not necessarily a fabulous name.

Wolf Blitzer Reports airs Monday through Friday, at 5 p.m., on CNN. Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer airs Sundays, at noon, on CNN. Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com