Terry Gross reflects on ‘Fresh Air’s’ place among the greatest podcasts of all time

Time Magazine named Fresh Air one of the 100 greatest podcasts of all time.

The move placed the WHYY stalwart alongside the likes of WTF with Marc Maron and Call Her Daddy as a downloadable, digestible, audio show that culture writer Elena Dockterman deemed “the best of the best.”

On the show, longtime host Terry Gross, now alongside co-host Tonya Mosley, comes face-to-face — or, at least, voice-to-voice — with figures famous and obscure, unpacking their careers and interior worlds for an hour at a time. Comedian Tracy Morgan cried on the air when Gross asked him about his dad. Gross and author Maurice Sendak became emotional in 2011, when Sendak predicted he’d precede his interviewer in death. (Indeed, the Where the Wild Things Are author died the following year.)

In other words, Gross was perfecting podcasts’ style and vibe long before the medium began in earnest — and decades ahead of Fresh Air‘s own arrival to apps like Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

“That wasn’t our initial thing,” Gross said. “But I’m so grateful to podcast, because that gives us a whole set of listeners that we otherwise might not ever have reached.”

Fresh Air debuted as a local show in 1975, a time when WHYY was transitioning from music to news. At first, the show had very little money and a microscopic audience. Gross didn’t think that was a downside.

“I was able to keep growing,” Gross said. “And as I grew, the station was growing, too.”

NPR took Gross coast-to-coast once she and the program’s producers at WHYY felt she was ready for syndication in 1985. Each week, stations across the country would carry the choicest half-hour from her interviews. By 1987, however, Fresh Air took on, essentially, the format it’s held since: one hour, once a day.

For parts of Philadelphia, however, Gross’s new nationwide platform represented a loss. Some in the area even felt they’d been betrayed, she said: Going national meant Fresh Air would book far fewer guests with Philly ties.

Fresh Air‘s Time honor comes at a precarious time for its platform: Congressional Republicans recently cut off federal funding for what Gross jokingly called “the late, great Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” imperiling hundreds of its beneficiaries across the country. Bill Siemering, who first made the show’s case for syndication to NPR brass, told the New York Times that the campaign against public media arose from a “divisive culture that no longer values inclusion and diversity, for one.”

But Gross’ archive has run the gamut: William F. Buckley, Jr., the architect of the postwar conservative movement, appeared on Fresh Air in 1989. Tim Alberta did some soul-searching on the Fresh Air airwaves while promoting a book about Donald Trump-era evangelicalism. And Elizabeth Bruenig, an antiabortion Catholic (albeit a socialist) raised evangelical in Arlington, Texas, recently held forth to Mosley about her experiences witnessing botched executions in Alabama.

“We do sometimes get messages like, ‘I disagree with what your guests said, but I still like your show,’” Gross said.

Fresh Air‘s reach hasn’t diminished Philadelphia’s centrality.

One of the producers behind Fresh Air’s creation, Danny Miller, graduated from Temple University in North Philly, Gross said. Siemering still lives near the suburb of Fort Washington. And WHYY’s executives, journalists, and producers helped forge the program into the half-century juggernaut it is today.

“Without all that,” Gross said, “Fresh Air wouldn’t exist.”

But many of the show’s guests appeared on Fresh Air from studios and sound setups all over the world. And Mosley, a public radio veteran who became Gross’ co-host in 2023, does her portions from Los Angeles.

Gross remained in Philadelphia, anyway — largely for personal reasons, she said. Her husband, the late jazz critic Francis Davis, was born here. Much of his immediate family lived in the area. He critiqued music and culture for decades in Philly — including for The Inquirer.

“It’s been a very good place for Fresh Air and for me,” Gross said. “And I’ve always been grateful that the show was able to travel while I was able to put down roots.”