The "On the Record" host is finding an audience for her warts-and-all-styl

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http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/cl-et-greta20jul20,0,1547836.story?track=tottext
TELEVISION
Greta Van Susteren makes her mark at Fox
The "On the Record" host is finding an audience for her warts-and-all-style news show.
By Matea Gold
Times Staff Writer

July 20, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Greta Van Susteren had about 90 seconds until airtime. But seated behind a crescent-shaped desk in a brightly lit studio on a recent night, the Fox News Channel host wasn't paging through her notes or checking her makeup. She was responding to e-mails.

Her fingers flew over a laptop propped up on the desk, dashing off a response to one viewer about a development in the disappearance of 18-year-old Natalee Holloway in Aruba, a case she has followed closely for more than a month. She told another where he could send a letter of support to Holloway's mother. A third gave her an idea for a question she posed to a guest later in the show: Just who was paying the legal fees for two of the suspects?

Van Susteren had already answered hundreds of messages earlier in the day, and there were still 2,821 unread e-mails in her inbox. That's just the way she likes it; she gazed at the blinking screen with contentment.

"I much prefer to interact with the viewers than just talk at them," she said. "It's where I think the business is headed."
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