BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to TALKBACK LIVE.</s>TEYA RYAN, ORIGINAL EXEC. PRODUCER: "TALKBACK" really was born out of the idea of giving direct access to the public to newsmakers and to people who are making a difference, are making decisions in the world that we live in.</s>DON SMITH, EXEC. PRODUCER: "TALKBACK" has a constantly growing stack of parts. The first thing we have is a studio audience of 160 people. We have telephones, faxes, we have a chat room, and now we have Intel cameras at various locations around the country.</s>BATTISTA: The first time I did the show, I thought I had been run over by a truck.</s>BATTISTA: Let me get Mike in here, who will probably be a little bit of a voice of reason...</s>BATTISTA: You really had to be able to juggle a number of things all at once, and you had to have like a split brain, where one half of your brain is listening to the guests, and trying to ask the appropriate follow up questions, and the other half of your brain is dealing with faxes and phone calls and live audience.</s>SMITH: We have always thought that the advantage of a live program was that it has the interest, the immediacy, and to a degree, a certain sort of dangerous spontaneity. It makes it like nothing else.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you are saying is outright appalling.</s>SMITH: But is also means that you get no second chances. What is said is said. The ideas presented are presented the way they are. You can't go back and fix it.
CNN 20: 'TALKBACK LIVE,' America Speaks Out