The woman on the phone was hopelessly ignorant. The talk show host was exploitative, interviewing someone who had absolutely nothing to say and, admittedly, unworthy of air time, in order to make himself look superior. Now, that woman has an excuse - she's ignorant. The talking head, well, he just wasted my time.
When I worked downtown and we went to lunch, we warned the new coworkers not to strike up conversations with street people. You could spend the rest of the afternoon hearing about aliens sucking our brains dry, why they won't let me return to rule my people inside the hollow earth, etc. Same thing, don't you think?