I am curious... what is it about Oprah that you like?

No specific opinion on her, just trying to get a feel on what it is that attracts people to her? What makes people trust her advice? What makes people willing to follow her direction for their lives?
This has nothing to do with her current problems in her girl's school. Please limit your answers to helpful and insightful. I don't have interest in why you hate Oprah. I want to look at the issue of Oprah's influence on our society objectively.
Thanks for your input :)

I like her bc she can sit down with any one and talk about anything. She has a wide variety of stuff on her show. She talks about every thing. I love it! I love that she can have celebrities on, to talk about movies and have it be fun and entertaining. Or dying sick people, any thing tragic, medical. Its simply amazing that she can talk about anything... and i think she is a pretty good person. Does alot for charity! :P

Oprah Winfrey has an extraordinary gift of empathy.

She has a big heart.

She also gives away real money to worthy causes.

She's one of those bigger than life persons (my view) who is real.

She's also a spiritual person (in her own way) which is independent of conservative, traditional Christianity.

She's a good person (my view) and people can sense that.

I like the way she helps people in need and how she rose above her own problems in life to become a strong women. She makes a difference in the world. I admire her for her drive and fight.

Her intelligence. She's got a big heart and is very generous. She shares.

Her show is decent for the educated with intelligence. The other talk shows are trash which includes montel, Maury and jerry springer.

She seems to genuinely want to help other people. She is a first-class actress as well, which people tend to overlook. Her performance in "The Color Purple" was outstanding.

I'd marry her.

Melinda,
The fact that she does try to get out there and give us good advice from Guest on her shows , and to keep us all up to date on different things is wonderful , for some people this is the only way they can get "free" info.
And the fact that we are talking about a women who has earned her way thru Society just by all the hard work she has accomplished in her own life.
Needless to say , opportunities can come a persons way , and we just have to take advantage of them and go that extra mile . Its sorta like "people are afraid to go out of there confort zone , so therefore alot of things cant become possible if your afraid to move forward and go that extra mile , so to speak.

I never cared for her because in the beginning she did shows like the ones that Montel Williams, Jenny Jones & Ricki Lake were doing...but once she had made enough money to own her own studio...she becomes very critical of the very shows she made her money on. Over the years I could take or leave her until that whole Don Imus thing kicked off and she had a panel of African Americans on stage. She permitted questions from the audience...this AA woman stands up...public school teacher with the Washington D.C. school district for almost 30 years...while she is in the middle of talking...the big O....very condescendingly...waves her to sit down and says okay...we got it...we got it. I was pretty much done with her at that point. To answer your question...Oprah is a very savvy business woman who correctly targeted her audience from the beginning....upper middle class white women.