Political interviews: Who can shout the loudest?

My mother is very hard of hearing, so she watches TV with the closed captioning turned on. The other day she happened to be watching a cable news network that featured an interview segment with politicians from both sides. Of course, both interview subjects had open mikes, so it turned into a shout-fest. As the moderator struggled to keep some semblance of order (and failed miserably), whoever was transcribing the program just couldn't keep up. After awhile it began to look like those text messaging abbreviations you young people use.

Smith: Demcrts wana tx evrthing

Jones: Repbcans luv rch ppl

Get the picture? After awhile mom got disgusted and changed the channel.

While many of you don't act as moderators for interviews like these, you might at some point. And when you do, you must do so with a strong hand, because given an open mike, a politician will shout down anyone who disagrees.

(Memo to political candidates: Voters are more impressed with people who are polite and don't interrupt.)

Perhaps it needs to be addressed in the control room, where two open mikes should not be allowed at the same time.

In any event, reporters and anchors have lost control. Time to take it back. You're the moderator, you're asking the questions.

And it's pretty hard to understand anything when two people are talking at the same time.

But even in a one-on-one interview, you have to maintain control. When a politician hijacks an interview, you lose credibility with viewers. If a politician isn't answering a question, ask it again. Don't let them run off on tangents as they so often do.