DangerousK said:
The problem is if you let a lot of these people talk freely, they will go off on tangents to avoid the initial question.
I completely agree with that statement, and frankly I avoid
all news-talk/opinion shows like that because so few people know how to question. But I also find O'Reilly's methods (which are usually limited to his more extreme episodes that make news clips) to be a little sad. It's quite possible to use calmer, focused questioning to achieve the same means --it's just the difference between Larry King (always your friend... well, I did see him get a bit ornery with Howard Stern and Larry Flynt) and someone who's going to ask question that might be a bit tough (
occasionally Jon Stewart), and those who can be super-calm but ask pretty incisive questions (Terry Gross, who actually caused Bill O'Reilly to walk out of the radio interview in an infamous case).
I miss calm discourse. TV is all about lowest-common-denominator information, with the best hope being parody shows --hence why I'm not the biggest fan of being called the "CNN" of this website, I'd prefer the Times.