Have you ever been frustrated because you were trying to talk to someone who simply was not listening? Would you wives hold up your hand? Television news host Hugh Downs once told how frustrating it was to him to see journalists conducting interviews without really listening to the person they were interviewing. He called those types of conversations the "yeah-well interview."

As an example of a "yeah-well interview," Downs recalled an interview he heard between a journalist and a former prisoner in the Kremlin. The former prisoner told of a painstaking escape attempt in which he and his fellow prisoners spent months tunneling their way out of their prison cell. When they finally broke through, however, they realized they'd tunneled right into Josef Stalin's office.

Now, what would you e…