[gentoo-user] OT - Midnight Commander and hiding terminal output

[Skippy]

Greetings all;

I've been googling to no avail on this one.

When using Midnight Commander, I'll select a file and hit "enter" thus
opening that file with it's associated program.

Let's say a mp3 file with VLC as that's one I have set up.

It runs, but any error messages from VLC appear in the MC terminal
window and force the MC display up the screen, thus rendering it unreadable.

I can fix this by exiting VLC and entering "clear" on the command line.

Question is, can I hide all terminal messages when MC is running?  Does
my question & description make sense?

Thanks much - Skippy