'You' and the 'News'

Might sound like old news, but the relationship between the news and what I like to call real people , has shifted through the years.The news use to consist of a guy telling you what had happened that day, with the help of some reporters, graphics and a irritating weatherman. The news basically consisted of a bunch of facts.

Real people, i.e.. us, didn't get much of a look unless we witness something important happen. But in late 70's and 80's, this began to change and real people began to have more of an input.More and more, it became true that real peoples questioning of facts could help move stories forward for the journalists. From this point on there opinion where solicited, whether interesting of not.

Looking back at old vox-pox, its striking how unemotional and objective people sounded-, perhaps because the public thought thats what the news expected of them.That situation gradually changed and more and more the public emotion became the central focus of a story itself.

Inadvertently, what the news was doing was driving a wedge between normal people and emotional demonstrative and some might say reactive people. And its this group that has had an effect on the news agenda.

In affect the journalists and the public have swapped places. And instead of offering factual summary of events, that we can form an emotional opinion on, they are asking us for our emotional opinion and then incorporating it into there factual summary. That's why we are now asked more and more these days for our opinions.

* There you go something to be aware of when you see some rambling moron giving there opinion on a news vox-pox*