More than just inane chatter

What do you think? We want to know. There may only be 150 words on this blog, but, come on, have YOUR say.

15 years ago direct public opinion on TV was limited to ten minutes with Terry Wogan on ‘Point of view’. Since then it’s seeped through Big Brother and reality TV into virtually every news and current affairs programme going. As Kate points out all too often news programmes jump from a shallow summary to hear what ‘ordinary people’ think with barely a thought of in depth analysis or expert opinion.

This tendency towards filling air time with inane opinion is illustrated in this amusing Mitchell and Webb sketch:

But away from the lazy, and cheap journalism the move towards greater public interaction can have huge benefits.

Listen to the Radio 5 Live phone-in on a weekday morning and there are two types of topic up for discussion. In the first a group of people who don’t have anything original to say discuss whether there should be another Diana inquest or whether Rugby or football is ‘better’. But start a conversation about how the prison system works or the decline in rural village life and the show is packed with people who really know what’s going on and who, on the whole, listen to each other with respect.

Prison officers, excons and victims of crime argue and bring their experiences in a far more revealing way than the minister for prisons or an ivory tower expert ever could. Over the course of an hour and a half you can begin to build up a real picture of how it looks when government policies meet the real world and real people.

So of course there’s always the person who comes on a show pedalling an unthinking, ugly ‘throw away the key’ mentality, but hopefully once aired such views can be challenged by people who’ve been there and know what it’s like. The 5 live phone-in demonstrates that when a show is properly hosted and mediated that some ignorant shouters and inane opinion are worth it to let the public have their say.

'Ordinary' American tells Clinton: Stay in the Kitchen

You know you’re getting older when you start to complain about news programmes, ‘dumbing down’ compared to the hard hitting, serious stuff you remember.

And, ok, it was only radio 1’s newsbeat, hardly a beacon of the serious news establishment (although it is part of the bbc let’s not forget), but I was pretty much shocked and appalled by their recent coverage of the US campaign for democratic leadership.

After a (swift) recap of the actual events they jumped straight into some sound bites from American voters. An approach lacking depth aside from anything else and utilising the often pointless ‘have your say’ style news reporting, rather than providing opinions and insights from people with any actual expertise.

But the truly stunning thing was the people they quoted. The first quote came from a man who was planning on voting for Obama because he didn’t think a woman would be able to hand the stress of the presidential job. His insightful analysis continued along the lines of pointing out that she hadn't aged well. (Obviously, looking good is a crucial part of being president).

The second, and possibly even more offensive opinion came from another man who thought Obama would be equally lacking in the position as he had observed that the black men he knew didn’t work very hard. He wasn't too worried though as he thought that if Obama did make it to the white house someone would probably kill him anyway.

I should possibly point out that I was in the car when I heard this for the first time and almost drove myself off the road in shock. Are we to assume that these are supposed to be a representative set of comments? Is this really the view of the American in the street - that women can’t cope with stress and black people are lazy. Perhaps it’s just equality in action, with both racism and sexism being given equal billing. But seriously, when a news bulletin chooses to broadcast offensive and ill informed views without even pausing to notice that hey, they are pretty offensive and ill informed, something very worrying indeed is going on.

Given that the entire race between Clinton and Obama has threatened to descend into ‘who is a more valid minority’ farce on more than one occasion, journalism like this does little more than re-enforce and normalise sexist and racist views, and lends credence to the idea that the gender and race of the candidates running are the most important things about them.