Regular readers of the Briefing will be aware of our dislike for news vox pops. (They are lazy, unbalanced and uninformed.) Last week a report on the BBC 10 contained a vox from Oldham on the issue of child grooming.
Woman 1: “[I] think it’s all been covered up and will we ever get to know the truth?”.
Reporter: “Do you feel like there’s more still to be heard?”
Woman 2: “Oh, 100 per cent”
Woman 3: “It has been looked into in Oldham, hasn’t it?” No, not as far as I’m concerned. As a mother and a grandmother, no. It’s been swept under the carpet for years”.
As former news editor Bill Rogers wrote on his blog:
“Are these, then, expert witnesses? Have they knowledge they’ve shared with the authorities? Did the reporter ask for details? Dangerous stuff.”
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