- Standard TV news packages tend to be scripted by the reporter, and vox pops are added to show what the public think of the story that’s just been told. For us, although we always pre-arranged some encounters, vox pops were the first thing we did when we hit town. The views we encountered then guided a lot of what we did. We asked the people we met where we should go next, or who else we should meet. If a conversation with someone was particularly interesting, we would take their number, with a view to meeting them again.
The films we were making were shaped by what we divined from talking to people, rather than the other way round. When we spoke to people for any length of time, our questions tended not to begin with “Who are you going to vote for?” or “What do you think about Brexit?”, but much more open, contextual lines of enquiry: “What’s it like living here?” or “How do you feel about the future?” We did not wear suits, or carry off-puttingly cumbersome equipment, or shine lights in people’s faces. If the interviewee had the time, the conversation often lasted for 10 or 15 minutes.
As we spoke to people, we sensed that the gap between politics, the media and the public was widening. It was also becoming unsustainable. “They’re all in it for themselves, they don’t care about us” may have become the great cliche of vox pop journalism. But before it was a cliche, it was a warning.