08-07-2022, 08:58 AM
(07-07-2022, 11:03 PM)DavidWhitfield Wrote: Surely by showing people with differing opinions, you're just showing different sides of the story, ensuring that no matter how the viewer feels about the issue, they get to experience someone giving an opposing view, possibly allowing them to better understand others' feelings on the matter. Even if 99% of people think A while the remaining 1% of people think B, you can't just broadcast that A is true, show people stating A and A only, and ignore that (admittedly a smaller proportion of) others feel B entirely. I think showing a range of opinions is a good thing.
There are problems with that. On a different subject, when there was the MMR issue, doctors were only slightly split with virtually all saying there was no issue, and a very small minority saying there was. The latter became smaller and smaller over time. The BBC and other broadcasters at the time read impartially as requiring balance between the two views, and so allowed roughly equal time for both sides and debates on the subject included someone from both sides. This ended up being quite dangerous for health, and the BBC did later regret their behaviour over the subject.
Vox Pops aren't as dangerous as that, but false equivalence between views is at best misleading when they aren't views held by a large proportion of voters.