Why ask the people? Why do news shows ask people what their opinion is on major (or minor) news stories? To make stories ‘personal’ I suppose. To make their shows ‘interactive’ and ‘responsive’. To fill time? Probably. Wouldn’t it be better to find people who can shed some light on some aspect of the story?

That would be better than going to a live linkup to a pointless shot of a journalist outside a building waiting for something to happen. Especially as with all the live links, the journalist has no time to find things out on location: they are fed the news by the people back in the studio.