It’s Time to Retire the Man on the Street

Building trust in news means forming thoughtful connections, not shaking opinions out of random pedestrians.

Most journalists think vox pops are overused, especially when it means bothering rush-hour commuters.

By Elise Czajkowski

I conducted my first significant man on the street interview in March of 2008, as an intern at the Manhattan bureau of BBC News. It was the day New York governor Eliot Spitzer was discovered to be a regular patron of call girls, and I was…