vox pop

plural vox pops

1. journalismA short, informal, non-prearranged interview with a member of the public, especially to canvas opinion.

   The reporter got some vox pops in the city square to see what people thought of the country's new flag.

   2 more examples

   While the BBC guidelines relating to balance are[…] so diligently applied that the opinion of 100 so-called experts must always be weighed[…], vox pops remain a chance for journalists to run more or less free.

   2017 April 29, Catherine Bennett, “Want to know what people really think? Don’t do a vox pop”, in The Guardian

   Vox pops – a series of comments from a variety of people – are a great way to include a sample of public opinion in your programmes and to add colour to reports that would otherwise suffer from a lack of lively soundbites.

   2018, Gary Hudson, Sarah Rowlands, The Broadcast Journalism Handbook, Routledge, →ISBN

   Synonyms: vox, man on the street