Looking outside of the box

With 24 hour news, Sky Anytime, the Internet, I-Pad's and god knows what else now available it's not surprising more and more "ordinary" people are being sought out for a story.

This is what local rags and stations do everyday but the nationals seem to love a local story a little more than they used to and why not?

Latest in a long (and no doubt continuous) line is this little fella. Blackpool fan Kian Kelly celebrating like a kid should as his team battered Wigan 4-0 in their first Premier League game.

Not sure what annoys me about this but something does. After all, it's a GOOD news story : a kid celebrating, Blackpool winning their first game and no invasion into privacy after the event...ahh...There it is.

Ok, he's in a public place and I'm guessing his family and the club are loving this extra branch of public relations but why does everyone feel the need to plaster this all over the TV and papers?

I don't have a problem with this in principle, extra time to fill... meet extra time filler, I suppose it's the road it COULD lead down - i.e. some of the coverage of Raoul Moat which was likened to a "witchhunt".

The Blackpool kid example may well be a bad one. How about Gillian Duffy, Rochdale and Gordon Brown ....

... there you go, knew you'd remember ;)

I maintain Gordon Brown, even though I wasn't going to vote for Labour anyways, was a bit unlucky in this event.

I'm sure all politicians after a taxing debate let off a bit of steam but things were not safe for Mr Brown and that was the final nail in the coffin.

Anyways, back to my point: the media were camped outside her house for days with so many outlets looking to source her in their copy.

One minute you are an ordinary person - no-one knows (or cares) who you are, the next everyman and their dog (or should I say camera/recording device) are at your front door and back door.

That can be done because technology is so great now, there are so many platforms too fill extra content is needed to keep audiences interested and competition is fierce.

People who consume these media need to be aware that it could be them on the other end of it one day and if you put yourself out there you may need to deal with the consequences for a couple of days at least.

The good thing in all of this melee is "average" people do seem to be getting their input broadcast but whether I really want to know is another subject completely.