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Under its name, the Mandatum Herald carries a motto in Latin: Vox Populi, Vox Dei, “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” It reads like a confident slogan. Its history is more interesting, because the earliest known writer to put those words together did so as a warning.
A letter to an emperor
Alcuin of York was an Anglo-Saxon scholar who led Charlemagne’s Palace School at Aachen. In a letter to the emperor, dated to about the year 798 or 800, he cautioned against those who keep repeating that the voice of the people is the voice of God. In his view, the restlessness of a crowd is always very close to madness, so a ruler should not take its noise for a guide.
A proverb that changed sides
The saying outlived the warning. In 1327 Archbishop Walter Reynolds preached on it while justifying the deposition of Edward II. In 1706 the philosopher John Locke rejected it, writing that God does not deliver his oracles through the multitude. Over time, in English, the phrase came to mean simply the opinion of the majority.
In 1907 the statistician Francis Galton gave it a famous modern test. Writing in Nature under the title “Vox Populi,” he used a weight-judging contest at a country fair to show how the combined guess of a crowd can be remarkably accurate.
From the crowd to the newsroom
Journalists borrowed the first half of the phrase. A “vox pop” is a short interview with ordinary, unselected people, the classic “man on the street.” It is not a survey. Its purpose is to let a range of voices be heard, from different ages, backgrounds and communities.
A motto worth reading carefully
Read with Alcuin in mind, the motto asks for more than applause. Listening to the people is a duty, and so is judging what is heard with care, with facts and with conscience. That is a fair standard for a newspaper to set for itself.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Vox populi”; HistoryNet, “What Is the History of Vox Populi, Vox Dei?” Image: painting of Charlemagne receiving Alcuin, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.