...ordinary people on television

True. I think there are also pressures the other way too, though. For example, all news reporting is driven by a crude form of thesis and antithesis (without really deriving more than a cursory synthesis). This simplified application of classical forms must surely have an effect on the way people speak and think: if Bert says "Black" then Michelle starts thinking "White" rather than questioning if it shouldn't be grey (or even gray ). People are invited to drive for an illusory 'bottom line', rather than exploring carefully. I am fairly sure this has also had a significant impact on a facet of speech which was remarked on a while back by shanks: the tendency to abbreviate, and sometimes speak in truncated or ellided sentence fragments.