NBC’s occasional “viewer e-mail” segments and CBS’s upcoming “Free Speech” feature are two examples of “a stepped-up effort…to humanize their news anchors and newscasts through increased interaction with viewers,” the NYP’s Adam Buckman writes.

“We’re trying to lift the veil a bit,” NBC Nightly New EP John Reiss says. “You’ve heard [news anchors in the past being referred to as] ‘the voice of God,’ and we are definitely trying to get away from that to a certain degree. And one way to do that is to be a bit more interactive.”

But World News EP Jon Banner seems skeptical: “We have a very limited amount of time to provide context and analysis and provide a clear picture of what happened that day.”