“The View From the Phlipside” is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Monday through Friday around 7:30 AM. The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program. Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moment’s notice. WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed. You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com. Copyright 2013-16 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Program scripts from week of August 29, 2016
This Week’s Podcast:
My name is Jay Phillippi and I’ve spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
No Comments?
There are several pieces of advice that I try to take with me every time I venture out onto the Internet. They happen to be related. The first is “Don’t read the comments” and the second is “Don’t feed the trolls”. I don’t always follow that advice, but when I don’t, I almost always regret it.
Some folks would argue that the comments section of a website is the most democratic part of the the Internet, the place where every person has their say. These people don’t spend much time looking at the comments.
So I was interested when I saw that National Public Radio, NPR, has eliminated the comments section on their news stories as of last week. I assumed that they had simply had enough of the negativity. In reality, they looked at the content of those comment threads and realized several things. First, they represented just one percent of their total online audience. Second, that they had virtually no regular commenters, and third, because they used an outside service to handle those comments, it was costing them a lot of money for no apparent reason.
NPR isn’t alone in making that decision. Over the last year or so a bunch of other news sites have done the same thing. Reuters, USA Today, Popular Science, and the Chicago Sun-Times among that group. None of them have seen any reason to reconsider that decision.
Online comments create a variety of issues. First, there’s the whole question of anonymity. Unknown people feel very free to say whatever they feel like when there is no accountability. Second, there’s the question of moderation, meaning someone being in charge of refereeing the comment section. How much, how little, who does it? Finally, there’s the occasional issue of people posting comments that could end up with legal ramifications for the news organization.
If it feels like big corporate entities muzzling the little man, I’d ask you to consider this. Comments are dinosaurs. Before there was social media, comments were a vital community. But all of the organizations I’ve mentioned maintain very active social media presences where those conversations can take place. The new, improved version is simply pushing the antiquated one out of the way. And comments are not entirely gone. Rueters, as an example, still has comments on its editorials. But their attitude, as expressed by executive editor Dan Colarusso, was that they were there to report the news, not start arguments. USA Today notes that on their sports site FTW (which stands for “For the Win”), unique visitor numbers are way up and time spent on the site remains stable. So they’ve lost nothing.
And not sure the rest have lost much either. Small numbers of commenters can dominate a thread, strangling any attempt at discussion.
It’s one less feeding trough for trolls.
Some folks would argue that the comments section of a website is the most democratic part of the the Internet, the place where every person has their say. These people don’t spend much time looking at the comments.
So I was interested when I saw that National Public Radio, NPR, has eliminated the comments section on their news stories as of last week. I assumed that they had simply had enough of the negativity. In reality, they looked at the content of those comment threads and realized several things. First, they represented just one percent of their total online audience. Second, that they had virtually no regular commenters, and third, because they used an outside service to handle those comments, it was costing them a lot of money for no apparent reason.
NPR isn’t alone in making that decision. Over the last year or so a bunch of other news sites have done the same thing. Reuters, USA Today, Popular Science, and the Chicago Sun-Times among that group. None of them have seen any reason to reconsider that decision.
Online comments create a variety of issues. First, there’s the whole question of anonymity. Unknown people feel very free to say whatever they feel like when there is no accountability. Second, there’s the question of moderation, meaning someone being in charge of refereeing the comment section. How much, how little, who does it? Finally, there’s the occasional issue of people posting comments that could end up with legal ramifications for the news organization.
If it feels like big corporate entities muzzling the little man, I’d ask you to consider this. Comments are dinosaurs. Before there was social media, comments were a vital community. But all of the organizations I’ve mentioned maintain very active social media presences where those conversations can take place. The new, improved version is simply pushing the antiquated one out of the way. And comments are not entirely gone. Rueters, as an example, still has comments on its editorials. But their attitude, as expressed by executive editor Dan Colarusso, was that they were there to report the news, not start arguments. USA Today notes that on their sports site FTW (which stands for “For the Win”), unique visitor numbers are way up and time spent on the site remains stable. So they’ve lost nothing.
And not sure the rest have lost much either. Small numbers of commenters can dominate a thread, strangling any attempt at discussion.
It’s one less feeding trough for trolls.
Movie Previews
A couple times a year I like to scan ahead and see what may be heading our way in the movie theaters. The reality is that while there may be a couple dozen movies that will get the majority of the attention in the media, there are always many, many more movies released.
As per usual, the schedule will be dominated by titles and characters we have seen before. Lots of reboots, and sequels and the like. That spectrum runs from the remake of the great classic western “The Magnificent Seven” (a movie that has a virtually impossible task in front of it) to the decidely less than classic “Bad Santa 2”. I’m not sure I can explain to you why either of those movies need to exist. In between you will find all kinds of other titles, including “Bridget Jones Baby”, which is pretty self explanatory I think. Tom Cruise is back as Jack Reacher in “Never Go Back”, Tom Hanks is back as Robert Langdon in “Inferno”. Then we have the return of “Blair Witch”, and the third installment of the Ring series, this time called “Rings”. Elsewhere the perennially successful Tyler Perry drops another Madea on us, this a Halloween version.
Gaming fans can look forward to “Kingsglaive – Final Fantasy XV” and “Assassin’s Creed. If you’re a Marvel universe fan then you are no doubt on pins and needles for “Dr. Strange”. I will admit to some fanboy excitement over that one. Harry Potter universe fans will get “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, and of course the Star Wars saga gets a new story at the end of the year with “Rogue One”.
In the category of movies I can not explain at all you will find “Trolls”. A movie about those obnoxious little frizzy haired toys that seem to have been around for ever.
In the category of movies to keep an eye on are two festival award winners. “Kicks” won a the Tribeca festival and is an intense coming of age story about a young man trying to retrieve his stolen shoes, his kicks. Meanwhile, there is “Birth of a Nation”, not D.W. Griffiths 1915 version but a modern story about a slave uprising that picked up honors at Sundance. These can be great movies to “cleanse your palate” from all the fatty junk food movies. Also in this category is “The Girl on the Train”, a movie adaptation of the best selling novel of the same name.
Finally, I’m wondering why I’ve never run across this title before. It seems an obvious end of the year movie. I doubt it will make anyone’s best of the year list, but how can you pass up a movie called “Office Christmas Party”?
As per usual, the schedule will be dominated by titles and characters we have seen before. Lots of reboots, and sequels and the like. That spectrum runs from the remake of the great classic western “The Magnificent Seven” (a movie that has a virtually impossible task in front of it) to the decidely less than classic “Bad Santa 2”. I’m not sure I can explain to you why either of those movies need to exist. In between you will find all kinds of other titles, including “Bridget Jones Baby”, which is pretty self explanatory I think. Tom Cruise is back as Jack Reacher in “Never Go Back”, Tom Hanks is back as Robert Langdon in “Inferno”. Then we have the return of “Blair Witch”, and the third installment of the Ring series, this time called “Rings”. Elsewhere the perennially successful Tyler Perry drops another Madea on us, this a Halloween version.
Gaming fans can look forward to “Kingsglaive – Final Fantasy XV” and “Assassin’s Creed. If you’re a Marvel universe fan then you are no doubt on pins and needles for “Dr. Strange”. I will admit to some fanboy excitement over that one. Harry Potter universe fans will get “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, and of course the Star Wars saga gets a new story at the end of the year with “Rogue One”.
In the category of movies I can not explain at all you will find “Trolls”. A movie about those obnoxious little frizzy haired toys that seem to have been around for ever.
In the category of movies to keep an eye on are two festival award winners. “Kicks” won a the Tribeca festival and is an intense coming of age story about a young man trying to retrieve his stolen shoes, his kicks. Meanwhile, there is “Birth of a Nation”, not D.W. Griffiths 1915 version but a modern story about a slave uprising that picked up honors at Sundance. These can be great movies to “cleanse your palate” from all the fatty junk food movies. Also in this category is “The Girl on the Train”, a movie adaptation of the best selling novel of the same name.
Finally, I’m wondering why I’ve never run across this title before. It seems an obvious end of the year movie. I doubt it will make anyone’s best of the year list, but how can you pass up a movie called “Office Christmas Party”?
Digital Movies
Sometimes it’s good to be a little behind the times. Sometimes it’s good not to be on the cutting edge. Sometimes it just feels good to have your point of view vindicated.
If you have ever visited the website that carries the same name as this radio program, (theviewfromthephlipside.com), then you know that I am a big time movie fan. I watch movies every week from every era of the movies. The incredible clarity of images in the silent films fascinate me, the place of a great soundtrack, effective story telling, I love everything about the movies. Even the choice of technology to view the movies is important to me.
My personal collection stands astride the DVD/Blu-ray chasm. I have replaced virtually all of my original library of tapes and not in any big hurry to go through that again converting from one disc format to the other.
What I have no interest in doing is going all digital. Turns out I’m not alone in that. A recent media survey showed that a large percentage of people who have ever owned media, still prefer the physical media over the digital. They may not choose to own as much media as they have in the past, but they prefer to rent a disc over paying for a digital file.
I can’t answer for all the other folks but I can certainly tell you why I prefer the discs. When it comes to the quality of the image, there’s no contest. Blu-ray wins. Maybe the lesser quality isn’t an issue on a computer monitor, but when I put it on my big screen TV, I want the best quality I can get.
There was one item listed in the survey that I definitely understand. Consumers felt that redeeming digital codes was an enormous pain in the butt. On the couple of occasions that I’ve tried, I have been astounded how many hoops I had to jump through. New accounts to be set up, user unfriendly interfaces. Or I could just pop the disc in.
I know the digital fans will all point out that most people, yours truly included, have moved from physical photo images to digital and from physical music delivery to digital. Mostly true. I do still like having physical music, although I also consume a lot of digital files as well.
Plus those digital files can be taken away from you. Either by someone requiring a new license from you or by having the storage server crash on you. Don’t forget, you have to have the internet to play your movies. I just need the power to stay on at my house.
So the next time the Internet crashes and everyone is desperately trying to figure out how to amuse themselves, just remember those of us who can turn to our loved ones and say “Let’s pop in a movie”.
If you have ever visited the website that carries the same name as this radio program, (theviewfromthephlipside.com), then you know that I am a big time movie fan. I watch movies every week from every era of the movies. The incredible clarity of images in the silent films fascinate me, the place of a great soundtrack, effective story telling, I love everything about the movies. Even the choice of technology to view the movies is important to me.
My personal collection stands astride the DVD/Blu-ray chasm. I have replaced virtually all of my original library of tapes and not in any big hurry to go through that again converting from one disc format to the other.
What I have no interest in doing is going all digital. Turns out I’m not alone in that. A recent media survey showed that a large percentage of people who have ever owned media, still prefer the physical media over the digital. They may not choose to own as much media as they have in the past, but they prefer to rent a disc over paying for a digital file.
I can’t answer for all the other folks but I can certainly tell you why I prefer the discs. When it comes to the quality of the image, there’s no contest. Blu-ray wins. Maybe the lesser quality isn’t an issue on a computer monitor, but when I put it on my big screen TV, I want the best quality I can get.
There was one item listed in the survey that I definitely understand. Consumers felt that redeeming digital codes was an enormous pain in the butt. On the couple of occasions that I’ve tried, I have been astounded how many hoops I had to jump through. New accounts to be set up, user unfriendly interfaces. Or I could just pop the disc in.
I know the digital fans will all point out that most people, yours truly included, have moved from physical photo images to digital and from physical music delivery to digital. Mostly true. I do still like having physical music, although I also consume a lot of digital files as well.
Plus those digital files can be taken away from you. Either by someone requiring a new license from you or by having the storage server crash on you. Don’t forget, you have to have the internet to play your movies. I just need the power to stay on at my house.
So the next time the Internet crashes and everyone is desperately trying to figure out how to amuse themselves, just remember those of us who can turn to our loved ones and say “Let’s pop in a movie”.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2016
Theme music for “The View From the Phlipside” and “TVFTP – Podcast” is “Hustle”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
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