“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 2013-17 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Programs from week of January 23, 2017
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.
Journalistic Expectations
At the end of last year, I noted that I felt like I had talked a lot about journalism. Primarily my criticism of how the journalistic mainstream had failed in their primary calling. It occurred to me that it’s easy to criticize, harder to offer solutions. With that in mind, I’d like to offer up my ideas on what we, as the consumer, should expect from our journalists.
It’s pretty simple really. Just three things. Complete, accurate information. The context for that information, and a boundary between analysis and commentary.
First, complete accurate information. Seems obvious right? Drawing on a conversation I recently had with an old friend, let me offer an example. My friend noted that he was seeing a lot more trampolines in the yards of his neighborhood. He had also heard a news story about accidents on them. Let’s make up a number, say twenty-seven thousand accidents last year related to trampolines. That may be accurate, but it may not be complete. Is the story different if twenty-six thousand of those accidents are during construction of the trampoline as compared to being in use? Yes, it does.
That leads us into the concept of context. Information does exist in a vacuum. If we had half that number of accidents the year before that can one story. But what if the actual number of accidents is the same but the number of trampolines has grown by three hundred percent? That’s actually an improvement, even though the gross number remains the same. Thus, placing information in its appropriate context is important.
Finally, we need to keep a boundary between analysis and commentary. Analysis helps us to understand information within context. I’m not an expert in international economic theory, so it is helpful if someone can explain how things work. Commentary is designed to persuade you how to think about the story. Looking at the growth of trampoline sports, the dangers in assembling them and their impact on the health of our children is analysis. Telling you that they are dangerous is commentary. There is room for commentary, this program is commentary. But commentary should always be separated from journalism. It is not the journalist’s purpose or mission to persuade. It is journalism’s role to inform so that the public has the information, context, and analysis needed to weigh the facts and make up our own minds about whatever the subject at hand is.
Of course, that is only half the equation. We, the public, are responsible for the other half. I’ll take a look at that in another program this week.
Because expectations can run both ways.
Your Infomation Veggies
In another program this week, I talk about the things I believe we should expect from journalism. There’s no question that there is room for improvement in the quality of reporting that has been provided to us. I’m not saying that every journalist everywhere has fallen short. There are some out there who have worked hard to maintain professional standards.
But here’s the reality. That shortcoming in news reporting is partially our fault as well. Too often we have abdicated our responsibility to think and question on our own. It’s really easy to let someone else do our thinking for us. Our lives are busy and under a lot of stress from many different directions. It takes time to find the facts, consider them and then make a decision.
But that doesn’t get us off the hook. Just like eating your vegetables and exercising are vital to keeping our physical health, being well informed is vital to both our personal intellectual health, and the political health of our nation. Sitting back and being passive consumers of whatever information is provided is a core concept in dozens of dystopian science fiction novels. One of the criticisms of my generation, the Baby Boomers, as we were growing up was that sitting in front of the idiot box, passively being entertained, was going to turn our brains to tapioca. Getting our news from memes and clickbait sources is a path toward something far more appalling happening.
So what do we need to do? We need to be more demanding about getting that accurate information. Yes, it feels good to see a politician, policy or event you dislike being mocked. It reinforces that you’re right. Here’s a reminder for everyone. You are regularly wrong. You will be wrong more often if you accept this kind of stuff without verifying it. In the age of the Internet, it’s actually much easier to find that kind of information. Did they really say that? Is that what they really did?
If you find that the information isn’t accurate, do the world a favor and DON’T share it. The one thing that we know all media responds to is attention. Or lack thereof. We can affect the quality of the journalism by what we choose to view and to share.
But it inevitably revolves around making sure we take the time to go deeper than just a surface understanding. It’s acknowledging that “our side” is not always right. And “that other side” is not always wrong.
Eating our journalistic vegetables and getting our information exercise may not be the most fun thing we have to do. But just a little bit of both on a regular basis can make our world a much healthier place to live.
It Shouldn’t Have to Be Said
It shouldn’t have had to be said eight years ago. But it was. It shouldn’t have to be said now. But apparently, it still is. Call it evil. Call it stupid. But we need to draw the line in the sand again.
At the beginning of the Obama administration, I went on a little rant when some members of the media decided they were going to go after the Obama daughters. Both of the girls were minors at the time. They were pulled into a spotlight not necessarily of their choosing, but certainly, one over which they had no control at all. At the time I outlined my very simple guidelines for dealing with the children of public figures.
Leave them alone.
Seems like we need to review that concept again. A bunch of people, including Saturday Night Live Weekend Update writer Katie Rich, decided it would be fun to mock President Trump’s son, Barron. A bunch of memes and tweets appeared commenting on his appearance, his intelligence, whatever. Katie Rich’s tweet was particularly ill-conceived and idiotic. Happily, a firestorm erupted in response. Ms. Rich took her Twitter feed private and then deleted it all together. There is some discussion about whether or not SNL will get rid of her.
She can expect no sympathy in this corner.
Long-time listeners to this program know that I’ve spent the last couple decades working with young people. So I’m a bit of an absolutist on this subject. I don’t comment at all on the children of public figures unless there is a violation of the law. Neither positive nor negative. Just recently I got some push back on redlining even positive comments. I won’t apologize or back down. The best way to make sure we care for those kids is to simply not drag them into the spotlight at all. There’s no reason for it. And the potential for causing problems for a young person in an incredibly stressful situation is just too high, in my opinion.
The online social media world can be hard enough for the average young person to navigate. The idea that some people, adults especially, would choose to try and score political points on a parent through a child ought to repulse us all. I doubt very much that Katie Rich has anything in particular against Barron Trump, who is almost eleven years old. Yet somehow she thought she was being clever by taking a shot at him.
She wasn’t. Minor children of public personages should be off limits. It’s not often you will hear me advocating a zero tolerance policy on anything. This is one of a very small universe of exceptions.
It shouldn’t have to be said.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2017
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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