“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 and hear? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Programs from week of September 10, 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.
Shorties
So, you want the good news or the bad news first? I always go for the bad news first, that way the last thing I hear is good news. So here goes. The television advertising folks have developed a new kind of TV commercial. I know, I can hear your groans from here. So what’s the good news? The good news is that they’re only six seconds long.
That’s what I’m here to tell you. The next “big thing’ in television advertising is the five or six second long ad. You may have noticed them if you were watching the NFL on Fox this past Sunday. That was their “prime time debut” after being tested on the Teen Choice Awards last month. The goal of these new ads is to try and lower the overall ad burden on broadcasts while still, you know, making some money. They will be scattered in the regular advertising breaks, along with the usual fifteen and thirty-second commercials. But that may not be the only place they show up. So maybe we’re back to “bad news” again.
Finding ways of working commercials into events has become an increasing challenge for the networks. Certain kinds of sporting events, like auto racing and soccer, don’t come with neat little advertising breaks in the action. Which is why we now see the split screen ads. One half is the action with no sound, while the other is the commercial breaks. It’s better than breaking away from the event but only by a little way.
Oh, and that other bad news? They are talking about having the ads pop up in boxes next to players during breaks in the action. So instead of watching the team huddle up, we’ll get this little box where a six-second commercial will play. I’m already yearning for the days of the Bills old, hurry up K-Gun offense.
The inspiration for all this is the Internet. You get lots of little pop-up ads that run very briefly there. The thinking is that because we are accustomed to those and supposedly our attention spans are so much shorter (an argument with which I have an argument), these quickie ads will be more tolerable than multi-minute breaks. I’ll have to see them to make a final decision on whether that’s true.
Fox believes they can charge more per second for the sixes than they can for the fifteens because they will be more desirable. We’ll have to wait and see on that too.
The final bit of good news? Think of the network broadcaster you dislike the most. These in-the-action commercials will mean that much less time for them to talk.
So maybe I’m warming up to the concept.
Weather Journalism Pt. 1
I’m hearing a lot of talk right now about whether we really need to have journalists out in severe weather like the recent hurricanes. The more I looked at the topic, the more it became clear it was too big for a single short program. So I’ll look at the arguments against and the arguments in favor.
There are three primary arguments that I keep seeing against this practice. This first is that it isn’t necessary. I’ll take on the topic of why I believe it is necessary in the other program this week. So let’s look at the other two.
First, is that this is some evil corporate broadcasting company forcing their employees out into the storm for “ratings”. The nicest way I can put my response to this one is that it’s astonishingly naive. The business model for the major media is based on ratings. Everything they do, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year is to create the biggest ratings numbers they can. What amazes me is that this appears to be an attempt to make this an us and them situation. It’s not us, it’s those evil media suits. Folks, what do you think ratings are about? They’re about us. A numeric method to show how many of US, the viewing audience, are watching. So when they do something to increase the ratings, they are doing what they believe WE want to see. And the numbers show that they are right. Sure, they could do a nice, safe coverage from a studio somewhere. With static images from stationary cameras somewhere. And the ratings would go into the toilet because WE would get bored and stop watching. And THEY would lose money. Not losing money is pretty much the point of running a business.
The second argument ticks me off a little. It’s that the reporters are only doing it because they are adrenaline junkies. While people who want nice quiet lives rarely last long as journalists, the idea that they are out there for a “thrill” is absurd. The level of concentration and work that is required to get a live broadcast up and running in extreme conditions doesn’t leave a lot of time for getting your jollies. It also is profoundly insulting to the folks who hear a calling to reporting the news. There are a lot comfier jobs, jobs that end when you walk out the door at 5 PM, jobs that never result in call-ins on the weekend or in the middle of a family event. The hours are long and irregular and the pay isn’t always that great. But they want to be where the story is.
And that’s how they end up standing in knee deep water with the wind howling around their ears, giving us what we want.
Weather Journalism Pt. 2
Taking a look at the discussion about whether we really need to have reporters out in the middle of hurricanes. I answer the arguments against in another show.
I believe we do need those reporters, doing, mostly, what they are doing.
The first live television report from a hurricane was only in 1961. Dan Rather led the news team at KHOU in Houston in live coverage of Hurricane Carla as it came ashore in Galveston. Their coverage was groundbreaking and set the stage for what we see today.
In the end, this is a major news story. There is no way to pretend that it’s anything else. Some six million people are without power, billions of dollars of damage are expected and tens of thousands of internal refugees have been moved out of their homes. Some of them may be out for a very long time. That’s a major news story. And you don’t cover that kind of story from a distance.
Having a reporter on the scene of major stories is one way that we can make sure that we are getting the best information possible. Otherwise, we have to rely on the official versions of stories. Our national experience in Viet Nam shows the importance of having someone on the scene to independently verify what is actually going on. Reporters have gone into harm’s way to report stories for two hundred years. The Times of London had reporters in the field during both the Napoleonic and Crimean wars in the 1800s. Nelly Bly exposed the hideous conditions in the insane asylums of her day but having herself admitted as a patient while undercover. Some stories require a journalist to take a risk.
Hurricanes are unpredictable, and to a very large degree, imperfectly understood phenomenon. You can’t rely on fixed cameras to be pointed in the right direction at the right moment. Plus, there is compelling storytelling in having a human context for enormous events. What does a satellite photo of a giant storm really tell you about conditions on the ground? A reporter, bracing themselves against the blast, gives a visceral vision of what the storm looks like.
I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable with the 24-hour news cycle approach to the storms we got. Too often reporters will feel the need to have something new to talk about or show. Otherwise, it’s just “Well, it’s still raining here”. Better that we ratchet down the intensity of the coverage.
In the end, I will argue that we are better served by journalists who are prepared to take the risk to get the story.
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
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