“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 2013-18 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see and hear? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Programs from the week of April 8, 2018
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.
The I-man is Out!
A little ahead of schedule and very much on his own terms, a radio legend has decided to pull the plug after a fifty-year career. Don Imus has left the building.
I need to be transparent here. When people asked me who my professional idols were during my radio career, there were only ever three names. Dr. Johnny Fever of “WKRP in Cincinnati” fame, Jack Bogut, the long-time morning man at Pittsburgh’s KDKA, and Don Imus of W-NNNNN-B-C in New York. You would be hard-pressed to find three idols with less in common, but each brought their own inspiration. From Imus, it was the push to go someplace that wasn’t completely safe. It’s what made the man a legend, and it is what brought his career crashing down from the heights.
Don Imus got into radio in 1968 when he walked into a station in Palmdale, California, and talked his way into a job. With zero experience. That supreme self-confidence would mark his work, for better or worse, through five decades.
His career took him from California to Cleveland, Ohio and finally to New York where he went to work at WNBC. He was pushed out briefly in the late ‘70s by a format change, then returned. He continued to work when they changed their format again years later and became WFAN.
The “Imus in the Morning” program was a mainstay in New York for decades. Imus was known for his pushing-the-limits comedic style which included characters like the Reverend Billy Sol Hargis, pastor at the “First Church of the Gooey Death and Discount House of Worship”. Imus wrote books and recorded comedy albums based on Hargis and other radio bits.
But that supreme confidence also led him to push the envelope in ways that were destructive. The best known were stupid, racist comments made about the Rutgers women’s basketball team.
The later Don Imus wasn’t the one I idolized. His creativity seemed to have run dry and all he had left was snark and bile. He had announced in January that he would leave the air at the end of the year. It got moved up to last week when his syndicator, Cumulus Media, filed for bankruptcy.
For all his shortcomings and late career failures and decline, Don Imus was a state of the art radio announcer back in the day. It was the end of an era when he signed off with typical hubris, saying “I know in my heart there’s been nobody ever better on the radio than me”.
That point is open to debate. There have certainly been very few like Don Imus.
That point is open to debate. There have certainly been very few like Don Imus.
Next At Facebook
This is going to be an historic week for the folks at Facebook. Given the events of the last month, that may be saying a lot. With the revelation that some eighty-seven million users had their personal information taken and used without their knowledge or permission, 2018 has been a rough year for the social media giant.
This week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be testifying in front of Congress. The goal will be to try and explain what happened, why it happened, what they are doing to make sure it never happens again, and convince the members of Congress that new regulations are not required. There will be a lot of ideas put forward, a percentage of which will be really good. But never forget, the primary intent in all of this for Facebook is keeping federal regulators out of their business. The rules are much stricter in the rest of the world, especially Europe, and The Big Z and company would like to keep that on the other side of the Atlantic.
In the meantime, keep an eye out for Facebook’s attempt to win you and me back over to a feeling that all is well. Beginning on Monday of this week, Facebook began to roll out of a couple of tools to help Facebook nation understand what went on and how we are affected.
The tools will appear at the top of your news feed. The examples being shown in the media are quite large, so you won’t accidentally miss them. Both versions begin with the headline “Protecting Your Information”.
You can insert your own joke about horses and barn doors at this point.
One will include a “button” that says “See How You Are Affected”. That means you are one of the eighty-seven million. Click on the button and you will be taken to a page that tells you if and how your data may have been misused. For the rest of us, there will be a version that shows us which apps are currently connected to our account. There will also be help in disconnecting any app you like.
As with any big rollout from Facebook, this one will come in phases. Not everyone will get it at once, but everyone will be covered eventually.
Whatever the rationale, this information is important. I urge you to take some time to go through all of it and make the appropriate changes. Tune in to the news to find out what else Facebook may have to offer on all of this.
(I can now report that while I never used the app that caused all the problems, apparently at least one of my friends did. And some of my information may have been compromised. A quick review of the apps connected to my Facebook account found 29 that I could eliminate at just a quick look. Scary)
The Government Watches The News
A business opportunity posting from the Department of Homeland Security is raising a lot of eyebrows these days. A lot of people are concerned. Should we be? At the moment, I think the answer is both yes and no.
The opportunity outlines a plan to gather and monitor media professionals and others in the media who have an influence in the United States and nations around the world.
Folks with reservations about the current President jumped on this immediately. But they’re not the only ones. There are legitimate questions about the constitutionality of this “Media Monitoring Service” and questions about what the ultimate purpose of it is.
The proposed program would monitor more than two hundred ninety thousand news sources including social media all around the world. The proposal actually uses the words “Any and all media coverage”. Data gathered would include everything from full contact details, to a full listing of the news sources, work in all media and something called “sentiment”.
The problems with this are many. First, given the antagonistic relationship between the current White House and the media, it’s hardly surprising that people are worried about the federal governmental “doxxing” the entire media world.
In addition, the proposal is beyond vague on the question of what will be done with this information. Pretty much all parts of the political spectrum worry about the government having too much info about us.
And speaking of that information, it would be gathered and held by an independent, outside corporation. We’ve all seen how well that worked with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.
In broad terms, this kind of monitoring isn’t new. Private companies and governmental agencies have watched what was being reported in their areas of concern to try and ensure that they have the “pulse” of the nation. The difference here is the scope of the information being gathered, the unclear purpose of the database and just who is going to be in control.
We live in a world where the freedom of the press is under attack worldwide at an unprecedented level. The United States has traditionally been a bastion of press freedom. So it is concerning to see this proposal. Listening for media that may present a threat to our nation is a justifiable exercise. Targeting every media professional and influencer strikes way too close to the practices of totalitarian states.
At the moment, the idea is merely concerning. The actual scope will tell us just how great a challenge to the American tradition we are facing.
We should all keep our eyes open.
(This story was originally reported by Bloomberg Law)
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2018
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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