“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 December 16, 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.
Facebook, Sigh
Last week I promised the final chapter in the year-long story of the terrible year at Facebook. I am confident in saying I won’t do any more stories on the subject because next week is the last full week of the year, and I have a year in review planned. So barring something catastrophic, and Facebook’s year has been more along the lines of Chinese water torture, this should be it.
The center of all this year’s stories has been some variation on the theme of privacy. Mark Zuckerberg and his minions are always quick to assure us that they take our privacy very seriously. Then something pops up out of the woodwork that makes us doubt them, yet again.
Earlier this month, the latest addition to the social media giant’s game of “Whack-A-Mole” was a series of e-mails concerning data and app makers. They are excerpted in a paper presented in the United Kingdom as part of an investigation by the House of Commons Digital, Media, Culture and Sports Committee. In those e-mails are discussions of whether app makers should be charged for access to user data (meaning info about you and me). That would be a big shift from the traditional stance of the corporation. Also in the emails is the discovery that they kept what can be described as an “enemies list” of competitors. Companies that Facebook denied access to some services. Services that were available to companies that Facebook didn’t see as the competition. This is the kind of stuff that will perk up some folks ears. Especially when they are already annoyed with you. In November The Big Z was invited to speak before a parliamentary committee that was looking into disinformation and fake news. His Z-ness didn’t make the hearing. Predictably, the attitude toward the media giant soured.
Chief Operating Officer Cheryl Sandberg get involved in a flap about billionaire investor George Soros after he called Facebook a “menace”. There were charges of political maneuvers. That took a vote by the board of directors to calm down.
Finally, word from inside corporate HQ says the minions are getting restless. The feeling is that constant criticism of the company is taking its toll on morale, as is the tumbling stock price. Rumors are flying that a growing number of employees, including some longtime loyalists, are wondering if an Uber-style shakeup isn’t required.
It guarantees that there will be more to come in the future. But we should be able to close the book for this year.
Plagiarism Today
Plagiarism is a word that most people haven’t had to think about since the last time they had to write a term paper. I remember college professors thundering about they felt was the towering evil known as plagiarism. Civilization might fail if this was not wiped from the face of existence.
Despite all of that finger-wagging and pontificating, plagiarism is alive and well. Earlier this month, the longtime movie reviewer at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Colin Covert, resigned after a pattern of plagiarism was revealed. An internal study discovered reviews, one as recent as last month, that used phrases and whole sentences from writers at publications like the New Yorker, the Hollywood Reporter and Paste Magazine, among others. One instance dated back to 1974.
In journalism and academia, that remains unforgivable.
Here’s the funny thing. Not everyone agrees on a definition of the term. At its simplest, it’s cheating. Copying someone else’s work and claiming it for your own. To that point, everyone agrees. But is it an all or nothing issue? If I simply copy a sentence from an article written by someone one else without change am I as guilty as the person who copies an entire paragraph? Elizabeth Spayd wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review that the first instance is lazy, the second is theft.
The question has become, is the traditional understanding of plagiarism outdated? Kenneth Goldsmith, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania seems to think so. He has taught a class called “Uncreative Writing” where you are penalized for creativity and rewarded for what has been called plagiarism in the past.
The more you dig into the question, the more complicated the issue grows. A few years ago, billionaire media mogul Mark Cuban took content aggregators to the woodshed, calling them vampires. Content aggregators are folks who skim stories created by someone outside their staff and provide them to an audience that isn’t connected to the original creator. For traditionalists, that’s plagiarism. And it’s not a new concern. During World War I, the Associated Press sued another news organization for doing the same basic thing with reports from the front.
The reality is that the concept has never been simple. In an age when it’s easy to cut and paste, the temptation to plagiarize is ever more tempting. In the end, we may have to define plagiarism the same way that Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart defined pornography in Jacobellis v Ohio, “I know it when I see it”. And for the moment that sight will still get you fired.
Millennials to the Rescue!
I got into the argument once again just last week. Another person who was into the whole “The Millennial generation stinks” trope. They’re lazy, they whine, they’ve RUINED EVERYTHING! Here’s the deal on that, from my point of view:
What a load of hogwash.
If I haven’t said here I know I’ve said it elsewhere in the world. I really, REALLY want my generation (who seem to be the primary, though not sole, offenders) to knock it off. It makes you sound cranky and old and foolish. The older generation said much the same about us, and we’ve turned out about as well as most generations. Get over yourself. Especially your fading-in-your-old-age-vision-through-rose-colored-glasses of just how wonderful young people “used to be”.
With that in mind, take a look at a new study from those fine folks at the Pew Research Center. After years of people telling us all that the book, and reading in general, were dying, turns out Millennials might just save it. Without much help from their elders.
A survey of over 6,000 American showed that 88 percent of those UNDER the age of 30 had read a book in the last year. For those of us above that arbitrary, cultural milestone the number is only 79 percent. And, for authors everywhere, the news is good on the book buying front as well. Among those who read at least a book a year, they tend to buy those books.
There’s bad news buried in that last sentence. Bad news for libraries. This younger generation is less likely to see libraries as an essential part of their community. Bodies through the doors at libraries have declined over the last couple of years.
But the news is not entirely bad for libraries. While the younger generation may not see them as the go-to place for books, they do like libraries. As a safe space, as a quiet place and as a resource for things that can’t be found on the internet. Yes, you heard that right. 62 percent of Millennials know that not everything can be found on the internet. Only 53 percent of those over 30 expressed the same belief. Library website usage is up as well, and libraries serve an important role in providing resources to find employment. They remain a vital resource for minorities, adults from lower income groups and lower educational levels.
So Millennials read books, buy books and still like to check in that the local library. Whattya know? Turns out these kids are pretty smart.
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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