“The View From the Phlipside” is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY, 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 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 February 10, 2019
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.
Burger King Wins Super Bowl (ads)!
Super Bowl week 2019 has come and gone. And it left behind it a lot of questions for many folks. Questions like can a defensive struggle with 16 points scored be described as an interesting game? How many more times will the rest of the football world have to endure a Patriots Super Bowl win? Is Tom Brady EVER going to retire? And, of course, what was Burger King thinking?
I said before the game that this did not look like a great year for the commercials. My post game assessment is that I hit that prediction right on the head. There were some fun spots, my favorite was the NFL 100-year anniversary spot. Especially the Immaculate Reception replay with Franco Harris. The Bud Light commercials taking shots at their competition kind of appealed, even with the return of “Dilly, dilly”. There were a couple others, but none of them jumped out and demanded to be watched again. It was a soft year for both offense and advertising at the Big Game.
But then we have the ad from Burger King. This skinny white with two-tone hair sits down, opens a Whopper sandwich, dips it into some ketchup and eats. Never says a word other than the complaint we all have with ketchup bottles (It won’t come out). Forty-five seconds of pop art icon (and Pittsburgh native) Andy Warhol eating a burger. Yes, it was Warhol, from a 1982 movie titled “66 Scenes From America”.
If you’re like most of America, you didn’t like it all. The post game survey shows this ad in absolute last place for the year. I think that’s too bad. It was in many ways the most creative idea we saw on the field or off this year. Here’s why I say that.
The fundamental function of advertising is to make sure the consumer remembers the company, product or service. This ad did that. It’s a bonus if it is memorable and gets people talking. Again, success in both cases.
But it also succeeds in the artistry of advertising. This was a risk, and greatness only comes from risk. I’ve heard the criticism that many younger viewers might have no idea who Warhol was. Yeah, so? When Cardi B showed up in the Pepsi ad, I had no idea who she was. Again, there can be no greatness if we choose to shoot for the lowest common denominator. Best of all, the fact that the ad played on popular culture in an off filter way would have appealed to the artist. It was a perfect Warhol moment.
Take another moment to appreciate it.
I said before the game that this did not look like a great year for the commercials. My post game assessment is that I hit that prediction right on the head. There were some fun spots, my favorite was the NFL 100-year anniversary spot. Especially the Immaculate Reception replay with Franco Harris. The Bud Light commercials taking shots at their competition kind of appealed, even with the return of “Dilly, dilly”. There were a couple others, but none of them jumped out and demanded to be watched again. It was a soft year for both offense and advertising at the Big Game.
But then we have the ad from Burger King. This skinny white with two-tone hair sits down, opens a Whopper sandwich, dips it into some ketchup and eats. Never says a word other than the complaint we all have with ketchup bottles (It won’t come out). Forty-five seconds of pop art icon (and Pittsburgh native) Andy Warhol eating a burger. Yes, it was Warhol, from a 1982 movie titled “66 Scenes From America”.
If you’re like most of America, you didn’t like it all. The post game survey shows this ad in absolute last place for the year. I think that’s too bad. It was in many ways the most creative idea we saw on the field or off this year. Here’s why I say that.
The fundamental function of advertising is to make sure the consumer remembers the company, product or service. This ad did that. It’s a bonus if it is memorable and gets people talking. Again, success in both cases.
But it also succeeds in the artistry of advertising. This was a risk, and greatness only comes from risk. I’ve heard the criticism that many younger viewers might have no idea who Warhol was. Yeah, so? When Cardi B showed up in the Pepsi ad, I had no idea who she was. Again, there can be no greatness if we choose to shoot for the lowest common denominator. Best of all, the fact that the ad played on popular culture in an off filter way would have appealed to the artist. It was a perfect Warhol moment.
Take another moment to appreciate it.
Threat of the Deepfake
Time to carefully edge close to the topic of politics. As always, this isn’t about candidates or party, but about how the media intersects, interacts and influences the political sphere. That was an area that came with significant problems in the last Presidential election. So with the first challengers throwing their hats into the ring for the 2020 election cycle, it’s a good time to look at what create issues this time around.
We all need to be aware of the potentials for fake news once again. From the left, right or center, there are groups out there who will do everything in their power to sway us by spinning news to fit preconceptions and even outright manufacturing stories.
But there’s something new coming for this next cycle we all need to be aware of and looking for. There have been articles over the last 8 months or so about something called “deepfake videos”. Of all the fake news concepts this one worries me the most. Deepfake videos use the latest computer technology and artificial intelligence to create videos of real people that look real. Think about it this way-I want you to think of a public figure you really don’t like, could be anyone. One day while surfing the web you find a link to a video that shows that person saying something utterly unacceptable. The kind of public life career ending comment we’ve seen all too often. You KNEW it! You hit share because the world needs to see what a dirtbag this person really is.
Here’s the problem. With the Deepfake technology a computer will take a video of the person and merge it with a video of a person saying that awful thing. The original person NEVER said it! The process also uses technology to recreate the voice of the person from samples of their actual speech! And these fakes are extremely difficult to identify. The more in-depth the data used the more perfect the fake is.
The threat of these videos is serious enough that the U.S. Department of Defense is doing research into how to detect them. The code to create these kinds of videos has been available on the internet for a while. But there is also some high end research being done in the field as well.
The great danger here is the likelihood that people will use this technology not just to go after political candidates, but to increase hatred and potential violence against minority groups. Its use in revenge porn is a threat to all of us.
Now more than ever, we are all best served by giving each other the benefit of the doubt before we hit that “Share” button.
We all need to be aware of the potentials for fake news once again. From the left, right or center, there are groups out there who will do everything in their power to sway us by spinning news to fit preconceptions and even outright manufacturing stories.
But there’s something new coming for this next cycle we all need to be aware of and looking for. There have been articles over the last 8 months or so about something called “deepfake videos”. Of all the fake news concepts this one worries me the most. Deepfake videos use the latest computer technology and artificial intelligence to create videos of real people that look real. Think about it this way-I want you to think of a public figure you really don’t like, could be anyone. One day while surfing the web you find a link to a video that shows that person saying something utterly unacceptable. The kind of public life career ending comment we’ve seen all too often. You KNEW it! You hit share because the world needs to see what a dirtbag this person really is.
Here’s the problem. With the Deepfake technology a computer will take a video of the person and merge it with a video of a person saying that awful thing. The original person NEVER said it! The process also uses technology to recreate the voice of the person from samples of their actual speech! And these fakes are extremely difficult to identify. The more in-depth the data used the more perfect the fake is.
The threat of these videos is serious enough that the U.S. Department of Defense is doing research into how to detect them. The code to create these kinds of videos has been available on the internet for a while. But there is also some high end research being done in the field as well.
The great danger here is the likelihood that people will use this technology not just to go after political candidates, but to increase hatred and potential violence against minority groups. Its use in revenge porn is a threat to all of us.
Now more than ever, we are all best served by giving each other the benefit of the doubt before we hit that “Share” button.
Blackmail Outrage
I can not remember the last story that made me as angry as this one. It strikes at a core value for me and epitomizes a lot, if not everything, wrong with our culture today.
The despicable activities of American Media Incorporated and its publication, the National Enquirer send my blood pressure through the roof every time I read another article about it. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, received a message from the alleged journalism publication with a simple offer. Back away from an investigation that the National Enquirer didn’t like or they would publish a variety of salacious, private texts and photos sent by Bezos to his girlfriend. Bezos published the entire offer and his refusal to comply in a blog post last week.
Now the track record for AMI and the National Enquirer is dubious. They have acknowledged that they were involved in illegal activities association with the Trump Presidential campaign and are under a plea deal to avoid punishment for those acts.
But what really offends me is that they continue to wrap themselves in the clothing of journalism as they go about their shady business. So let me make my position crystal clear. No self-respecting journalistic organization would even consider the actions the National Enquirer is attempting with Jeff Bezos. Journalism isn’t about coercion. So one of the richest men in the world sent racy photos of himself and some sexy messages to his girlfriend? There are plenty of poor men who do the same thing. It’s not news. Not until you decide to achieve a political end through blackmail.
You may ask if it’s really blackmail. I will leave the legal technicalities to the professionals. But in the neighborhood where I grew up the saying was–if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
You don’t have to like Bezos, Amazon or the Washington Post, his newspaper. But we must be able to see that this is not the behavior of a free press in a free society. We have to be able to say—this is wrong. Utterly and irredeemably wrong.
In the end I applaud Mr. Bezos’ resolve not to give in to blackmailers. He stands in good company. Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington, and one of the best-loved Englishmen of his age, faced down blackmailers in 1824. In a similar situation, Wellington, much like Bezos today, told his blackmailers “Publish and be damned”. A solid response, then and now.
The despicable activities of American Media Incorporated and its publication, the National Enquirer send my blood pressure through the roof every time I read another article about it. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, received a message from the alleged journalism publication with a simple offer. Back away from an investigation that the National Enquirer didn’t like or they would publish a variety of salacious, private texts and photos sent by Bezos to his girlfriend. Bezos published the entire offer and his refusal to comply in a blog post last week.
Now the track record for AMI and the National Enquirer is dubious. They have acknowledged that they were involved in illegal activities association with the Trump Presidential campaign and are under a plea deal to avoid punishment for those acts.
But what really offends me is that they continue to wrap themselves in the clothing of journalism as they go about their shady business. So let me make my position crystal clear. No self-respecting journalistic organization would even consider the actions the National Enquirer is attempting with Jeff Bezos. Journalism isn’t about coercion. So one of the richest men in the world sent racy photos of himself and some sexy messages to his girlfriend? There are plenty of poor men who do the same thing. It’s not news. Not until you decide to achieve a political end through blackmail.
You may ask if it’s really blackmail. I will leave the legal technicalities to the professionals. But in the neighborhood where I grew up the saying was–if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
You don’t have to like Bezos, Amazon or the Washington Post, his newspaper. But we must be able to see that this is not the behavior of a free press in a free society. We have to be able to say—this is wrong. Utterly and irredeemably wrong.
In the end I applaud Mr. Bezos’ resolve not to give in to blackmailers. He stands in good company. Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington, and one of the best-loved Englishmen of his age, faced down blackmailers in 1824. In a similar situation, Wellington, much like Bezos today, told his blackmailers “Publish and be damned”. A solid response, then and now.
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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