Program scripts from week of August 12, 2013
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.
Rating the Ratings
I have recently been in the market for a new cellphone. Doing my research took me deep into one of the most annoying parts of the World Wide Web. Product ratings and reviews.
Can we just be honest? Most customer review/ratings systems are a complete waste of time. If I’m generous maybe 40% of those ratings are worth reading, positive or negative. Then you get the reviews from people who want the product to be something other than what it is so they give it lousy reviews. On top of those you will get the ratings trolls. Usually anonymous reviews that may simply give a one star rating or might add something totally useless like “This product/manufacturer stinks”. This inevitably results in the counter-troll reviews. These are diatribes against the trolls for being stupid with a five star rating “to balance things out”. Which it doesn’t, it just makes the ratings even less relevant than they were before.
All of which makes trying to figure out whether you want to buy something or not even tougher.
I would rely on the more “serious” review websites except they can be equally idiotic. In looking at reviews for the phone I eventually decided to buy I found a 13 page review of it. The problem was that the reviewer has decided how a smartphone should look and perform. All smartphones. In every price range. The reviewer grudging acknowledged that the phone in question did a competent, even solid job at just about everything. It’s a low, mid-range model. But he just could not resist the urge to point out that it did not have all the latest bells and whistles. It couldn’t compete with the latest state of the art smartphones out there. Most of which cost in the 300-500 dollar range. While this one sits at around 150. In fact the next review site actually cited virtually every point made by the first website as proof that this phone was actually an excellent value because it was such a solid performer at such a bargain price.
The frightening thing is that I see the exact same scenario acted out in just about any market segment or product I come across. In the end I’ve decided the next time I need some advice on what product to buy I can probably get just as high quality advice by just sticking my head out the window and shouting.
First of all let’s note that interviewing is hard. Doing it well requires a lot of preparation and an agile mind that can follow the rabbit trails that sometimes lead to the best interviews. You are often interviewing people that are either uncomfortable talking about themselves or who simply don’t want to discuss what you want to talk about. Finding ways to keep the subject talking and involved is no simple process. Making sure that you frame questions in a manner that precludes brief answers is an art form. At the same time you need to know when to interrupt and re-direct the conversation in a different direction. I have a lot of respect for really good interviewers.
At the same time I regularly hear even the very best make some really dumb mistakes. I will now utter a little public radio heresy by criticizing Peabody Award winning radio host Terry Gross of WHYY, Philadelphia’s “Fresh Air” program. Gross is considered one of the best cultural interviewers in the business and with good reason. At the same time she drives me NUTS some days with long rambling questions that sometimes don’t even really wind up as questions. She will also sometimes phrase the question in such a way that indicates what she thinks the answer is. I don’t care what Terry Gross thinks the answer is, I want to hear what the guest thinks.
I also hear other interviewers who keep asking the question even after the guest is clearly ready to answer. It’s like they’ve worked so hard on this question or turn of phrase they don’t want to miss out on the chance to get it on the air. The problem is that it puts the interviewer in the wrong place. In this case standing between the guest and the audience.
Listening to all these interviews makes me appreciate the good ones all the more. Where the interviewer tosses out some great questions then steps out of the way to let the guest tell their story. Stepping in only to prod the guest to keep moving.
It’s a rare and special gift that I’ve been enjoying these last several years.
Over the last couple years I have returned to the subject of the future of the news media, most especially the future of the newspaper. The Fourth Estate, as journalism and especially print journalism has been known, is a vital part of a free society in my opinion. That’s why I think it’s a subject worth coming back to regularly.
Recently there’s been two big news stories about newspapers. One was the sale of the Boston Globe by the New York Times to the owner of the Boston Red Sox. The main reason why this made the news is that Times sold the Globe for 100 million dollars after buying it for just over a billion dollars.
It’s the other newspaper story that I think is the more interesting. The Washington Post was purchased just days later by Jeff Bezos, the founder of online giant Amazon. With all due respect to the Boston Globe which is a great newspaper this sale is kind of mind boggling. This is the oldest and most widely circulated paper in our nation’s capitol. Winner of 40+ Pulitzers, the legendary home of Katherine Graham, Ben Bradlee and Woodward and Bernstein. This is the paper that was instrumental in bringing down the presidency of Richard Nixon. And Jeff Bezos that has done as much as anyone in changing how we buy pretty much everything.
I think there’s four important points to this story. First, Jeff Bezos has deep pockets. If they are going to find a new model for the news it’s going to take someone with deep pockets. Second, this is a private sale. Bezos will have no stockholders breathing down his neck which gives him room to try and find that new model. Third, Bezos has a reputation for understanding technology and making it pay. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Bezos has no background in journalism. Now that’s going to make a lot of the old school news folks nervous. As much as I love old school journalism I’m afraid I think having a new guy in charge with no investment in the status quo to get in the way of new ideas is probably exactly what this industry needs right now. The old school folks solutions have so far come up sadly short.
What we need is find the new way forward so that the news media can report the news rather than be it.
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