View From the Phlipside Radio - Cars and Media

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.

By now I’m guessing you’ve caught on to the fact that I am seriously into the media.  Maybe even beyond the point that a grown man of advancing years should acknowledge but there it is.  What you may not know is that I am also something of a car guy.  I come by that honestly because my dad was a big time car guy.  His first job out of college was in the design department at Ford, on their honeymoon he took my mother to the Detroit Auto Show and before I was allowed to drive his cars I had to be able to explain how an internal combustion engine worked, identify the major systems of a car and be able to change a tire and the oil.  I grew up in a serious car household.

So imagine my unfettered joy when two of my great passions come together in a single story.  In the last week or two the folks at Ford and the the folks at National Public Radio have announced a partnership that will put a special app in new Fords that will give you direct access to programming from NPR.  That story in and of itself is no big deal even if you’re an NPR fan as I am.  

What got me about the story is the ever increasing amount of media that is now available in cars.  And it begins to worry me.  The worst idea, putting a video screen in the middle of the steering wheel, seems to have died off.  Which is wonderful from my point of view.  Even so you’re seeing more and more screens in cars.  The Tesla electric sports car boasts a 17 inch screen that basically takes over all the functions of the dashboard.  At the other end of the cost scale the brand new Dodge Dart has a screen for dashboard functions plus a second one for things like climate control and sound system.

But what really worries me is the advent of voice control for media in cars.  All of this MIGHT be a distraction if you let it but what happens when people from anywhere in the car can start affecting distraction inspiring stuff inside the car?  In my lifetime car radios were options.  Now we have music, phone, video, web access, and most of them can be fired up by a three year old in the back seat.

Somewhere along the line we need to remember that we are in a vehicle that weighs around a ton or more at speeds that can be well in excess of a mile a minute.  We drive them in situations that require great concentration.

Forgetting that, even for a second, can get you in a lot of trouble.  Something else my father taught me.


Call that the View From the Phlipside

View From the Phlipside - All News is Local

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.

Back in the 1980s we heard a political truism from then Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill.  Tip knew from his days in Boston politics that "All politics are local".  Over the years of working in the media I realized that there was a parallel truism in the news - "All News is Local".  If it doesn't have some impact on us locally it isn't news.  The earthquake in Japan may be terrible and we certainly pay attention to it but it's not NEWS, not the way the increase in gasoline prices are.  The unrest in the Middle East has a much greater impact on us because it strikes close to home.

With that in mind is the bill currently coming before Congress to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  Several sponsors of the bill have been quick to point out that they aren't trying to score political points by taking out NPR and PBS.  Rather this is just necessary pruning in hard times.  Since politics aren't the balliwick of this commentary I'll take them at their word.  Let's look at this strictly from the point of view of media.

Folks like to extol the virtues of private industry over public institutions.  I'm just not sure that in this case the argument works.  While both commercial radio and TV have brought us some excellent products they've also brought us "Who's the Boss" and the safest 500 songs list (and yes, that's a list of songs that virtually no one gets really excited about.  There are folks in radio who think that's a good thing.  Go figure).  Having a source for programming that is actually primarily concerned about the excellence of the programs doesn't strike me as a bad idea.

But that's not the best argument for continuing to fund CPB.  You see there IS a local argument.  Sure NPR has recently announced that they only get about 2% of their funding from the federal budget.  They'll probably easily replace it if necessary. The problem is that many small radio stations probably won't be able to replace it.  Small radio stations like this one.  The one you're listening to right now.  Grant money from CPB is a vital part of the financial health of small radio stations like ours.

Suddenly this story is a whole lot more local isn't it?  The story is easy to ignore when it is just about 2% of National Public Radio's budget.  I'm hoping it's a whole lot higher on your priorities list now that it may take something away from this area.  Something we're not ever likely to be able to replace.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011