And On to a New Year

So this is 2014?
Nice.
So far, at least.

Let's get started this year with some thought about why we do what we do and what we are going to do this.

This blog will continue to be "home base" for my radio show "The View From the Phlipside" (now airing M-F at 8 AM and 5 PM on WRFA-LP, Jamestown, NY).  I haven't noted in a while that what you see is the relatively rough scripts that I write each week.  I spend a little time cleaning them up but I just don't have the time and energy to turn them into proper essays.  When I record them I count on my ability to shape them as I go along.  This results in some convoluted sentence structure in the scripts and some missing punctuation and grammar points.  They are what they are and they are written to be spoken aloud.

I will continue to offer some reviews of movies and books.  My focus will be more on older materials.  The reason for this is that there is plenty of contemporary reviews of new media.  The hope of these reviews has always been that I can point people to things that they may not know or may know but aren't sure if they would like.  For all the media that is created new in this age there is still a massive backlog of things too good to simply fall away.  Because I don't get to see as many new movies in the theater as I'd like I'll still watch and review newer stuff too.  But the focus will be on older materials.

There is something new that I hope to explore this year.  That's the highest quality material available on the web.  This will NOT be a review of dog/cat videos and the like.  I believe that there is some real quality material out there that doesn't get the attention it deserves.  I want to be part of fixing that.  If I'm wrong then the Internet is really nothing more than a children's toy and we need to face that if true.

Over the next couple weeks I hope to take some time to fiddle with the site, re-arrange things, maybe remodel the place a bit.  For the moment I am unemployed and so I have the time to go a little deeper.  I also hope to do some writing that looks a little deeper that I can spread across at least the next couple months along with the usual suspects (Great movie, by the way, "The Usual Suspects".  It's the movie that made me say "Kevin Spacey?  Gotta keep my eyes open for this guy").  These posts will appear (assuming I find something worth including) as "The Best of the Web".  I'm kind of looking forward to exploring all this.  If you have a suggestion feel free to pass it along via the comments.

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