View From the Phlipside - Sesame Street and Rolling Stone

These are the scripts from my weekly media commentary program on WRFA-LP Jamestown

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, Radio, the movies and more. I love 'em and I hate em' and I always have an opinion. Call this the view from the Phlipside

If you believe that there is a higher power in control of the cosmos sometimes you have to wonder at their sense of humor. For example this week was chosen as the birth date for two media icons that in many ways couldn't be much different yet in some ways are quite similar. It was 42 years ago on Monday that Jann Wenner founded the first mainstream entry in counter culture journalism - "Rolling Stone" magazine. And it was 40 years ago on Tuesday that Sesame Street started counting and spelling its way through our collective consciousnesses.

Sesame Street is so mainstream these days it's easy to forget how revolutionary it was at the time. We accept that children's TV should be smart, well written and with top of the line production values. That was something totally new forty years ago. We accept that the characters of children's programming should be media stars in their own right (just like Howdy Doody and Capt Kangaroo) but that they should be ready and able to take on serious subjects in ways that even our youngest children can understand and not be frightened by. The death of a long time actor on the show was a landmark in children's TV when the show took on the subject of his loss head on. And Sesame Street has a world wide acceptance and syndication that would make virtually any other show in the history of TV blush at their shortcomings. The best part for me is that the producers of Sesame Street are smart enough to hold on to the important parts while letting the local version adapt to the local cultural norms.

For Rolling Stone the start was not so auspicious. Wenner raised money by soliciting people on a mailing list he'd stolen from a local radio station. 34,000 of his first 40,000 issues were returned unsold even with John Lennon on the cover. Wenner adopted one very important aspect of the mainstream media for his counter culture effort, he got good writers. In fact he landed some of the most brilliant writers of his generation. Writers like Hunter S. Thompson who were going to find it hard to get started anywhere else. Maybe that's why the good doctor showed up to ask for a job with a case of beer under his arm. You may not agree with the politics (or even the music reviews) but Rolling Stone was well written and always worth reading.

Times have changed for both these media icons. Rolling Stone has changed the look and size of their print version and like everyone else is moving heavily into digital. Sesame Street keeps plugging away and has to take a certain guilty parenthood for things like the Broadway hit Avenue Q which certainly never would have had a chance if we weren't all so familiar with Oscar the Grouch and Bert and Ernie.

Call that the view from the Phlipside

The View From the Phlipside

These are the scripts from my weekly media commentary program on WRFA-LP Jamestown

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, Radio, the movies and more. I love 'em and I hate em' and I always have an opinion. Call this the view from the Phlipside
I've talked a lot over the last year or so about the changes in the media, especially for the print media. As a life long reader of books, newspapers and magazines the future for those media are of great interest to me. Not just because I like reading but because each of them provide a unique and I believe important service to society. We've seen lots of ideas that haven't worked and some big names crash and burn. The latest in that line is Gourmet magazine. Last week the publisher Conde Nast announced that November's issue would be the last for the magazine. Even in an age when more and more of us are interested in good food and cooking for ourselves Gourmet couldn't keep the doors open.

So I guess the question is this - is there a successful formula out there? Is there a way that you can move to the digital world and be a success? The honest answer to that has to be we still don't know. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal may point us toward an interesting example however. The newspaper interviewed Sports Illustrated's Peter King about his transition from being one of the most respected print sports writers to being one of the digital world's most successful sports writers. King's online column "Monday Morning Quarterback" is reportedly generating 2 million visits a week. That, in the language of the advertising world, is a lot of eyes. Meaning a lot of chances to see a product, a message, a sales pitch. The question is what makes the difference? Take nothing away from Peter King, he's a bright, articulate writer who has serious connections in the NFL. He's well known and well respected. So quality content needs to be on the list of reasons why his transition has worked. In the article however King notes one other thing that has really seemed to make a difference. Peter King is just...well, Peter King. He talks about himself and his real life. The majority of his readers really like it because it helps them connect with him. Stories about the death of a pet and his daughter's field hockey results hit a chord in his readership.

And that may be the key ingredient we need to be looking at. Old line media tended to be impersonal. Especially print media. Electronic media, like TV and Radio, have always had the ability to bring "real people", or the illusion of real people, into the audience's home. Digital communication tends to be a very personal medium. That kind of personal connection may just be the winning ticket in the media lottery.

Call that the view from the Phlipside

Resource Review - The Journal of Student Ministries

OVERALL - The Journal of Student Ministries offers this about themselves - "Our primary purpose is to support adults in student ministry by providing insight into youth culture, fostering in-depth dialogue around important themes, and strengthening the student ministry community. We honor a variety of theological, political, and cultural traditions and promote healthy dialogue and honest critique; and we strive to elevate and learn from the role of distinctive cultures, ethnicities, denominations, and ministries within the Body of Christ." There is a website companion to the magazine itself

WHAT'S IT ABOUT? I have to be honest and say I'm undecided on the subject of youth ministry magazines. Some are very good and some start sounding the same after about a year's worth of issues. My experience with Journal of Student Ministries is that it falls in the excellent end of the spectrum. Lots of great topics done by great writers (the week I write this the topics on the web page include Leveraging Social Media to Multiply Missional Teams, What Should Youth Ministry Look Like? (by Grahame Knox who I really enjoy), Dealing with Teen Pregnancy, One Youth Worker’s Journey into Special-Needs Youth Ministry, and Book Review - The Youth Worker Book of Hope). There are links to blogs of folks associated with the magazine and video podcasts as well. So you've got lots of resources.

RESERVATIONS This is less the hands on kind of stuff and more the deep thinking end of the range. I know not everyone loves that as much as I do. You'll also find a very heavy emphasis on Youth Specialties stuff here because they are one of the primary partners in putting this together. So if you're desperately trying to escape the YS gravity well you may want to skip this.

RECOMMENDATION When the time comes when you want some deep think on the subjects around in youth ministry this is a great resource. Lots of challenging, well written material available.

Ah Calvin and Hobbes!

I too am a math atheist.



It is only one of the greatest comics of all time. It's one of the greatest commentaries on American culture of all time. It truly deserves consideration as literature.

It's "Calvin and Hobbes".

I just discovered a new online music magazine that looks VERY interesting. It's Paste and one of the first things that caught my eye was this great article called "Five Reasons I Still Adore Calvin and Hobbes".

Add to that a chance for a free download of an album by a group that I think I'm going to like a lot and it's definitely worth a second and third look. (In fact I just jumped back there to grab the url, saw another fascinating article and had to stop and read it!)