The Josh Innes Show - The Sweet Jaguars Reporter Lady

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

The social media world was in an uproar over this nice lady at Liam Coen's press conference. It's amusing watching media people try to hang on to whatever shred of relevance their profession has. Let's break down this audio... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right. So one of the biggest stories on social media yesterday was about this gal that's the reporter for the black newspaper in Jacksonville, who did not ask a question of Liam Cohen, the coach of the Jaguars. She just offered him some praise and some uplifting messages after the Jaguars lost to the bills. And this has people all worked up on both sides. Mostly it's media people saying that this is disgusting and outrageous. and we have a job to do and blah, blah, blah. And you got a bunch of people who are not media people who just don't understand why it's a big deal to the media people. And then, of course, there's a racial component that I keep seeing in post because all the people that are outraged over this are just white men. And this is a black woman, and they're criticizing her because she's a black woman. There are many, not many, but there are various layers to this whole story

about what's pissing people off and what's not in the story. So let's do this. Let's play a couple commercials and play this audio and get it. it into it. When the weather cools down, Golden Nugget Online Casino turns up the heat.

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Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nugget Casino. for details. Please play responsibly. All right. So this is the question that was asked of Liam Cohen after yesterday's game from this nice lady from the newspaper in Jacksonville. How you doing today? Lynn Jones, Jacksonville, Free Press News. I just want to tell you, congratulations on your success, young man. You hold your head up, all right? You guys have had a most magnificent season. Thank you. He did a great job out there today. So you just

hold your head up, okay? And ladies and gentlemen, Duvall, you the one, all right? You keep it going. We got another season, okay? Take care of much continued success to you and the entire team. Thank you, ma'am. Now, that's not really her place to do that. Like, if you're looking for your decorum or whatever, if you want to look at the way you should handle things in a press conference, that ain't it. But this also is at 1955. Like, the world's a different place. If you want to know a way to avoid shit like that? Well, first of all, she's not like a podcast or anything. She works for some paper. I think she works for, I looked it up. It's like the Jacksonville free press is some sort of black newspaper. Fine, whatever. But media is such a different world than it was even 15, 20

years ago, right? Like, first off, I will throw out that everybody knows that I have been hammered at press conferences before and ask dumb questions while hammered. Obviously. I don't take press conferences that seriously because 99% of what a coach is going to tell you means absolutely nothing, just like 99% of what a player is going to tell you means nothing. It doesn't mean shit. Like big picture, none of this means anything. Like they're not going to give you straight answers on anything. You have to ask bullshit questions.

And sometimes you even have to ask questions that you already know the answer to because you need the quote. You need the sound bite to use for your story. Now, there is one thing. Let's start with this angle. There are many people commenting on this. who are not in the media, will never be in the media, and have zero concept of what takes place at a press conference or how press conferences are supposed to be approached. Like, do I think, just from the strictly media side of it, do I believe that that's an appropriate

thing to do at a press conference? No, right? Just from like my experience in being in the media and back when I used to take shit seriously would go into press conferences, do I view that as a something you should do in a press conference? No, because it's not. But this is also 2026. We're in the era of podcasters and bloggers and people who have no business being credentialed media people getting credentials.

Again, let's be real about that shit. These teams are now just giving credentials to virtually anyone because they don't want to be considered stodgy or they don't want to be considered racist or they don't want to be considered anything. So they just give credentials to almost anybody. The reality is not everybody is trained in the decorum that is necessary to. be a media person. I'm not trying to suck farts out of the assholes of media people. Most media people are douchebags, okay? But I'm just looking at it from the straight up standpoint of how you're supposed to handle yourself in a press conference. I also, it's not lost on me, that I'm a guy that's done dumb shit at press conferences. That said, I understand the decorum

of the whole thing. I understand the way things are supposed to be approached. You are not supposed to use the press conference as an opportunity for you to sit there and congratulate you. the coach for having a good year and provide him with some sort of uplifting message on the way out. That's not how this works. And it will never be how this works. But the reaction I'm seeing from media people and like this disgust is a bigger picture thing.

And it's not like they're disgusted with this particular woman, right? I'm seeing a lot of negative comments from media people who are like, this just can't happen. This is terrible. We're working here. We got deadlines to meet. Blah, blah, blah. Cool. Like you're not fucking Woodward and Bernstein.

What deadlines do you need to meet for your fucking website? Newspapers are dying. When I think of deadlines, I think of deadlines for newspapers because we got to go to print. Most of you write shit on the internet or most of you podcasts. You can post anything you want anytime you want. There is no deadline. I don't believe in deadlines for shit that has to be posted on the internet. This isn't a newspaper you're not going to print.

Okay, that's stupid. But what you're getting from a lot of these media people is they're very sanctimonious and very holier than that. and very, I have to get my work done. This is my job. I have deadlines. I have to hit, blah, blah, blah. And they're the ones who are super angry about this. But they're not just angry.

Like, I think that's the small view of it is to say, oh, they're just angry that this person did this. I don't believe that. They're mad because this is more of an indictment on their overall profession. And it shows how obsolete and many times useless this profession is. first off we're in the toy department Barry Warner used to say that all the time sports is the toy department chirp right and and that's what this is

this is not serious this isn't making or breaking anything in any human's life for the most part it's sports it's a game you watch the game it's big business I'm not just missing the fact that it's big business I'm aware that it's big business but it's a game it's a fucking sport right

like this isn't foreign policy This isn't invading Venezuela. This isn't like, hey, I've got a few questions to ask the president. Let me dick around with that. That's not what this is. This is sports. At the end of it, this is a guy who lost a three-point game and it sucks for him and it sucks for the fans. But at the end of the day, tomorrow you wake up and you go at it again.

And the world's not going to be any better or worse because you won or lost that game. So what happens is you get very self-important media people. And they treat these press conferences like they're actually going to get anything out of. it. 99% of the time you don't. You might get a guy saying something when he's angry. You might. I mean, look, there are times you're going to get things that you can use. The vast majority of the time

press conferences do not yield much. So taking this whole thing super seriously, like, look, is it comical? Yes. Is it something that should happen at a press conference? No. But in 2006, what is a press conference and why does a press conference matter and who gives a shit?

Like we're allowing people who to me, and I'm a big believer in this. I don't mind that people have podcasts and people have blogs and people have websites. Do what the fuck you want to do? Like I'm not telling you that you shouldn't have the right to do that. What I'm telling you is that there are a shit ton of people that have voices that probably shouldn't have them because they're probably untrained in this shit, have very little skill and are just angry fucking people or wacko sports fans that want to have a blog. And we are starting to give them too much access. I don't know if there's a test or something you should have to pass to get access to these kind of things. But like, I don't know.

I think we're giving too much access to too many people who don't really need or deserve this access. That's not this woman. This woman writes for this black newspaper in Jacksonville who gives a shit. But at the end of all this, do I really give a shit that this woman spent 20 seconds out of the fucking day congratulating this guy? It's 20 fucking seconds. That piece of audio is 22 seconds. How you doing today? Lynn Jones, Jacksonville, Free Press News.

I just want to tell you, congratulations on your success, young man. You hold your head up, all right? You guys have had a most magnificent season. Thank you. He did a great job out there today. So you just hold your head up, okay? And ladies and gentlemen, Duval, you the one. All right?

You keep it going. We got another season, okay? I appreciate it. Take care of much continued success to you and the entire team. Thank you, ma'am. Like, they're not going to just stop the press conference. They're going to make sure every question that anybody has will be asked. It's the last press conference of the season.

It's a playoff game. He knows he's got to be up there to answer questions. So the argument that can you believe that they're wasting the time of so many people who have deadlines? And it's 20 fucking seconds. What's it going to hurt? Like, what is that hurting anybody? Like, how is it impacting your life and your job for this woman for 20 seconds to say, hey, I love you? You've done a great job.

Again, does it have a place there for that? No. But does it matter? No. That's like one of those things where getting worked up over that and angry over that says more about you than it does over this person. I have no idea what this woman does. I have no idea what she writes. I have no idea if she writes anything of any value.

Maybe, maybe not. But she spent 20 seconds saying, hey, good job, coach. Is that really impacting your life? Is that really setting you back? Is that really hurting you big picture? Is it really keeping you from writing your fucking story? for your little website? Is it really keeping you from writing your newspaper story that no one's going to fucking read? And that's the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that these are people

who are angry because they know that the importance of what they do has been watered down because nobody fucking needs it. You can get all this. People can watch, by the way, people can watch these press conferences as they happen. And if it's not as they happen, it's right after they happen. 25 years ago, you couldn't watch a press conference. 25 years ago, you couldn't go to a website and just access this audio. Like, that was the kind of stuff that made you elite as a media person, or at least made you bigger or better or more important than the average Joe who buys tickets

and goes to the game. It's that the average Joe didn't have that kind of access. And the average Joe doesn't have access in the sense that, like, they can't ask a question, but you can watch an entire press conference. You can go to that website right now, go to the jam. Aguars website and you will see Liam Cohen and his entire press conference, however long it was, you can watch it in its entirety. So no, you don't have the access in the sense that you don't have the sources, or you don't

have like the ability to ask direct questions to players and coaches, but you do have access to that same video and that same audio and you can watch it. So what's happening in this world of media is there's a lot of people. who are no longer as powerful as they once were. Look in Pittsburgh. One of the big papers in the country, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is going to cease operations.

Just done. A lot of these people asking these questions are writers. Most people don't give a shit about what you're writing. Most people are listening to podcasts. People don't give a shit about what you're writing. And a lot of the shit you're going to write is never going to be read because people are not going to pay for it. A lot of these are behind a paywall.

and these people are going to pay for it. And the ones who do pay for it are going to screenshot it posted on Reddit for other people who don't pay for it to read. What you have here is people who are uncomfortable and uneasy with the direction their profession is going, and they are seeing themselves become more and more obsolete, and they are uncomfortable with the idea of being obsolete. I get it. It's tough. You want to believe that what you're doing has value, and it will always have value.

It won't. For the most part, people don't care what you're right. writing. Why do they not care what you're writing? Because they're going to build their own opinion on shit anyway. They don't care because they're like they're going to believe what they're going to believe about their team whether you write about it or not. So again, I'm not telling you this is the right way to go about things. When I sit there and you know, ask so you tell someone how great they are at a press conference, well shit, I've been drunk in a press conference. Don't put it past me. But do I think it matters? Do I think that any of this matters?

It's 20 seconds. It's 20 fucking seconds. How you doing it? day. Lynn Jones, Jacksonville, Free Press News. I just want to tell you, congratulations on your success, young man. You hold your head up, all right? You guys have had a most magnificent season. Thank you. You did a great job out there today. So you just hold your head up, okay? And ladies and gentlemen, Duval, you're the one, all right? You keep it going. We've got another season, okay? Take care of much continued success to you and the entire team. Thank you, ma'am. One thing about white people when an older black woman starts telling them stuff and preaching, it's always ma'am. Like, you may not be a yes ma'am person, but when they're

there's an older black woman telling you nice things and kind of preaching to you, it's always yes, ma'am. That's how I operate. There's not a black, an old black woman that I've met that isn't ma'am to me. Like there might be some white chicks that you meet and they're not ma'am. Always ma'am with a black woman. For whatever reason, don't know how it is, just kind of how it works out. I want to hang with this woman. Like, I want to call her every day for some sort of daily affirmation. Like, I want some sort of uplifting message from this woman every day. Like, just hook it up. I want to call. She needs to have a line, like a nice little line where you call, like a hotline that you can call and just get like a 20-second daily affirmation from this nice

woman. I like her. And what's wrong with that, I guess is my question. What is wrong with what like, how did it truly impact your life? It didn't. It did not impact you getting your job done. It did not impact anything. All it did was started to point the finger and emphasize that what you do really isn't that big of a deal. And it hurts people when you find out that what you do doesn't matter all that much. When there's a woman sitting in a press conference telling this guy how great he is for 20 seconds, that's a, that's something, that's an act, that's an action that helps water down what these guys do. And when you start to realize what you do doesn't matter all that much, it starts to hurt you a little bit. It bothers you a little bit more. And I think that's the

bigger issue why these guys are yelling about this on social media. And some of them haven't fully grasped the change in the media world. Like the people who are consuming your product don't really give a shit about honesty or integrity. They just give a shit about hearing what they want to hear. Politics, sports, whatever. So what you're doing isn't really all that important. What I'm doing isn't really all that important. We're not, you know, splitting atoms here.

We're just dipshit's talking about sports. Lighten the fuck up.