The Press Box - Aaron Rodgers and the Sportswriters

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

Bryan and David break down the news that Aaron Rodgers tested positive for COVID-19 and discuss the media’s fascination with Rodgers as a media figure (7:33). Then, they unpack Tucker Carlson’s new documentary, 'Patriot Purge,' about the January 6 Capitol insurrection (32:14). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline.  Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Bacari Sellers podcast tackles the most pressing current events through conversations and interviews with high-profile guests. Building upon his experience in South Carolina government and politics and his experience as a lawyer, Sellers will talk to his guests about all topics from the world of politics. Check out the Bacari Sellers podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. David, I almost hate to bring this up because I don't want to be that guy. As a media critic, you know, you are kind of that guy. but I try to avoid it as much as possible. But on football weekends, David, I'm reading social media.

I'm reading Twitter. And every person, which is to say every sports media professional in my Twitter feed, seems to have a favorite team. And every sports media person is doing that minute-by-minute rendition of living and dying with their favorite team. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. This is incredible.

This is terrible. Everything is fine, et cetera. You know the drill. Yeah. Now, as you know, I don't have a problem with sports writer fandom. You of all people, yeah. Our boss is Bill Simmons, us of all people. So if I'm okay generally with sports writer fandom,

can I still feel that not everybody has to be a fan? and that when we look at Twitter on football weekends or basketball weekend, baseball, whatever you want to say, that maybe it feels like everyone's kind of doing the same bit at the same time? Yeah, it's hard to argue with you. You know, it's funny because for me, I'm like, I'm so used to it from football writers. You know, for writers of the sport in question, I guess basketball is a little bit more, you know,

fan of the sport for the most part. But so many of the football writers that I follow have rooting interests. And that's fine, like you said. It does feel a little bit redundant. But I think what's, what I'm always, what I'm noticing more and more is people that aren't football writers but are sports journalists of other sorts

or like doing that in real time on Sundays as loudly as anybody else, right? It's almost like, it's almost as if expressing your credentials as a sad sack Bengals fan or whatever is a good way to, you know, gin up some traffic or some follows. Yes. And I think that's what it is, right?

It's, you know, if you're like, Mr. Neutral, I am, you know, at 10,000 foot journalist, there's only so much traction you can get from that on social media. Yeah. But if I'm an emotionally addled, oh my gosh, over the top fan of a certain team, then people go, oh, that person's a lot like me. It's true.

And I guess when you say it that way, it's if you're going to be tweeting in volume, you know, diehard fandom is sort of better than the alternative, right? Because you and I have joked before about watching, a sporting event. It happens a lot in like fights where like your entire timeline is consumed with just real time play by play. And the last thing you would need on an NFL Sunday is to turn on Twitter and see every writer, every football writer that you follow being just like, oh, that was a tough first and out for the Browns or whatever. You know, whatever. You don't need

unbiased nonstop reaction. The bias is actually what makes it somewhat palatable. But your word redundant is really good. Because again, I'm not upset ethically or something. I don't think somebody who's a fan can't do just as good a job covering a sport or a team as anybody else. I don't see any evidence of that. I just kind of feel we've gotten to a point where it's just a lot. It's just a lot. And it all kind of sounds the same.

It's almost like the AP issued guidance. Okay, young football writer. you're going to need to have a team that you ride with and you're going to need to just, there can't be a Sunday where you don't squeeze that for something. Like that's, you just have to do that. That is part of the,

part of the game here. Mm-hmm. And I'm just kind of, well, listen, you know, we talk in other forms of media all the time about how no one's ever truly just morally or ethically ambivalent, right? everybody has a point of view and you have to sort of establish that before you can be unbiased,

right? If you, if you pretend that you're real 100% unbiased, you can't really be unbiased. Then maybe this is just putting that out there in a way that, you know, political reporters would be more, would be better off. I need to level with my audience. I need to put on this, this Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt and take pictures of myself to level with my audience. Listen, and turn on. ESPN or anything else, all those NFL shows, the thing we used to rag on your co-host for being a diehard Seahawks fan

and them losing, that used to be, that used to be in the territory exclusively of podcasts. Now it's all over television too. So that's, you know, having a team that someone else can make fun of you about without actually having to make fun of you,

that's just a part of where we are, man. It's very handy for content. It's very handy. It's very handy as an identifier. Okay, that's this person. That's the Bengals person. That's the Packers person. I'm just kind of full up. I'm just trying to divert some people over to the side of, hey, I'm just going to be dispassionate person on Sunday. It's going to go bad. I'm trying to, you know, I'm the New York Times in 1979 person on Sunday. Sure. You know, I'm just kind of interesting games. And I'd like to have some analysis of the game. Follow at Ryan Curtis for your weekly dose of Christian McCaffrey reception for 15 yards. Oh my gosh. And that's the thing, right? I'm like, I, you know, how pop off with a Cowboys tweet and a Longhorns tweet every once in a while.

But like Cowboys got just throttled by the Broncos Sunson. Hey, just close the, close the computer, put the phone away. It's okay. It's okay to take a week off. Is that what this? Is this too many Sadstack Cowboys fans or just excited sports writer Broncos? fans that were in your mentions yesterday? Is that where this is coming from? I'm not going to deny that was part of it.

And probably partly also confession. I remember the critic Steve Medcalf once said somebody was a symptom pretending to be a diagnosis. This is me being as a symptom trying to be a diagnosis. Don't do. Just do what I say. Don't actually do what I do, friends. Coming up on today's pod, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rogers has tested positive for COVID and is unvaccinated. And does that news jive with Aaron Rogers as a media figure of fascination? Plus Tucker Carlson and the rewriting of January 6th.

All that more in the press box, a part of the ringer podcast network. Hello, media consumers. Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here along with producer Erica Servantes. Huge story in the NFL last week, David. Aaron Rogers, quarterback of the Green Bay Packers and reigning NFL MVP, tested positive for COVID-19. Moreover, we learned that Aaron Rogers opted not to take the COVID vaccine. A decision, he says, put him, quote,

in the crosshairs of a woke mob. When I heard that phrase, I couldn't help but think of your commentator on Sunday afternoon talking about the defensive ends pinning their ears back. You can't let those guys pin their ears back. It was the woke mob pitting their ears back for everyone. Aaron Rogers. Tons of ringer stuff on all this, by the way,

including a really good piece last week by Nora Princeati. But here with you, if we can, I would love to try to connect Aaron Rogers, the guy who was defending his COVID decision last week on a podcast. Right. To Aaron Rogers, the quarterback whose words we and the media have been hanging on pretty much nonstop,

but especially for the last year and change. How do we describe what has made Aaron Rogers such a figure of media fascination? That's a good question. I mean, there's a real, this is going to sound corny, but there's a real, within the media, it feels like there's a real humanity attributed to Aaron Rogers that a lot of, that maybe he's accessible both literally and figuratively in a way that a lot of other athletes of his are not. You know, Kevin Clark at the Ringer has written stories about him, the books that he reads and the movies that he's watched and whatever else. You know, I mean, there's a real, like,

he's very open about sort of his real life side. And there's also the, you know, squabbling with his team, kind of, you know, backbiting, whatever else, dating back to his draft, being drafted by the, by the Packers. That is not unusual. but I think it's been, but he's always been given an unusual sort of pass isn't the right word, but we've just, I think people in general have just been sort of, have sort of felt like it was understandable as when he was, when he's been dissatisfied with his team. And I mean, being a, you know, auditioning for the, being the host of Jeopardy certainly didn't help his case in terms of like, he's one of us, you know, like it's, I think that calculated or no, I think that he's, he, he holds a

very specific place, you know, in terms of media fascination, which is that he's not one of us, but he's sort of like what one of us would be if we were gifted with that sort of harm. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's right. There's the ironic t-shirts or the sort of pop-cultory t-shirts, one of which he was wearing on Pat McAfee's podcast on Friday, the Tombstone Doc Holiday shirt. There's the pop culture game of throne stuff.

you mentioned that Kevin Clark has written about. Yeah. I mean, it's the man bun. I mean, people talk about his, like, hairstyle choices sort of derisively, but it's, it's a, it's the way that you talk about somebody that you know. It's a way that you talk about, like, somebody, your friend's dating or something, you know, it's like, it's a very, it's a very, it's a very understandable sort of personality. And is that just because he's been so available for interviews where the kind of

top tier quarterback's super famous championship winning athlete of his tier is just not available nearly as much that we come to those conclusions? I mean, there's probably a lot of, you know, psychobabble that could go into this, but I think that it's, that's a part of it. I think there's being, but I think it's what I think it's, it's, there's a literal and figurative aspect to it. I think he's available. It obviously people get to interview him and stuff, but I just think he's sort of, he just seems available. He seems like he's being honest. He seems like he's someone that you would know.

And I think that that goes a long way as far, you know, in terms of earned media, you know? Totally. I think it's like the manner of speaking. By the way, I think that says everything you need to know,

but sort of the writer, I mean, the people that are covering him too. I mean, it's not, and it's not a knock. It's just like he seems like a dude that you might,

that you might know. He doesn't seem like someone who's, at least, and when you read the interview, he doesn't come off as someone who's, a sports robot or something, you know? Yes. I think also the manner of speaking is in there somewhere. He's very downbeat a little bit when he talks. He does not have that Peyton Manning like,

you know, super fast. Me of my brother Eli, you know, way of talking. It's kind of more downbeat. It sounds a little more thoughtful. Like he's, you know, there's something there and he's kind of talking really slowly and sort of interestingly. I mean, I thought those Pat McAvey interview that he started last year and is still doing this year. A pretty wild. I almost think it's like the Bill, Kevin Durant thing where it's so incredible that people have now underrated it.

Oh, yeah. They just got used to it. And you're like, he's basically delivering a, you know, the equivalent of a magazine profile or is a mini profile every week. Mm-hmm. On a podcast. And, you know,

whenever one of those drops at the beginning of the same, season, we're all like, oh, man, look at this amazing NFL profile. And he's just doing that every week. Yeah. And talking about kind of a lot of stuff and, you know, sort of leaning into controversial topics a lot of the time. And it just seems like, again, I'm like, what, you know, let's list the top tier athletes who are talking that much in an uncontrolled environment, even if he's friendly with McAfee and addressing that many. topics every week. It's a pretty short list if there's even anybody else on it. Yeah, it's true. I mean, I guess that's sort of the perception of the perception,

the reality of it. I mean, when you read a profile of an athlete, if you're not reading the morning paper and they're in the local market every day, it probably seems like the only time that quarterback whoever speaks to the media is when they, you know, open up or break their silence to a writer for Sports Illustrator, ESPN, or The Ringer, or whatever else. You know, I mean, that's kind of the only time you hear that voice. Yeah, and if you pop up on the regular, on a giant platform like Pat McAfee's show, and you just are willing to chill out and talk, you know, about anything for at length, at volume, that definitely puts you in a different sort of stratosphere.

Yeah, and you seem to actually enjoy talking. Yeah. But I think that isn't that it? Doesn't everybody? I mean, not everybody, but I mean, half of the players in the NFL probably would enjoy talking. Most of them would probably enjoy talking on Pat McAfee's show. I mean, it takes, you know, Rogers is obviously very, has a level of fame and, you know, point of view that makes him sort of perfect for that. But it's the perception that everybody's so tight-lipped, you know, they don't want to mess with their, with their image, or they don't like, they don't like members of the media, they don't care about fans.

I mean, these are perceptions that we have based on little or nothing. but Aaron Rogers certainly like puts the light of that as far as he's concerned. Yeah, well, I just think when you view it against that, either the reality of quarterbacks not talking that much or our perceptions of it, he becomes the reigning heavyweight champion restless mind of the NFL sort of by default. Yeah, absolutely true. Because you're judging him on the merits of what he says, but you're also judging it against the absence of any other similar to your superstar engaging with those topics really

at all. that's exactly right. Yeah, there's not really much to compare him to. Also, just tons of Aaron Rogers news over the last couple years. There's the brother family thing. There's the relationships off the field, which have been covered a lot over the last year. So he almost makes the Super Bowl last year with the Packers. He throws 48 touchdowns and five interceptions and wins the MVP last year. This offseason, he wants the Packers to trade him. and that news arrives on our doorstep in the middle of the NFL draft. There's his whole sort of very passive aggressive back and forth. The backers don't trade him and refuse to trade him.

But pretty much decide this is going to be his last year in Green Bay. And then he finally shows up and there's this whole kind of last dance vibe to this season in Green Bay. And so then, of course, we're all now we're stoking the fires of the transactions column. Mm-hmm. Is Aaron Rogers going to Denver? Is they going to trade him within the conference? Is he going to go play for Kyle Shanahan? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, listen, we have that level of fascination with a lot of our star players, but certainly in terms of, yeah, I mean, his putting himself out there in the way that he's received, there's very few people on that that are like him. And as Nora Preciati wrote last week, one of the lessons of the story should be that Aaron Rogers critical thinker is a character worth viewing skeptically. Case in point, David. Let me take you to August.

When reporters were asking Aaron Rogers whether he had been vaccinated because beat writers and reporters were asking this to just about everybody. This was an extremely practical question to be asking to football players. Aaron Rogers will then, we'll say this last Friday that it knows this personal. this is very invasive. They're trying to out people. Okay. But it was a very practical question

that they were asking lots and lots of football players. Here is what Aaron Rogers said at the time. Yeah, I've been immunized. You know, there's a lot of conversation around it, around the league and a lot of guys who have made statements and I made statements, owners who made statements. You know, there's guys on the team that haven't been vaccinated.

I think it's a personal decision. I'm not going to judge those guys. So clearly, he is trying not to answer the question. Have you been vaccinated? Yeah. I mean, at the risk of reading way, way, way, way too much into it. When you listen back to it, it almost seems like he had planned to say something, if not the truth, something that was more deliberate and backed out at the last minute.

you know, but again, we heard what we heard. It's on tape. We don't really need to know much more than that. Yeah. I mean, in this McAfee interview, he gave another very long, again, very, you know, info packed if some of the info was wrong, interview to Pat McAfee about his decision. And one of the things he said was that the media or anybody who's trying to find out about vaccination status wants to, quote, shame and out and cancel all of us vaccinated people. that was the contention. Now, to that, I would say, one,

football players get asked about their health all the time. This is one of the things that nobody is asking David how his ACL feels this week. Well, nobody that I know of. But football players and athletes get asked about this stuff all the time. There's a certain level of privacy that you just give up when you are in one of these endeavors. Sure.

The other part of this is there isn't exceedingly, as I said, practical part of this, which is there are different rules in the NFL for vaccinated players versus unvaccinated players. If Aaron Rogers had been vaccinated and gotten COVID, he just needs two negative tests within a 24-hour period and then he can play again as long as he doesn't have symptoms. If you are an unvaccinated player and you get COVID, you are out 10 days the end, which makes him playing not only missing last Sunday's game where they lost. to the Chiefs, but maybe even missing next Sunday's game a possibility. Right. So it actually is important to know the answer to that question.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely it is. No, I mean, I think that I agree with everything that you've said. I mean, this is obviously, I think, yes, as a professional athlete, you put yourself in position to be opened up to the sort of scrutiny and everything else. I think that we can all kind of agree with that in the abstract. And I think on the specifics, you know,

even amongst our listeners, your mileage may vary as to where exactly that line should be drawn, not where it is drawn, but yeah, I mean, this is a, this is a very specific situation where it almost politics or whatever, personal beliefs aside, the most significant thing here is the unreliable narrator, right? I mean, just the fact that he's deliberately blurring the line and again, I mean, not again, I mean, if you want to spin it forward, if blurring the line had been the point, if that had been what his,

if that had been the sort of cornerstone of his speech on McAfee's show, you know, there might be something there to respect. But he did, but that's not true, right? What he did was lie, and then when asked to explain himself, just said a bunch of other stuff. Yeah, and also, when you talk about your mind,

mileage may vary. How about the mileage of the reporters who are interviewing Aaron Rogers indoors and Aaron Rogers is not wearing a mask in those situations? As mandated. He says on the Macafee show, well, you know, I followed all the NFL protocols, but I didn't follow that one because I didn't believe in it. Okay. You know, did anybody ask them those reporters? You know, if they got the sign off on that one. It's hard it's hard to not feel like that's a well it's deliberate obviously but there's sort of a lowercase P political aspect to that right because like you can you know you can think that a mask mandated at a store is stupid but you still put the mask on out of courtesy to everybody else in the store right even if you think the store even if you think that the store is full of it there's

still other customers to think about right and it's not it's frankly a lot easier to keep your head down doing that. If you just want, if you're just, you know, trying to get by, Aaron Rogers could have very easily masked up for those interviews and just said, eh, abundance of caution. You know, he didn't, it didn't need to be a political statement. And it was only a political statement. I mean, it was a political statement by not doing it, I guess, but it's only in retrospected. It had any meaning.

So that makes it just feel reckless. Like I said, Nora ran down a lot of the things he said in this interview, talked about taking ivermectin, talked about taking various homeopathic remedies, said the words, if the vaccine is so great, then how come people are still getting COVID and spreading COVID? One of the

contentions, but I think this was the quote that popped out to me. There have been conversations with it. I would add this to the mix as an aside, but the great MLK said you have a moral obligation

to object to unjust rules and rules that make no sense. In my opinion, it makes no sense for me. I test every single day. Every single day. So we play in Arizona on Thursday. We come back. Guys leave for the weekend. I don't.

We test every single day. Ooh. Um, I don't even know what to do with this. Yeah, I don't really either. If it was, if it, okay. I mean, I'm going to be honest with you. As soon as he talked about being the crosshairs of a woke mob,

it was no surprise that he just started quoting MLK, like inaccurately and borderline facetiously. I mean, that sort of seems to come with the territory. But it also feels like, I mean, we can all agree for a million different reasons that that quotation was wrong and wrongheaded and did not do him any, favors. It did not help him in the way he certainly meant to. But man, I mean, if I'm just going to sit here and be snarky, like, if I needed any more evidence that he was just like Googling arguments five minutes before the interview, it's that he was clearly Googling famous person quotes to back him up at the same time right before he came on. I mean, it was, it's just, so. Quotes about disobeying laws. Yeah, it's just so lame. I mean, it's just so just shows this is, it. It's just, it's just, it's just, it's just shows. This is, it. shows such a lack of real interest in the subject, you know? I mean, and just, I mean,

the civil rights movement above and above all else, but even about the notion of civil disobedience and whatever he thinks the politics of what's going on with COVID right now are. And I think that in a lot of ways, that's the real, that's what you see in a lot of the writing about the reaction to what, to this interview is that it's this like huge amount, it's this huge wave of disappointment, you know, for as the person. that we talked about at the top of the segment, and the person who seems like somebody you might know and like somebody who's like interests align with yours outside of football.

And it seems like a sort of, you know, smart person that you would like to have a beer with, whatever the cliche, for him to just be just so utterly the opposite of that during the context of this interview is just, it just floors you. You sent me this tweet from NBC's Ben Collins, who covers the self-described dystopia beat over there. We love Ben, yeah. He writes, it would be impossible to drop a more stereotypical anti-vexer argument than the one being outlined by Aaron Rogers.

For someone who believes he's a critical thinker, he sounds identical to every old lady in my Ivermectin Facebook groups and Q Telegram channels. So there's that. I was also, David, really interested in the Aaron Rogers, COVID. media takes second order media takes i guess i should say one is we actually got a like terry bradshaw destroys erin rogers style headline out of this terry bradshaw just going off on him on fox nfl sunday i don't know if you want to hear let let's go ahead and play that because when else are we going to get terry bradshaw destroys x here we go i one i give erin rogers some advice it would have been nice if he'd have just come to the naval academy

learn how to be honest. Yeah. Because that's what you did, Aaron. You like everyone. I understand immunized. What you were doing was taking stuff that would keep you from getting COVID-19. You got COVID-19. Ivermectum is a cattle dewormer.

Sorry, folks. That's what it is. We are a divided nation politically. We're a divided nation on the COVID-19, whether or not to take the vaccine. And unfortunately, we've got players that pretty much think only about themselves. And I'm extremely disappointed in the actions of Aaron Rod. kind of a great example of a wrestling cheap pop at the beginning of that you want to learn something about honesty maybe you should come here to the naval academy yeah yeah tell him terry yeah it's i mean that really just gets to it right i mean you don't have to be on one side or other of the politics of the situation to be like i mean to to focus in on the fact that he was just misleading everybody right and it does if he actually did care about the the ethical conundrum here or government oppression or whatever else,

the move wasn't to just like lie for six months. You know, it would have been to, it would have been to just, you know, take a stand at the beginning. The other one I had for you is Mike Florio, the football writer slash blogger for NBC. Mark, he was taken, he was taking, flag for, I mean, I saw people saying he was all over Aaron Rogers in his tweets.

There are people tweeting, God damn you Aaron Rogers for making me agree with Mike Florio and there were people saying like Mike Floreo cares more about Aaron Rogers than he cares about Phil in the blank like you know just catastrophe

I mean it's just he was there was a lot of Mike Floreo action on Twitter. He was twisting the knife right saying like look if you don't like the rules you should retire from football or you know talking about Aaron Rogers various corporate sponsorships and stuff like that you know what's just within the bounds

of whatever but you're right people then got mad at Mike Floreo. And to me, that was like a classic sort of inside media thing where Aaron Rogers really hard to defend in this case. There's just no. I mean, he just him, even if you just care about football and don't want to talk about stuff, he is missing football games for his team because of his decisions, or at least partly because of his decisions.

So then you're like, what do I do? What affirmative action can I take? I got it. I'm going to attack Mike Floreo. I'm going to be mad at Mike Floreo because of the way he phrased things about Aaron Rogers or the certain sort of, you know, spin he's putting on the fastball on his tweets. Yeah, it's a little bit of an easier or more solid place to stand, right? Yeah, it solves a problem, right? Like, I want to be on offense here, not on defense.

I know. Mike Floreo. I'm going to be mad at Mike Floreo. Let's talk about the rewriting of January 6th and Tucker Carlson, David, but first of all, let's do the overwork Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always gratefully received. On Friday, David, at long last, Congress passed Joe Biden's $1 trillion infrastructure bill.

After many weeks and months of delays, it was an overwork Twitter joke to write, wow, it actually is infrastructure week. Sort of an overword Twitter joke bidding a do to another Overwork Twitter joke. Yeah, that's great stuff. Thanks to Michael Salerno and Ben. Weird story, David,

about Virginia's governor-elect Glenn Yonkin. According to the Washington Post, Yonkin's son, quote, at 17, two young to vote, tried to vote twice, officials say. There's an overword Twitter joke to write,

wow, tough look for Yonkin's Young kin. Young kin. Thanks to our pal Nick Field. And this week's runaway winner, David, jokes about Aaron Rogers. Would you like to hear a few of them? Let's do it, ma'am.

Some of my favorites. Aaron Rogers didn't get the Jeopardy gig, but still managed to become a host. Pretty good. Someone called him Q. Erron. Yes. Yeah, big fan of that.

someone reminded us of the Packers losing last year's NFC championship game when their coach elected to kick a field goal rather than putting the ball in Rogers' hands on fourth down. Two straight Packer seasons ruined by Aaron Rogers not getting a shot. And to the news that Rogers both wanted to be traded and is now taking the horse drug Ivermectin, Aaron Rogers should have been a Bronco. Thanks to James Fraser, Chad, Greg T, Tom Cooper, Will Bisbee, Brett, Anthony, Colette and Kevin Anderson, if you reminded us of a likely Aaron Rogers trade destination. Congrats.

You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right. In the notebook dumped, David, you and I recorded a number of podcasts about the siege of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. We even did a true emergency podcast. Yeah. Like national emergency podcast. Absolutely. Did you and I ever say, can I go find a clip where one of us said, you know what, they'll never be able to reroute

to rewrite the events of this day. This will be incontrovertibly heinous and terrible and a great state in our democracy. I don't know. No one will ever even try to reinterpret these events. Yeah, no, no.

That was a thing that was widely said, but I think there were doubts about it even at the time. But for the sake of this argument, it did seem like there was a lot of incontrovertible truth that we were discussing that day. It did.

And it still does, by the way, Because one of the things about January 6th that I think you and I have noted a couple of times is from the days immediately afterwards when we started to see new video, new camera angles, new evidence of what exactly had happened in the Capitol for such an event that was so frenetic and covered in necessarily in such a piecemeal way to things like the Washington Post feature a couple of days ago. If anything, it has gotten worse. it has not been evidence like oh maybe we misinterpret this no it's actually been oh wow it was even more violent awful than i thought well here comes tucker carlson he has a new documentary came out last monday it's called patriot purge it's not the that is not the title of a new jack ryan novel that was written by one of tom clancy's airs no no that is the name of the tucker carlson documentary he has described it like patriot i'm sorry no please

because I've read a lot about this and I've been paying attention for a while but here's what keeps catching me. I'm not, Patriot Purge does not seem to, it just seems so small compared to what this documentary seems to be purporting.

You think it's like more of a headline in the Federalist than the name of a sweeping documentary that wants to rewrite American history? The headline of like a letter from the editor at the beginning of the magazine. It's not even like it's just, it's too vague and specific at the same time.

Wouldn't it wouldn't you wouldn't the audience for like the true story of January 6th be way bigger than Patriot Purge? So Tucker Carlson at David Shoemaker if you want any hints on headlining your next

documentary. Yeah. I watched the trailer for this. Go on. Let's just say it will not be confused with the Ghostbusters afterlife trailer. Starts with the drum roll

a kind of a effect that very similar to the beginning of Oliver Stone's JFK. Remember that? Oh, like the military, like, yeah, yeah. Is that a drum roll? What is that? What is that? Yeah, but it's, it's, uh, what's it called?

It has a name. Whatever. Yes. Whatever it is. It starts like that. Then it starts to claim some things. And I think this is where the Patriot Purge part comes in. Talks about how the war on terror has moved from Afghanistan to,

focus on American citizens. Features a person saying the following, false flags have happened in this country, one of which may have been January 6th. Intimates that certain people are being put into Guantanamo Bay. I didn't really get the follow the thread there. And you know how when they show cable news in a movie? Like they show a clip of cable news and it feels a little too amped up. Like, oh, the movie makers were trying to capture the feel of cable news,

but whether because it was a movie or they just didn't quite get it right, it just felt a little too much. And it's always Pat Kiernan as the anchor. Yes, I know what you're talking about. Okay, except for the Pat Kiernan part, that is what Patriot Purge felt like. Yeah.

Man, I'm going to keep getting caught up on tiny things throughout this whole thing, but false flag is a phrase with a definition. I'm not saying, it's not like speaking of foreign language or something, but it is speaking to a very specific audience of, of conspiracy theorists. And, I mean, it's not, if the concept of a false flag needed to be explained for this documentary to exist, that's fine.

You do it in the context of the documentary. But you were to use it in the trailer, you're, it's a loud, loud dog whistle to a really specific crew. People who have perhaps entertained other false flag theories, shall we say, about other events in American life. Yes, this is not the first time that they'll be hearing the phrase false flag. That must be the expectation. So as long as we're talking about small things, I'm just sitting here pondering this just even as an idea. And just think about it. Follow me here for a second, David.

The whole, this whole thing starts because Donald Trump and his allies are falsely asserting that he lost the election. Mm-hmm. Okay. One is the one in the rally called Stop the Steel. Yeah. They have stolen the election from me or they're trying to steal the election from me and we cannot let this happen. That is what Donald Trump was saying. So then these people, there is a siege on the Capitol to try to stop the election from being stolen.

Now we're saying, no, no, no, it was a false flag. It was not the people your saying happened. So wait a second. How do I even follow what's happening here? You know, conspiracy charge number one. the election is being stolen, conspiracy charge number two, in order to counter the first thing from happening, there was yet another conspiracy carried out by different people. Or the same people, I guess, but they're not reacting to something that really happened.

We're just asking questions here, Brian. Right. So to follow this to its logical endpoint, some shadowy forces, let's call them just, let's just say people on the left had stolen the election. And then other lefties went and carried out a CISO, of the capital to frame the righties after having stolen the election.

I guess that's what we're saying here. To discredit their argument, which is in fact a true argument in this line of thought. That is where we're going here. Yeah. Geraldo Rivera, David, you'll be happy to know, has broken with Tucker Carlson.

In the New York Times, I want you to really appreciate the way he says this too. He's talking to Michael Grinbaum. Tucker's wonderful. He's provocative. He's original. But man, oh, man, there are some things that you say that are more inflammatory and outrageous

and uncorroborated. And I worry that, and I'm probably going to get in trouble for this, but I'm wondering how much is done to provoke rather than illuminate. Rolta Rivera worried that Tucker Carlson may be trying to provoke rather than illuminate. Messing around with this January 6th stuff, Mr. Rivera added, pausing briefly, the record to me is pretty damn clear that there was a riot that was incited and encouraged and unleashed by Donald Trump. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, we could have a segment on Tucker Carlson on the show every week, probably. I mean, there's some new moment of media and public outrage and justifiably so. He's certainly trying to provoke, right? But it's not just, I don't know, I think that there's different levels of provocation. I think that it probably comes as no surprise to anyone, but to say it out loud, I guess, is important. Like, this is, I think his most. most blatant and certainly most significant entry into intellectual dishonesty as art,

you know, that in his, in his much-storied Fox career. There's been a lot of it, but this is, the stakes are super high here. And of no matter what you think of Tucker Carlson, I don't think anyone who disagrees with him on this point actually believes that he

believes this stuff. right i mean there's a certain there's weirdly a certain comfort's not the right word but there but it's easy but you know i think that when it comes to the stuff about his white supremacist mumbo jumbo and like you know all the various just totally totally over the line dog whistles that he does it might be easier to rationalize if he really if he was sympathetico with that stuff rather than he's just out there being entirely craven and provocative and, like I said, intellectually dishonest

and leading a huge swath of the country around, you know, on a leash with this nonsense, right? It would be a little bit easier to rationalize if he was one of them. But when this, I mean, talking about being provocative and dishonest for its own sake, I mean, this is just unfathomable on so many levels. I mean, I agree.

Aren't you a little tired of the game of does Tucker Carlson really believe this? We've been playing it since Anne Coulter and probably before, you know? I mean, that's been a parlor game. Yeah, that's been going on forever. I'm not interested particularly in whether or not he believes it in terms, unlike issue by issue, except in so much as it's, it's, I mean, because I think it's all bullshit and it's all bullshit that he, if he believes that he doesn't care about it deeply, and I think it's all a performance. but it's, but, you know, if you needed, if you, if you were interested in any more evidence

when we're the other, I mean, I just, it's literally impossible that he believes one bit of what's in this documentary. Final interesting note is they're putting this, this documentary, this multi-part documentary on Fox Nation. Right. Rather than on your television on Fox News. Now, there's a couple different theories here, David. Is this one Fox News distancing itself a little bit from the documentary?

Or is this NBC forcing you to buy Peacock Premium to watch the Dream Team during the Olympics? Yes and yes. Okay. So Tucker's newest deal. And I mean, there was a in-depth piece about this that I read that I don't even have a citation for. I think it was NBC News, but who knows? It was, you know, on my phone. But Tucker's, you know, his current deal includes,

Fox Nation content, right? They got them doing three basically like live podcasts or video podcasts on there, I think a week and monthly specials, monthly documentary specials, which by the way, I mean, you know, Dateline NBC

I'm sure falls into the category of documentary, but if you're doing one of these a month, you're not exactly, you know, you're not exactly embracing the art of the form of documentary filmmaking, But so a lot of what they're doing is maximizing Tucker's value by having him produce all this content for the app. There's a couple of things going on with that. One, you know, the app is free and clear of cord cutting and everything else.

I mean, that's sort of the exit strategy for a company that is by and large tethered to cords to your cable box more so than just about anybody else, right? especially a company of its influence. Now, what's interesting is that, you know, there's all, people always have protest, I mean, people always organize, advertiser boycotts for this sort of thing, right? I mean, I remember people doing that like crazier during the O'Reilly Factor days, and people have done it for MSNBC shows on the other side too. And that's happened to Tucker. A lot of the, you know, big name advertisers have pulled out.

But what's interesting now is that the carriage fees that Fox News gets for being part of every cable package is actually a more significant part of its income now than advertising. So having someone like Tucker who makes you indispensable even for a vanished, for an ever-shrinking piece of the... And it's not shrinking. But even if the audience were ever shrinking, to have him, to have an indispensable person on your network is more valuable than whatever the advertisers you're losing

for disrespecting or offending 90% of America. Right? So, and then on top of that, those are the people who are going to be most motivated to pay an extra $5.99 a month for an over-the-top app that they don't need, right? That they, or that, you know, an over-the-top app that no one particularly seems that interested in

unless you're, you know, a fan of the politics of the Funkasaurus. But it's a, it's a, it's funny, because, I mean, it's an interesting angle because it's a move towards the future for, like I said, a company that's kind of tethered to the past, but it's doing it, but it's lurching into the future in kind of the most regressive way you could possibly do it, right? By just like finding the most diehard dinosaurs, you know, true believers, the people that would have been the fringe of the Fox viewership five years ago

and just doubling down on them as the people who will, you know, ante up whatever we want. It's basically just like, we're just going to pick the smallest sliver. It's like deadheads. We're going to keep putting out the same albums with like, you know, with slightly remastered versions of it every couple years. And these people will definitely buy it and it will definitely be worth the expenditure. You know, and it's, it's disappointing, you know. I mean, it's a talk about provocative for its own sake or Craven or whatever else.

I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a cash grab. And it's, regardless of whether or not it's on Fox, that doesn't give you any editorial. distance. I mean, it might in their eyes and whatever they want to say, but it's bullshit. They're, they're being provocative on the app to get people to subscribe to the app and they're using the TV, they're going to use Tucker's show to drive people there. And that's all they really care about. You're saying they put the over the top in over the top. Yes. They're really living up to the buzzwords there. All right, it's time for David Shoemaker guesses the strain pun headline. Yeah. Last Monday's headline about

Colin Powell's wife influencing his decision not to run for president was Alma Matters. Today's pun comes from our pal, Matthew Felling. It's from the Washington Post. One of the big election stories last Tuesday, David, was the mayor's race in Buffalo. Earlier this year, a socialist candidate beat the sitting Democratic mayor for the Democratic nomination. The Democratic mayor didn't give up. He ran as a right-in candidate. and appears to have retained his job last Tuesday. But put all that aside, right? David, the people of Buffalo were deciding between two different kinds of Democrats.

Okay? Two different kinds of Democrats in the election. I'll spot you the, yes, I'll spot you the beginning of the headline. Buffalo Picks. What was the Washington Post strain pun headline? Huh. Buffalo picks, dang. What would we call different areas of the Democratic Party?

The center left? More generally, the middle, the, the centrist, the liberal. The centrist, what? The centrist, maybe we can work backward. Buffalo's favorites. Oh, the centrist's like caucus or the centrist. wing. Oh, Buffalo wings.

All right, all right. Here we go. Buffalo Pigs. Buffalo Picks. What is it? Buffalo Picks Centress Wing or did Buffalo Picks? Buffalo Picks its favorite wing. Its favorite wing.

All right. Buffalo Picks its favorite wing. Oh, yeah. All right. That should have gotten that one more quickly. But that's a little bit strange. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis.

Production Magic by Erica Servantus. Come on this Friday, David. our second Friday press box devoted to a media movie. Oh, yeah. This time it is the 1986 War Correspondent movie, Salvador, which stars James Woods and James Belushi. And here to talk about it is the director. Oliver Stone.

Wow. A fascinating conversation about making a journalism movie, the real-life correspondent who inspired Salvador, and given that it's Oliver Stone, a whole lot more. And then David and I are back next Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.