The Press Box - An NFL Media Lawsuit, Jann Wenner’s Meltdown, and ABC for Sale!

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

Bryan and David discuss Jann Wenner’s meltdown involving his promo tour interview with the New York Times for his new book (0:35). They touch on the news about former NFL reporter Jim Trotter's lawsuit that accuses the league of racial discrimination (7:42), before reflecting on a collective of sports writers from different organizations leaving their jobs and assembling their own sports pages (14:42). Later, they listen to some NFL moments from the weekend (22:58), discuss the news that ABC is for sale, and review this new version of 'Meet the Press.' Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. David? Yes. Yon Winner set out to promote a new book the other day. Okay. I think it's important to underline that he was promoting a book. We've known a lot of book PR people in our time. We still do.

So the former Rolling Stone founder went to the New York Times, and he proceeded to light. himself on fire. Yes. As our boss likes to say. This was an interview with David Marchese. It's nice to have an interview with David Marchese moment again. Mm-hmm.

Feels like it had been a while since everybody was talking about that. Yeah. The On Winter book is called The Masters. Talk about that title in a second. Yeah. It's interviews with rock gods, who are, as Marchese points out, seven white guys Bono, Bob Dylan,

Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen, and Pete Townsend. Winner gets to

talking about why he picked this particular group and he says, quote, insofar as the women, meaning female rockers, just none of them

were as articulate enough on this intellectual level. Yeah. Meaning, I didn't interview them because they were not the philosopher kings of rock that this group of seven white dudes was in my judgment. He said more than that, too, of black artists. You know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as brought as masters, the fault is using that word.

Maybe Marvin Gay or Curtis Mayfield. I mean, they just didn't articulate at that level. So thoughts on Jan Winner and his efforts at book promotion. Oh, wow, that's a broad question. Yeah, I don't even know what to say. I feel, I don't feel bad for Jan Winter. I was now been removed from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame board. I'm sure more indignation will justifiably follow.

A little bit confused by, you know, his publisher, editor, and so much as he has one, his agent, everyone that kind of let it get to this point without predicting this question. And if he's immovable in his designation of who meets the criteria of master, at least to predict that this question would come. so that he could not set himself on fire. Yeah, in the response. I mean, I guess it's not totally shocking when someone of his level, you know, publishes a book, whatever,

that people are just like, it is what it is, you know. There's not a lot of editorial back and forth a lot of the time with really high, you know, rich and famous authors. And these were, in these world. Unless they desire it. Yeah. Yeah. And we should know these were mostly Rolling Stone interviews.

I think the Springsteen one was the only new interview in the bunch. Yeah. But it is pretty amazing when you get in an interview where you not only say things that are really gross and despicable, but you directly undermine the point of the book. Sure. I mean, you just blow up whatever rickety thesis you had tried to put out there. Well, and if the point is that there weren't any, you know, African-American writers, I mean, musicians who were sufficiently interesting in the interviews, obviously that's incredibly subjective.

But if you're going through the Rolling Stone archives and you're like, man, we fail to get any, we failed to get interesting interviews out of the greats, the greats of American music or world music who aren't white men, then maybe you should, you know, investigate that your own editorial process that gets you to that point, right? That you're failing to have engaging interviews with such a huge swath,

such an important group of the history of musicians and the history of music. It's also interesting, too, he had this little note that got overlooked because the rest of the interview was so terrible. But he is pals with most or all of these people. Sure. I think Friends is the actual word. And so he did the interviews and then he let them look over the transcripts after the interview was over and essentially said, hey, you know, feel free to go through here and correct anything or change a word or if you didn't explain anything well, you can go through here and do this. He said he did that with John Lennon in the moment. And then he did it more recently with some of these other people he's talked to. which that's an interesting conversation to have,

obviously with standard journalist subject interfaces, you do not give them the control of the interview like that. Yeah. It is a huge, huge, huge no. But here, it's not only the Yon Winner approach, but it goes to this point that he's making. These are all the pals of mine. This is my little friendship group here of the Rock.

gods. So not only do I pick this very unrepresentative slice, but I actually grant them this kind of power over shaping what they told me. And then the interview ends on this hilarious note where he says to Marchese, this is not a joke. I wouldn't mind seeing the written transcript. I'd be curious to look it over. To which Marchese replies, yeah, right. He acknowledges in there that I mean, it's not super clear, but the interview he did with Springsteen, specifically for the book, was hurt by the editorial process of being too close to him.

So, you know, there you go. It was tough to ask the tough questions. Funny how that happens. Coming up on today's pod, Jim Trotter versus the Shield, some weekend NFL audio, reassembling the sports page in Philly. ABC is for sale and meet the new press.

Same as the old press. Yeah, that's a Rolling Stone 70s kind of joke. All that much more on the press box. A part of the ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Schumacher and producer Erica Servantus here. David, I think we've said this before, but it is always so interesting how much you learn about the media through lawsuits. I don't have to remind you about the recent Fox News lawsuit. in which we learned so much about Tucker Carlson

that Tucker Carlson did not appear on Fox's airwaves again or even going back a little further Sarah Palin suing the New York Times unsuccessfully as it turned out but all those documents that came out the emails getting journalists on the stand you suddenly learn a whole lot about how these media institutions

we talk about all the time work yeah well there's another lawsuit its former NFL network reporter Jim Trotter, who's now writing a column at the athletic. He is suing his old employer, the league. The New York Times puts it like this. Trotter says he was, quote, let go in retaliation for, among other things, publicly challenging Commissioner Roger Goodell on the league's commitment to diversity. The NFL has claimed it wants to be held accountable regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion, Trotter said in a statement.

I tried to do so, and it cost me my job. Now, we know Jim Trotter attempted to hold Roger Goodell to account because he did it in an incredibly public forum at Roger Goodell's pre-Super Bowl press conference. Yeah. This is the one where they have on-site, usually in a huge auditorium, wherever the Super Bowl is, a bunch of journalists and usually one kid gets to ask Roger Goodell questions. Listen to how Jim Trotter handled his exchange with Goodell.

I've worked in NFL media for five years. During those five years, we have never had a black person and senior management in our newsroom. That's a problem because we cover a league who, according to league data, the player population, is 60 to 70% black, which means that there is no one who looks like these players at the table when decisions are being made about how they are covered.

More concerning is that for a year plus now, we have never had a full-time black employee on the news desk, which again is a problem because we cover a league whose player population is 60 to 70 percent black according to league data. I asked you about these things last year, and what you told me is that the league had fallen short and you were going to review all of your policies and practices to try and improve this, and yet a year later, nothing has changed. You know, James Baldwin once said that I can't believe what you say because I see what you do. And so I would ask you as an employee, when are we in the newsroom going to have a black person in senior management?

And when will we have a full-time black employee on the news desk? It's a pretty remarkable exchange. Especially given that Jim Trotter was working for Roger Goodell at the time. Yeah. I was asking him, again, in the most public forum, imaginable. about his hiring practices. So that's not all this lawsuit contains. According to the New York Times

in August 2020, the lawsuit claims, Trotter asked Cowboys owner Jerry Jones about why there weren't more black professionals in decision-making positions at NFL teams. The lawsuit has Jerry Jones making a very

offensive comment in response to that, which Jerry Jones is denied. Terry Pagula, the Buffalo Bull, bill's owner, also, according to the lawsuit, made a very racist comment, which Begoula has denied. And Jim Trotter says, when the John Gruden email thing came out, I wanted to use those Jerry Jones comments. I wanted to bring them up saying, by the way, if we're talking about this issue, here you go. And he says he was not allowed to by his superiors.

New York Times story from Katie Rosman and Ken Belson has more on that. It is just to go back to the point I made a second ago. Media institutions are not government institutions. There's no FOIA form you fill out and be like, why did the New York Times

choose to cover that story in that way? I have a right to know. Sometimes that information comes out and sometimes it doesn't. And again, this lawsuit who will be, I think, if it continues to go forward, an amazing window into particularly how NFL media works. And if you think about the NFL network, I mean, think about the position, according to Trotter,

that a reporter is put in when you hear those comments from Jerry Jones or Terry Pagula, these are not comments that you need a John Gruden peg to want to use. They're news. their comments people would want to know. And what he's saying is, I was not allowed to bring them to the fore. Yeah, I mean, it's, you can only sort of guess

at the level of frustration. We've all been frustrated by things in our job, but that's sort of another level. It's not a, I mean, this is an extreme example. It's not a unique situation. He said it's not state media, sure. I mean, you know, every team has like, reporters at this point that they've hired away from the local newspaper or whatever else.

You know, I mean, this is part of the infrastructure of sports now and even the ones that are that aren't tied in on, I mean, tied in directly to the team of, you know, financial ties and advertising ties and everything else. There's all kinds of conflicts. But I think that cuts both ways to a certain degree. I mean, it's, you know, the truth comes out and people will be critical I don't think there's a lot of use for trying to stifle the sort of conversation about things like that. Even if you're the NFL, and I'm sure you feel like

putting it off or delaying it or letting someone else do it, you can probably imagine advantages to it, but clearly there's not. And clearly you're not taking any of the problem seriously if you're not willing to have a conversation about something to move forward. So, yeah, I mean, I'd like to think, you know, you or I would do the same thing and try to choose. He's a remarkable person, a remarkable reporter,

and I can only, I mean, it's, I just can't even imagine being in that situation. Let me take you next, David, to Philly, where we had a very interesting why I'm leaving the athletic story. here are some people who have left the athletic Eagles writers Zach Berman and Boe Wolf Sixers writers Derek Bodner and Rich Hoffman Flyers writer Charlie O'Connell Also a couple of Philly radio people are involved with this

and others they have reformed to create a website called P-H-L-Y which I guess we're calling Philly in a DeZone kind of way A similar thing has happened in Oklahoma City where the columnist for the Oklahoma and Barry Trammell and Jenny Carlson

and a bunch of writers left to form a local sports website called sellout crowd. And something's interesting here, which is that the sports page, as we know it, in newspaper form is in big trouble. It is a husk of its former self.

But the interest in having a bunch of your favorite expert writers talk about local sports has not gone away. Yeah. So doesn't this feel like we are trying to reassemble something like the sports page in new and improved form to fill a gap left over by newspapers and perhaps also the athletic? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, do you think that the lasting legacy of the athletic, new media, trying to conquer the sports writing world, is that at least it provided a,

sort of provided a platform for people to recover after the athletic shut them down. You know, I mean, at least we know, being able to say, we're your local voices from the athletic, and we're going to keep doing our jobs, the way the athletic promised it would. You know, at least there's some hype behind that. It's a good launching pad anyway,

and then, you know, good work will hopefully win out. It's an amazing unintentional consequence of this. And Charlie O'Connor, that Flyers writer I mentioned talks about this because he did not have a full-time sports writing job. And the athletic, we know, hired some newspaper people, but they also hired people that are just like your favorite Mavericks writer, your favorite Flyers writer. Sure. Who were doing other jobs and had sports writing as kind of a side hustle. And they made them full-time sports riders. Yeah. And now, again, unintentionally, what's happening is they are putting them back into the market.

as much bigger and well-known personalities. And haven't been given the athletic stamp of approval and say, this is the guy to read, this is the gal to read, to form their own site, which is now an open lane because the athletic has withdrawn from a lot of sports cap. Yeah. I mean, listen, I'm sure the athletic, when they make cuts, I'm sure part of the conversation is not,

you know, let's ruin these people's lives, although that's sometimes a byproduct of it. But by doing it, the layoffs, you know, mass layoffs, like city, you know, just closing a whole city desk, it makes it possible, right? I mean, if it was one person at a time, if it was a slow trickle, then it would be a different situation. The cities really can really get, the markets can really get hurt by them shuttering a whole desk, but it does afford this sort of opportunity. It is so interesting because I think, like, there's so many reasons in my lifetime and your lifetime, sports writing has become national. And at the same time, sports fandom has become national.

Mm-hmm. You know, it's just the idea that, you know, sitting in Fort Worth, Texas in the 90s, that I would be interested in just random NFL transactions on a week-to-week basis. Yeah. That just was mind-blowing. But then what happens? Fantasy happens. Gambling happens.

The internet happens. So you can suddenly read everything. Direct TV happens. You know, all these things happen. You're like, oh, wow. my sports viewing experience all of a sudden became a national or worldwide experience. Yep. Rather than just paying attention to these local teams.

But for a lot of us, the interest in the local teams didn't go away. It still remains there. So what if you said, okay, we're going to have Sixers riders, we're going to have Flyers, riders, we're going to have Phillies writers, but we're not going to make them work in these outdated forms of the sports page. we're not going to say you have to write a gamer like gamers have been written for the last 50 years every night after a game. Maybe tonight it's a podcast.

Maybe tonight it's three things to think about this game. Maybe tonight it's a feature. Maybe it's just a weird riff on one play that explains something that the Sixers are doing. Yeah. I just think there's a huge opportunity there. You're not going to create the whole apparatus, at least yet of the old sports page

where he had like photographers, tons of people on the desk and all this kind of stuff. but it does feel like that is there if you can assemble the right people together. In the right markets, yeah. I mean, Philly. And in place like Philly is a lay. I think people in Philly care about sports. I need to check that, though.

Yeah. I'll make a few calls before we publish this podcast to see if Philly sports fandom is a thing. Last one for you on the subject of sports writing. This is the final edition today of the New York Times sports section. the last print edition, the last edition edition. Ben Strauss in his Washington Post piece notes that in continued protest of management's decision, that is to shutter the desk,

Times sports staffers are planning a march through the office and a rally outside the Times headquarters Monday afternoon with speeches and a brass band. Wow. I've not heard the phrase brass band in a really long time. I also very coincidentally happen to be reading this new book by Adam Nagorny, which is called The Times, and it's a history of the Times. And I found an odd data point that is from the Department of How We Got Here.

Okay, A.G. Solsberger now is the publisher of the New York Times. 1996, David, he was 15 years old, and he was brought into a meeting to look at a prototype of the New York Times website. the first New York Times website, at least the full-blown edition. And this is according to the book. Arthur Gregg, a fan of the NBA,

had one pressing question. Would the new time site include the late-night scores from Seattle's Supersonics games? Those West Coast results that almost always came in too late to make the deadline for the morning newspaper. It would.

Oh, that's amazing. Think about that. as we think about the future of New York Times sports. All right, coming up in 30 seconds, some weekend NFL audio fun, and there's a flag. But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious,

but 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. Last Monday night, one week ago, David, we had the ultimate football buzzkill. Monday night football season opener, Joe and Troy are ready. Aaron Rogers is going to hitch himself

to that New York Jets defense and go all the way to the fourth play. When he ruptured his Achilles, he is now out for the season. A lot of jokes, and we mean these only in the spirit of wishing Aaron Rogers a good and speedy recovery.

One was, oh, so now Aaron Rogers believes in doctors. A common one was vaxed, question mark. And finally, Aaron Rogers lasted one, 1,584th of a scaramucci. I hadn't seen that reference in a while. Thanks to Kevin Dorsey, Jack Purdy, Charlie Band, Mingar, and Marcus Crats. If you wish Aaron Rogers, nothing but the best in his recovery. And we really mean that.

Congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, let's do some weekend football audio fun. Yeah. This is going to shock you, but college game day was in Boulder. Oh, I know. By the way, everybody was in Boulder. You and I were the only two people who weren't in Boulder.

Kauai Leonard was in Boulder on the sideline. He was there. Like Lil Wayne was there. That was cool, but like Kauai Leonard, who we never see was on the sideline in Boulder watching Dion Sanders, aka Coach Prime and his Colorado Buffaloes. There was a funny moment on Game Day where they were interviewing Dion. He was right in the middle of the desk. Game Day's guest picker of the week, The Rock, surprised Dion Sanders.

Now, I want you to listen very carefully to the beginning of this clip and tell me that Reese Davis, the host of Game Day, doesn't sound a little like a wrestling announcer who's feigning surprise. That theater like that. Wait, what the Rock? What is this? Uh-oh. Oh, no, no, no.

Wow. Do you think this is, this is, is it closet wrestling fan, Reese Davis, just coming to the forefront here? Or is the childhood Reese Davis emerging? So I don't know the answer to that question, but let me give you some data points from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Oh, yeah. Went to the University of Alabama. Mm-hmm. Do you see a little Brian and David? Yeah. Style connection potentially to the squared circle there.

For sure. I just love that he immediately adopted the Jim Ross. Jerry Lawler thing of what's that? What, what my, oh my God. My eyes deceiving me. That is really one of the underrated parts of the wrestling play by playman as you must be constantly surprised. Oh, for sure. Things are just blowing your mind all the time.

This is my 400th edition of Raw. Every show someone has randomly walked out to their theme music. Yes, to their music. But my God, who's that? What are you doing here? You know, Jim Ross would always, I mean, as famously said, I think to both of us at various times that he doesn't, that he would never want to know the outcome of a match beforehand

so that he could be adequately surprised. Calling it in a conventional sports announcer kind of way. Yeah. Yeah, but on some level, you know, if these are real sports, if your announcer is just constantly perplexed about what's going on. In real sports, he'd be just like, Jim, you've got to do better background. You know, some more notes ready to go when this happens.

Yeah. Do some, do some and call those executives and try to get some answers before you go on the air. That'd be great if it turned out Reese Davis was really that shocked. And he just stormed off stage of the next commercial and had whatever PA was there fired. You know, just like, you could have gotten in my earpiece. The best part of our wrestling watching Prime together was somebody would walk out. Jim Ross would go, my God, God, who's that? And then Jerry Lawler in this incredibly high-pitched voice would go, what?

Yes. That was always the one-two punch. All right, so Colorado game that night, Saturday night, Coach Prime's Buffalo's had the ball, David, on second and goal from the one-yard line. I'm glad you're all the way in on the coach prime thing, by the way. We talked about this last week. I just gave up. I'm calling him Coach Prime. He is not Dionne Sanders anymore.

He was Dion on first reference. I'll have you know in this segment. Yes. Coach Prime brings in the big guys. What some of us know is the jumbo package. Here's how ESPN's Mark Jones described that. They bring in their Rick Ross package. That's right.

They bring in their big defensive lineman, Coax and Thomas. So that was funny and surprising. And people thought Mark Jones was riffing, but then he tweeted after the game, you think I'm lying, this is what Colorado calls their Rick Ross package. Dot, dot, dot. That's what this formation package is called. So I was not making a funny.

I was actually telling you what Dion Sanders has named this thing. Third thing for you, and this is really not. this podcast. This is not for you and me, David. But there's a thing out there that Chiefs tied in, Travis Kelsey, and Taylor Swift are an item. Yes. I know about this from ring or slack and not much else. Yeah. I saw a headline the other day that Gannett, the newspaper company, is hiring a Taylor Swift reporter. Like an embedded Taylor Swift reporter. I was like thinking like, God, that just feels so awkward, so unnatural. That's kind of how I feel right now. Anyway, that idea is out there. Travis Kelsey came back from an injury in week two. He caught a touchdown against the Jaguars and CBS's Iron Eagle was on it. Kansas City trying to add to its lead. Kelsey the motion man, low snap. Mahomes moving pocket. Mahomes floats it up. Caughts down. Travis Kelsey. Kelsey finds a blank space for the score.

finds a blank space for the score. I assume that's a Taylor's worth reference. It is. See, I told you. If only that Gannett reporter was on the case, you and I would get all this stuff. Yeah. All right.

Lastly, for you, we had another announcer who was calling a thrilling last second score on Saturday and got tripped up by the, but there's a flag caveat. Oh, yeah. It was an awesome Missouri K-State game that ended with a 61-yard field goal, 61 yards from Missouri as time expired. Listen to ESPN's Taylor Zarzor as someone takes a Sharpie and scribbles all over his Mona Lisa. It is Brooks.

Mivas kick on the way. Missouri at the moment has walked it off, but their flags all over the 50. Well, a lot of these aren't game winners. When the flag is interrupting the call. This is more like the flag is interrupting just the course of nature, right? I mean, what is the role of the announcer here? Just like, get off the field, fans. We got a game to try to figure out.

It's kind of, you're in a really bizarre situation now, huh? Yes. And let me give you a little plot twist. There was no flag. There was never a flag? There was no flag. They retracted the flag. or the guy never saw it.

He was wrong in thinking he saw a flag. So according to one tweet, and maybe this is wrong, it was actually a yellow Mazoo T-shirt that was thrown on the field. Mizzu colors look like a flag. You'd think that'd be something they'd encountered before. Yeah. They'd guard against. Don't you feel bad for Taylor Zarzor?

Oh, my gosh, yeah. I mean, you were calling Mazu, Kansas State. This was not at the top of the... college football power rankings. This was not Colorado. You get an awesome ending. And then what? I'm just trying to keep viewers informed.

I don't want to mislead you. And then it wasn't a flag. I just feel bad because these are the clips these guys harvest to put on their reels, to put on their Emmy reels. This is like these are your moments, right? It's like if you were I, it's like, well, what are your best pieces? Okay, let me give you a few of them. This is the kind of call that an announcer wants to put on the, you

know, take a bow, but there's a flag. There's flags all over the place. I guess that would be it. After they won, the fans just start throwing t-shirts and rally towels, willing-nilly. Yeah, it would look kind of like that would look pretty crazy, I guess. Thanks to alert listeners, Dan and Larry Gass for that one. ABC is for sale, David.

Wow. Scoop from Chris Buckley and Thomas Palmary of Bloomberg, that Disney is holding what they call exploratory talks about selling ABC to NextStar. Here's why this is interesting for us. ABC News, fabled institution, fabled in the same way the New York Times Sports Section was a fabled institution.

Well, NextStar owns News Nation. And if like me this morning, you were rapidly trying to remember what News Nation is, it is the answer to the question, what is Chris Cuomo doing now? Right. These are some quotes from CNN's newsletter written by Oliver Darcy.

Everyone is freaking the F out. One ABC News staffer bluntly told me about the state of affairs inside the network. It's all anyone at work is talking about added another. Remember when Disney owned ABC and ESPN and they kind of let ESPN eat ABC sports? Yeah. Speaking of story.

institutions. Everything that was ABC Sports just became ESPN, even if it was running on ABC. Yes. They cannot let News Nation eat ABC News, right? I mean, I would only think just because News Nation is so bland. Genet. Yeah, I would assume not, but maybe. Maybe.

Maybe. Next are based in Irving, Texas, Brian. Wow. We occupy the spot of the old Cowboys stadium. That big parking lot, that walked through 40 million times. It must have gotten a good deal on that one. Yeah. Sportswise, there's also an interesting question here about the coordination between ABC and ESPN in the event of an ABC sale. Yeah. Because as we know, there are a lot of events that ESPN gets and then shows on ABC.

and there are some events like the Super Bowl that's coming up in 27 that Disney only got because they have a broadcast network to show it on. Super Bowl is going to be on ESPN, but you can't just put the Super Bowl on cable. Sure. And we know there's been sort of interesting thing they're doing recently where they're putting a lot more Monday night football games, not just on ESPN, but on ABC. And in fact, Richard Deich has a piece today saying because of the writer's strike, because there's so little

TV coming down the line, at least TV in that sense, ESPN is going to put 10 more Monday night football games from this year on ABC as well. You're like, we don't know if we're going to have the next great sitcom to show you on Monday nights

or a drama involving a fire department somewhere in Middle America. So we're giving you Monday night football on ABC. Yeah. In fact, there's only three Monday night games that sees at Dites writes that aren't going to be on ABC. But wait, does Disney get to keep the Super Bowl if it sells it?

Or does that go with the sale? I don't totally understand that. I mean, like, if you would, okay. The contract is with Disney, I would assume. The contract's with Disney. It's not with ABC. But you're right. Where is the Super Bowl going to appear?

I mean, do you still just keep a deal with Next Star and say, we're going to show the Super Bowl there? Yeah. If you were like- sharing the profits with you. Like an eccentric trillionaire who owned, you know, NBC and had a, you know, Super Bowl coming up in the future. And then you divested yourself, you went and you retired, divested yourself of all of your properties. But you just wanted to, could you just air the Super Bowl and a private gallery viewing in your home?

You know, I mean, presumably there would have to be a predetermined outlet for this. I like the idea of the eccentric trillionaire who's just hoarding the world sports for himself. It's like the Martin Screlli of football. It would just be just like, yes, I have. I have Super Bowl. I have the Super Bowl of 2025. No one can see it except for me. I love the idea. Let's go with that until we get some clarity on how the Disney Super Bowl would be parceled out.

Some more quick ones for you. Kristen Welker started on Meet the Press on Sunday. She had a big interview with Donald Trump. We didn't get to this the other day, but I was kind of underwhelmed that Chuck Todd's final interview after a decade of of moderating meet the press was Gavin Newsom. Yeah. Gavin Newsom, who we know she's talking to Sean Hannity too. Mm-hmm.

Like, wouldn't you go to Obama or Biden? Just be like, hey, this is it for me. It's the end of an era. You're my first call. I don't know. Gavin Newsom felt, yeah, you're my first and only call until you say no, and then I'm going to call the former co-occupant of the White House. So, Kristen Welker began with Donald Trump.

which is a get, but it's a complicated get. NBC did some things that CNN did not do with Caitlin Collins. They pre-tape the interview, edited it, added some fact-checking about Trump's claims. And still, it was recognizably an interview with Donald Trump. Yeah. At least the parts of it I watched. I watched a chunk of it this morning. I'm not against interviewing Donald Trump in theory.

I'm not on the no platforming team. because he's going to be the nominee probably. Yeah. But there were all these exchanges where he would mention ballot stuffing from 2020, some conspiracy theory. And Welker would go, well, actually that's been debunked. And he would go, no, no, no, it's on camera. It's actually on camera the ballot stuffing.

And then she would go back and forth. And eventually she would just want to get to actual questions. So she would say, let's stay on track. And then they would move on to something else. And it's like, what did we just accomplish there? Yeah. So it wasn't as bad as being in front of the pro-Trump cheering crowd like CNN. But I don't know.

I think almost with the Trump interview, you need to reimagine it more fully than just pre-taping it. Because do we need to ask Trump about the 2020 election at this point? Well, I don't know if there's any way to stop him from talking about it. I mean, you're also in a weird vice for this stuff too because you, there's news to be made with just letting Trump talk and incriminate himself now. Right? I mean, you can kind of say, oh, look at Kristen Walker got Trump to put himself over the barrel,

you know, and just by admitting all this stuff, by just letting him go, even if that's, even if it's a failure of an interview, you know, I mean, he might just say something that's incredibly newsworthy. So it's sort of like the old Trump, except now, instead of just winning a news cycle, because he said something bonkers, it's like he's putting himself in legal jeopardy. You know, it's a bizarre calculus, I'm sure. I agree. And that's a really, really good point because you are, the stakes are higher now than just getting the sound bite.

I sort of wonder, do you do the hour-long interview with Trump and then just take the five, six really interesting newsworthy exchanges? And that's the interview. And what if you have, let's say, exchange number one, which could be about abortion, right? that's going to be a Trump becomes president again with a potentially with a Republican Congress. That's a huge issue. Or Ukraine. Same thing.

And you have the two minutes or three minutes, whatever it is, and then you go to Kristen Welker with a panel on NBC and you just talk about why what he said is significant. And do the fact checking like that. Or just do it live mystery science theater style. Just, you know,

just two silhouettes, just barking at Trump's lies. Do we think NBC News has the comedy chops to do mystery science theater Trump? I'm sure they could hire them. Yeah, I think that's probably closer to right. I mean, although if you, anytime you put an edited version of an interview up,

then you're just going to get all the, you know, all the chattering classes complaining about that. I mean, you would just have to put up the entire raw footage of the interview online at the exact same time as you put up here. That can live somewhere and they did that this time too. but what if you just had like here's the actual news from this interview

but isn't that every other news show then isn't the point like if you if you turn on the news this morning people are showing clips from christin welker's interview with don't trump and talking about it true part of the gravity part of what what draws you to a trump interview is just the i don't know what's going to happen next it might not be live but it feels like any moment this thing could take a turn i don't know it's he makes everything he makes everything he makes it incredibly difficult to make those decisions. Do we care about Lauren Bobert?

Oh, Jesus. Beyond the fact that she was at Beetlejuice the musical. What an occasion for all of this to happen. My God. Only thing about it that I want to say, and this came from listener Carl Hot,

is the way upright news organizations attempted to describe what Lauren Bobert was doing. New York Times said touching and carrying on with her date. They say carrying on? Carrying on. Well, carrying on, I guess, could mean a lot of different things.

Well, yeah, but that's kind of what's funny about it, right? Is it so nonspecific? Oh, my gosh. Touching and carrying on while sitting in the middle of a crowd at theater. I was surprised that, you know, like MSNBC shows were not showing the full footage. I saw what I believed to be the unedited footage and found it to be so grainy and bizarre that I didn't feel like there would be any children harmed in the viewing, you know, if they were forced to view it or anything.

Yeah, why don't we talk about that? Can we just talk about how we all basically got the 7-Eleven security camera footage of this incident? it and it was just instantly available. Yeah. There was a really weird headline. I think it was in the Denver Post that was like Lauren Bobert accused of vaping and filming at Beetlejuice the musical. And I was just like, okay.

But then the footage just appeared. It was like, oh, wow, we get to see all this. What's going on here? Yeah. And even had her like walking into the lobby and stuff like that afterwards? Yeah, that was really bizarre. I mean, not bizarre. The whole thing was beyond bizarre.

The fact that the footage was just out there completely. Like this is a, I mean, did like TMZ get this? I mean, it was, it was, that's, maybe the theater put it out because they were getting attacked. I think it definitely justified the actions of the theater. I mean, that was the first thing I saw because I was like, oh, this is going to turn into a mess. They targeted me because of my politics.

And then you see it and beyond whatever the New York Times are trying to describe that, which just looked like it was disruptive. Yeah. For people who happened to be sitting behind Lauren Bobert. And David just wanted to enjoy Beetlejuice the musical. We've all been there. I want to hear the lyrics.

I want to enjoy these songs. I got some only in journalism for you before we go. Oh, we're done with that one? All right. Oh, you want more Lauren? No, no, no, no. Him to read what the other newspapers, what the other family newspapers said?

Oh, no, that's okay. only in journalism from listener Paul Henry the New Yorker David says that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who was miraculously not convicted by the Texas Senate over the weekend speaking of stuff you saw on Twitter over the weekend as an aside

that's absolutely incredible or maybe not you know and people ask you David Brian you guys ever consider moving back to Texas let us get back to you on that one. Anyway, the New Yorker says that Ken Paxton, quote, has long been dogged by allegations

of fraud, corruption, and general impropriety. Dogged is a great only in journalism word. It is. It is. Are you really dogged by the notion of general impropriety? Lauren Boehbert would love to have it all distilled down to general impropriety right now.

When Ken Paxton seems to kind of have been undogged considering the things he's been accused of. Yeah. He is still the Attorney General of the great state of Texas. Here dog seems to be a little bit like embattled where you're trying to describe

something that somebody hasn't been convicted of. Mm-hmm. So they're just dogged by allegations. We would have also accepted dogged as an only in journalism word. A dogged proponent of such and such. Yeah, never say that one in real life. Speaking of dogged or dogged,

it's time for David Shoemaker guesses the strain pun headline. Yeah. Last Monday's headline about a French company's acquisition of a famous talent agency was Parlevo, CAA. Today's headline comes to us from Matthew Felling. it's from Politico not so much a pun

but I really enjoyed the headline Okay The indictment David of one Hunter Biden Has come down on what Politico calls charges of providing false statements To authorities and illegal possession of a gun But the important part is that Hunter Biden Hunter Biden

is now in the crosshairs of the DOJ You might even say newly in the crosshairs of the DOJ what was Politico's strained pun headline Newly in the crosshairs of the DOJ like narrow uh

um only in the crosshairs fresh just um he is his status is changed I guess we'd say

oh um Hunter Hunter Hunter Hunter the hunted, hunter the, uh-huh. So what's the, what's the funny phrase here?

Uh, the hunter, how the hunter became the hunted. Mm-hmm. How hunter became the hunted. And it's pretty good. He is David Chewaker. I'm Brian Curtis production magic by Erica Servantus. I'm back later this week and then Shoemaker and I return next week to talk about the next GOP debate.

Ooh. We got a sequel to Everybody is Mad of Vivek Rom. Oswamy. It's also here in Southern California. I put in for a press credential, so I might actually go to the debate. Yeah. A little on the scene reporting there. That plus many, many lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.