The Press Box - Another Killing in Minneapolis and the Dismantling of The Washington Post

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Hello, media consumers! Bryan, David, and Joel come together on today’s episode for a three-man weave. The guys start by discussing the shooting of Alex Pretti (01:58), the way the Trump administration has tried to spin the story (10:04), and the way the Minnesota Star Tribune has covered these events (29:50). After that, Bryan, Joel, and David give their thoughts on the rumored shuttering of the Washington Post sports desk (33:33), alongside other rumored layoffs that could affect half of the company's newsroom. The show ends with a new edition of Our Disillusioned Listeners, where Bryan, David, and Joel answer questions from you, the listeners (51:58). Plus, David and Joel Guess the Strained-Pun Headline! Hosts: Bryan Curtis, David Shoemaker, Joel Anderson Producer: Bruce Baldwin Social: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David? Yes. Joel? Brian? We had so much fun doing a three-man weave back in December that we decided we're going to bring the three-man weave back every month in 2026. Why are you committing to that? Don't commit to it, Brian.

We don't know what's going to happen. We know what we, come on. Look about what it took to make this happen today. This is an ambitious podcast, sir. And you're one of the ambitious people on this podcast. Yeah. I'm calling people up. We can't, the three of us get together and do a podcast on a regular basis. Yeah, man.

It's tough. I'm snowed in. So, you know, there was only so many excuses I was having to be in front of a microphone today. We have to do this because I even gave this a name. Call it the January editorial meeting of the press box. I like that. That's great. I love it.

We come together. There are no bad ideas here. Well, there are some bad ideas here, but they came from other political administrations and other media outlets. We just get to bag on those ideas. Coming up on this episode, we need to talk about the shooting in Minnesota, the coverage of the shooting, and what it's like to see death again and again on social media. We'll talk about what the people who run the Washington Post are about to do to their sports page. and we'll answer your questions and a feature called

our disillusioned listeners. All that and much more on the press box, a part of the Ringer podcast network. Hello, media consumers. It's Brian Curtis, it's David Shoemaker, it's Joel Anderson, and its producer, Bruce Baldwin. Let's start guys with the shooting in Minneapolis.

I'll repeat the details that we've now heard for the last 48 hours. Alex Pretty, was in Minneapolis on Saturday morning. He was filming. While he was filming, a demonstrator was thrown to the ground. Preddy tried to help the demonstrator.

He was sprayed with pepper spray. He was thrown to the ground with eight agents present or on top of him, according to a New York Times analysis. Pretty was disarmed. And then Alex Prattie was shot. as the New York Times put it together agents fire six more shots at Mr. Pretty while he lies motionless on the ground and continuing at least 10 shots appear to have been fired within five seconds

where do we even start I have no idea I mean this is we just take the sort of like real basic you know place in time in media piece of the conversation. A lot of times we talk about where we were when we heard this, how we heard this news. I mean, I think this is, as with some of the other such topics we've discussed, one of the most purely social media-driven news events in a way that even some of the other stuff we've talked about isn't, I mean, it hasn't been this straightforward. I mean, I think literally everybody that was going to find out about it found out about it before the evening

news, you know? And there's a whole second level of that, which is that there's, there's, you know, the multiple angles emerge over the span of time that, you know, depending on when you logged on. So news is kind of being gathered in real time and sides are being taken in real time. And I think that, you know, I'm sure this is jumping way ahead. But the reaction to this one does feel different, although so far for me, it's been a little bit hard to really define it. What do you think, Joel? Yeah, you know, when I was a teenager and we're all around the same age, there used to be you could go to Blockbuster. Or maybe not know, you couldn't go to Blockbuster, maybe Hollywood Video or another independent local video store below.

You could rent Face Us a Death. which was a video that you could watch. Maybe it was an hour, and it was videos of all kinds of people dying in all sorts of horrible and tragic ways, like bungee cord deaths, car accident, you know, hit by car, whatever, that sort of stuff. And I remember I endeavored to rent it once

because I wanted to see what it was like, you know? And because you just couldn't, you know, in 1996, there was no way to just see deathlight, unfiltered death in 1996. And so I remember watching that video and I got maybe a third of the way through it. And I was like, oh,

this is bad. Like I just, it just like coarsened something within me. Mm-hmm. And so that's sort of what I've been thinking is I've seen the video of Mr. Preddy and Ms. Good in the last couple weeks.

Just like the knowledge that somebody's dying on the other end of this content, It's just really sort of mortifying, but it's just something. There was a time when we sort of had to get used to it, like maybe, you know, even three, four years ago. I felt like we went through, you know, the Walter Scott, the one that I've never seen and planned to never see. And this is kind of where it started for me was George Floyd. Like, I was just like, I think I've seen enough. I don't ever need to see this.

I've done. Like I just, I don't, I knew that I couldn't watch it. And I made that decision. I feel like now that decision has been taken for me in ways that I kind of didn't plan on. And so it's like either I'd say either I'm going to stay off social media, period, or I'm just going to have to deal with the devil of auto play. And it's just kind of tough. And I don't know how other people feel like watching Mr. Preddy die like that.

I know in some ways it has inspired a lot of people, but in others it's just giving me a real thinking feeling that I had to watch that. The faces of death thing is actually pretty, I mean, that was part of my childhood, too. I don't even know if it was, to me, it was never possible to rent. It was just like a videotape that was like handed around to people. And you, you like, you know, your friend would tell you he was going to get it on so-and-so date from so-and-so person. And you showed up to this house. And there was a lack of volition there, too. You could choose whether or not to show up.

But once your buddy pushed play, you weren't really, at least I didn't feel like it was in my, it was, my choice to leave or not, I'd already opted in, you know, and, um, but you're right. I mean,

we've, there are, you know, whole Twitter and Instagram accounts that are dedicated to like, that are just faces of death accounts, you know, I mean, just all kinds of different,

just insane moments. Um, but even those are largely detached from your reality. They're like nameless, faceless people for the most part, right? I mean, this is a situation where,

the victim was where we knew so much about the victim almost immediately after his death and the same with this good and it was it was yeah I mean it's it's a jarring experience for sure

and this isn't just an account that you either stumbled upon or went looking for all of Twitter was faces of death all of Twitter has been that way for months now I mean, what would you have had to do to avoid watching this video over the last 48 hours? That's a great point.

What could you have possibly done other than, as Joel said, just put your phone in a drawer and walk away? You were going to see this one way or the other. Right. You either have to brick your phone or yeah, just say, I refuse to look at anything on the internet today for the next few days. And even then, that probably won't cover it because I imagine that this. video is going to be in circulation for a while. It's true. Yeah.

And even like the New York Times, you know, does there now, now it's a regular feature that they do like frame by frame breakdowns of these things, right? I mean, it's, it used to be that you could at least like avoid social media, which is a tenuous proposition in and of itself. But if you avoid social media, you know, the mainstream media wouldn't be showing you the stuff without a warning. I mean, I feel like that's not even true anymore. No, because they have material to do things about like this way,

just like they did with René Good. There's a reason to go in and show a moment-by-moment breakdown of a killing. As David mentioned, the newspapers were scrambling around to tell us more about Alex Pready in his life. He found out he was from Green Bay, went to the University of Minnesota, was a registered nurse at a VA hospital. He enjoyed the outdoors. He had a concealed carry permit. He was politically active. He protested after the murder of George Floyd.

He was part of the protest after Renee Good. was killed earlier this month. His father Michael told the Associated Press, he thought it was terrible, you know, kidnapping children, just grabbing people off the street. He cared about those people and he knew it was wrong. So he did participate in protests. By the way, Preddy's family found out about his death

from the Associated Press and not any authorities. That's a thing that happened. David also mentioned the spin, which I think we should talk about. For sure. And I wanted to ask you about this. Joel because I saw a tweet you had regarding

the video of Rodney King, a subject that you have looked into before. Oh, yeah. And it's one of those things where we all go, but there's a video. There's a video where we can see this happening, not what you're saying is happening.

And I think your point was sometimes it doesn't matter even if it's on video. Right. I think there's two ways of looking at it. one, and even just going back to Mr. Prattie's video, I think that it is a valuable service that it is out there.

So because I think that the horror of it, that this guy, like you can look at the video and see he doesn't even make an offensive move the whole time. Like he steps into help a woman, turns his back, and then all of a sudden he swept up in a moment that ends up with him dead, right?

And I think that if you're a reasonable person who is not inclined to lie, right, or you don't have a particular reason for lying about what it actually happened here, then it's a valuable service to know that that video was out there. I didn't even need to look at that to know that, okay, there's a lot of reasonable people who are committed to truth who are saying that this was the version of Vince. I'm glad it's out there because if we only had to go with the narrative of the authorities in this situation, we would be in real trouble.

And I thought, to your point about the Rodney King thing, and also the Latasha Harlan's case, which is related to the Rodney King case, and that it happened around the same time. And it was also one of the events that inspired the rebellion in L.A. in 1992. Like, I remember being a kid and looking at that, and I'm like, oh, yeah, pretty open and shut case right here. That guy's not, you know, making any offensive. moves, like he's trying to protect himself. He's being hit. Seems pretty clear that the people that are responsible for this should go to prison. And then, like, it was at that age, and I'm like, oh, there are people who are creating an

entire narrative that is foreign to what I'm actually looking on the video. And that's sort of what's happening here. And it just sort of speaks to, and I saw New York Times contributor and MacArthur Genius Grant person talk about this, like sort of the power of the state to shape a narrative. and this is why you have media, right? Like, this is actually, like, this is the important thing for having media because the power of the state

can try to convince you that your eyes are lying to you, right? That you're, that we don't, that we don't have the expertise or whatever to divine what is going on on tape. But, like, we know better than that, right? Like, we, and we should know better than that. And I was hoping that more people would be better than that, but it just reminds me,

It takes me back to 1991 when people were like, well, look, you can see Rodney King. He's kind of reaching for something or he's stood up in an aggressive way. And so I'm just like, okay, people will have just going to lie about these things. The problem is that you just don't, you're hoping it's not going to be the authorities. You're hoping it's not going to be the people that are supposed to enforce the law and uphold it. But like, unfortunately, that's just not the time we live in now. It's really not. And it's probably worth going through some of the things we heard from the authorities in this case.

Christy Nome, Secretary of Homeland Security, said Prattie, quote, attacked those officers. He didn't. And was, quote, brandishing a weapon. He wasn't. In fact, he was disarmed. Stephen Miller called Pruddy a, quote, assassin on Twitter. Yeah. An assassin.

J.D. Vance, who is the vice president of the United States, need I remind you of that, retweeted that sentiment. Homeland Security account with 2.9 million followers tweeted this, quote, this looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement. Yeah. Yeah. Those are things that were said by the authorities. Yeah. Again, we're not, we're not arguing over, you know, oh, this angle, this angle there.

That is the kind of stuff they're putting out right away. He is an assassin. That was said by a powerful figure in the treasurer. Trump administration. It's, if you cover cops in a local jurisdiction and you get used to reading police reports or arrest reports, you kind of, a lot of this is fiction. Like, you weren't there and you're just taking the word of people that are either reconstructing events or that were there and they're inclined to tell the events in their version of things.

But you kind of, in a local, in a local jurisdiction, you kind of understand because there's a limitation to what these people can do. And also, like, they're sort of limited by the level of competence or, like, integrity, right? The thing about the federal law enforcement is that these are supposed to be the best of the best. Like, when it gets up here, there was always, at least I thought, right? I guess maybe that was naive given the Jay Edgar Hoover used to be in charge of the FBI. But, like, the thought was that, oh, no, these people are, like, very serious. They can see that they have to be responsive to American citizens and they have to take this job very seriously. Like they would never lie to us because it would hurt them, right?

Like you would think that, oh, like by blatantly lying to us, it would hurt them. And I think that's the thing that media can't control, that no particular journalist can control, nothing that we can say. Like, it's the people that, like, want to believe what the federal government is saying in this instance. like you people have to get right with God, bro. You know what I mean? Like the Trump derangement shit, like you guys,

you guys have got to look within your soul and say, all right, like, what sort of society do I want to live in? Right? Like this is, I don't believe in blaming the media for this. Like this is an American problem. And you have to decide like, okay, like am I going to,

are my eyes lying to me? And unfortunately, it seems like a lot of people have bought in, lock stock and barrel. I was struck by something. thing, which is the asymmetric nature of this war over information. I just read you what members of the Trump

administration said. Now go look at the very good work that almost every media outlets done, as we said, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, they all had their own video analysis. And you know what they're doing? They're trying to be journalists. I'll reach you from the New York Times as account here. The footage seems to contradict the

Department of Homeland Security's account of the encounter. Dot, dot, dot. We're crossing every T and dotting every eye. We're bending over backwards to try to say things in the most clinical language we can. I was even reading those profiles of Pretty. A couple of them said, well, you know, he had no criminal record. Dude, if this guy had picked wildflowers in Minnesota that he wasn't supposed to pick sometime during his life, a journalist would have put that in the piece.

Just because they would have thought with their journalist brain, I I got to put everything in here, even though this is not a reason to be killed by federal agents. I have to put everything like that in there. We're working in a totally different language. And this is not a critique of the press. I'm not here to do that and bag on the Times and everybody else. I'm really not. I just want you to know, this is the way people are getting their information.

One way from the Trump administration, one way from the journalists who are trying to put the truth out there. the press is asking you because the thing is is that this is a highly litigious administration right and they've shown that they are willing to come after you and hurt you and hurt your organization so it's unfortunately as much as we would like for the journalist to say Trump is lying Kristy Knoem is lying they're doing everything they can to connect the dots all they need you to do is use the marker bro all you got to do is use the marker bro all you got to do is use the marker, okay? And they're just asking you to ride with this on this, because this is as far as they can go in the climate that they're at. And so I just, you know, the people that lash out at media in these

circumstances, I understand that you got, you want somebody to be mad at. The great thing about it, there's somebody right in front of you to be mad at, bro. There's a whole group of people that you can be mad at right now. It don't have to be the media right now. I promise you. Yeah, it's true. I mean, a bit part, and part of the deal is that it's actually a pretty, a fairly, big group, or bigger than you would expect, right? I mean, the number of federal government officials that have sort of, I mean, it's not just like, I felt like with Renee Good, J.D. Vance just sort of stepped into the void and assumed that role. And of course, he's been involved in this too.

But now we have Dan Bovino and, of course, Christine Nome and any number of people, Tom Homan that have been out there playing defense on the national show. Stephen Miller, of course. And, you know, none of it's, none of it's real. You know, I mean, you're right, there's plenty of people you can get, you can get mad at, but it does just feel like a sort of coordinated effort to obfuscate the truth. I mean, it feels like we've had this segment time and time again where we're just like they're on on much less significant subjects where it's like, yeah, the Trump administration

has decided to just lie. and see how many people are willing to go along with it. And I don't know, this feels like the first time where you feel a broad consensus that like this lies isn't going to work. I mean, but you're right. There are plenty of people to get mad at about it. It does feel different.

I agree with that. And I don't know if it's because of the absurdity of those claims we just made. I think that's sad. I mean, I think they're just like the specific word choice of assassin and terrorist, I think is, like, hard to imagine that it's possible to like, you know,

there's a line that you can cross in these sorts of situations when you're just bullshitting about a tragedy. But it does feel like that gave a national media, especially some of the television news that is sometimes incredibly apprehensive about, you know, taking anybody to task over these things. It gave them something really concrete to hold on to. I think there's something also about the second Trump administration. People have pointed out the difference in the first Trump administration, there were people who were like, actually that's too far for me. And I'm not trying to retroactively valorize Rex Tillerson or anything like that. But there were people who were like, okay, I went with Trump, you know, halfway to town and now I'm getting out of the car.

I'm out. In this case, everybody understands the price of admission is you just have to back up him and his policies at every turn. And we've seen inane lies over the last couple of weeks, like when Trump was repeatedly calling Greenland, Iceland. and people got tapped on the shoulder to go out and say, no, no, no, he was saying, Iceland referring to it generally. Like he was referring to the Haas system or something like that. No, no, no.

He actually just didn't know the difference between those two countries when he was speaking. That's what happened. He got, or he just got mixed up, whatever it was. Now we see those kind of inane, ridiculous lies, but on a much bigger and more human scale.

You're talking about somebody who's dead. Yeah. I mean, the last public act that they caught on video of him is reading, he's reading a prayer at a service for a dying veteran, correct? So, like, it's really, you know, if you're going to try to defame this guy and, and ruin his reputation, like, it's just going to be really, really hard. And it shouldn't even require that, but it does help. And I don't know if you guy saw this guy he was running for in the rubble in the Republican primary for governor in Minnesota. His name is Chris Meadle. And I encourage people to listen to the 10-minute video because he's a he's a grab bag, man. You know what I mean? Like I don't, we might agree on 10% of things,

but he was pretty adamant about the fact that he found this to be objectionable. Like, not just the way that they were characterizing Mr. Prattie, but also the way that the surge Metro Surge is being enacted and inflicted on the people of Minnesota. And it was one of those things. I was like, I don't know how important this guy is. I don't know what he's polling. But it seems like if they can get a guy like that, a guy who like is for the ice raids to be like, this is going too far.

Maybe it's an inflection point, but it won't really be an inflection point until all this shit stops. Of course, we inevitably had the Donald Trump walk back of his own administration statements when he was talking to Josh Dossie on Sunday. I'll just read the top of the story here. In a five-minute telephone interview with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Trump didn't directly answer when asked twice whether the officer who shot Alex Preddy had done the right thing. Pressed further, the president said, we're looking, we're reviewing everything, and we'll come

out with a determination, which is not what his officials were saying in their statement. He's got better political instincts than most of the people around. him. The other people are involved in an ideological project. As we've talked about before, I mean, he believes in things and a lot of them are not great, but like Donald Trump wants to be liked. He wants to be revered. He wants to be remembered fondly. And I think that he watches enough TV and consumes enough content that he was like, I don't know how this is playing on TV. You know, I don't know. And I don't think Stephen Miller, that's not his guy. That's not his North star. No, it does seem like he.

worried about the Gallup poll. Yeah. Yeah, it seems like he got the idea to send Tom home into Minnesota straight from Brian Kilmead. So I agree that he's paying attention, at least to some degree out there. There's been a lot of, or there's been enough dissension on Fox News to the administration's point of view that it's, you know, I think probably discernible even to him. And then, you know, you're right, he does good political instincts.

I think that the midterms are obviously an important or significant piece of his thinking. And I'm sure that there's someone, there's some pollster. some, you know, aid that has his ear about such things. Because, you know, so this decision, like Brian said, clearly goes against what we would almost, that we would expect of him outside of the, the politics framing. So, yeah, it's, it's definitely going to, it's strange. It was, it was strange to hear Trump be circumspect about it, because you kind of had to imagine him watching this video online like the rest of us did, right?

And being like, damn, that shouldn't happen. You know, it's just a very odd sort of thought process. It's probably a topic for the February editorial meeting, but I am fascinated by the question of whether Donald Trump truly cares that he's unpopular. He hit a 36% approval rating in Gallup in December. Now, as David says, if he's like turning on Fox News and people, personalities are criticizing him or not praising him in the slavish way that he's used to be being praised, then maybe that hits him in a different way. But I do think that's just a

fascinating question about his second term, because other politicians would be reigned in partially by ridiculously low approval ratings. They would change tactics. They would want to help save their party to the extent they could in the midterms. I'm not totally sure Donald Trump cares about that. I'm not sure the extent to which he cares about that. I think he's used to being hated, but that 36%, that's a strong, that's, that's the 36% that's unlike a lot of 36% in anything. That 36% of support is strong. You know what I mean? So it can probably feel a lot like 56%, you know?

Yeah. If you're surrounded by 36%, it feels like 75%. Yes. And, oh, I mean, listen, we, I think we have evidence that he's been, that he gets fed. fake polls, fake numbers, fake versions of reality about the people around him, Stephen Miller, I think above all.

But it's clear as of the past, I don't know, three weeks or something that he is aware of the historical trends of midterm elections and of how he's doing in the polls, right? He brings it up offhandedly when he's talking to reporters. I mean, I guess there's some small assurance

that this, that any circumspection on Trump, part flies in the face of his of the you know theory slash conspiracy theory that he's just sending ice out there to drum up unrest so that he can send in so he can declare you know um so that he can send in the military and declare martial law and cancel the midterm elections right um but but but yeah i i i think that he probably does care i think that he cares that but just the the the fact that he doesn't actually get the truth from the people around them a lot you know obscures the reality of that.

As long as I'm assigning future pieces and segments, we've got to do a whole segment to how the Trump people tweet. And of all the tweets, one that stuck out to me was Pete Hegsa tweeting, ICE is greater than Minnesota.

Yeah. Greater than sign, yeah. Greater than Sign, Minnesota. Pete Hexeth, incidentally, born and raised in Minnesota. So beyond the idea of saying, this federal agency

is greater than a state. state, me, the cabinet official saying that a federal agency is bigger than one state in the union, whatever that means, he's from Minnesota. Just want to throw that out there. Well, I mean, there was that incredible piece, a New York Times piece about Cash Patel that showed how Trump, I mean, that he's more interested in what he's going to tweet next than actually like his job as FBI director. And I think that that's, I mean, that's not. not even just like an offhanded way of putting it. That's like literally what that was literally true.

It's it's obvious that the Twitter vocabulary. It's not I don't think it cut I don't think it's dictated from on high but I think everybody's tweeting in this very specific way to try to get Trump's attention. On another thing, you know, we're from Texas and so we kind of have like a Texas supremac thing. You know what I mean? Like I remember growing up I was like other states have state history classes? You know, like, what would happen there? You know, what could have been more interesting than what happened in Texas.

But the one thing that I've been kind of interested in in recent days is like the state pride and regional pride among Minnesotans. Like, I've seen them rally and say things about their state, their culture, the way they treat people, that sort of stuff, like in a way that I'd not kind of seen before. And it's sort of fascinating to me. I was like, oh, no, these people seem to be finding some sort of identity because of this attack on the public square, right?

So yeah, anyway. And speaking to that, let's talk about the coverage in the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. Yeah. If you're a little behind on recent newspaper history, this is the Minnesota Star Tribune, not the Minneapolis Star Tribune anymore. It's been that way since 2024.

They've been doing some amazing work on this. They had a front page photo from Friday of a protester being pinned down and then being sprayed with chemicals in the face, which is just an unbelievable news photo. The top of that front page said children as young as five detained and had more stories about the ice operations there and the aftermath. Max Taney and Semaphore had an interview with the Star Tribunes editor, Kathleen Hennessy.

She told him that 50 of the paper's 200 journalists are covering this story. are you heartened that 200 journalists work for the Star Tribune because I am that was pretty amazing yeah man it's a it's been a really strong regional newspaper for a long time but it's still like one of the the few it feel like that still has like a real presence within its community right like the people turn to it I have a friend shout out my boy in myri medcalf man who used to do a column a metro column up there um and So, yeah, like I feel like because, you know, again, an affluent upper middle class, you know, base that they have there. They feel like they're able to support their newspaper in a ways that maybe not a lot of others have been able to regionally.

So it's been, yeah, good to see them thrive and do such a great job. This is what the local newspapers for. Like, you need it for this, you know? This is what the local newspapers for. And you just hope people remember this on a Wednesday in August when they look and say, should I cancel my newspaper subscription? and save a couple of bucks. Hennessy had a good quote to Taney. She said, we're not trying to recreate social media.

We're trying to deliver what you're not getting, which is names, dates, locations, the comment and account from ICE and from DHS, angles that you're not seeing what happened before, what happened after. Obviously, the power of video and the story is real, but it is also limited, and we're very aware of that every day.

Yeah, I mean, this might be a generational thing. It might not matter to anybody younger than us, to see that that front page of the Star Tribune that you were referencing, just to see the words Somali American citizen arrested, comma held for two days, to see the words preschoolers detention marks forth for district. To see it say tactics raised on, tactics raised questions on ice training.

These are, it gives us a kind of level of gravity and credence to these stories. They even as like someone, even if you believe them, you, they kind of are still part of this. this miasma of, of, you know, online

news blips in your head, right? Just to see it on the front page, I think, is really significant. So a certain gravity of the newspaper headline. Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I bought my subscription for the month. They earned it. Oh, yeah.

Valuable news source. Why not? Good for you. I'm going to do that, too. $24? $24. $24? Come on now.

No, I mean, you know, I'm just, you flinched. Yeah, man. I got two kids, man. It's expensive around here. But, yeah, shout them out. Maria Reeve, man. She's the managing editor of vice president. You guys made, Armin. She was the, she was in charge. She was the executive editor of the Houston Chronicle a couple of years ago. So she went back up to Minnesota and shout out to Maria, too. She's doing a great job up there. Can we take a deep breath and talk about the Washington Post Sports page? Yeah, let's do it.

They're no longer. There's certainly not 200 employees working there. Yeah. Oh, my God. let me read to you a number of depressing stories about the Washington Post Sports page. This started last Friday from the aforementioned Max Taney, who reported that the Post was not going to send reporters to cover the Winter Olympics in Italy next month. That's item number one. Item number two was that the Washington Post had already paid for the travel arrangements for these journalists to go to the games,

including $80,000 for housing. That came from Ben Mullen and Eric Wimple in the New York Times. Item number three about the Washington Post Sports page. This is also from Wimple. They are not going to send writers who cover the nationals to spring training. There are two beat riders for the Nats. Apparently neither are going to spring training.

And then the worst of these many, terrible items from Dylan Byers and Puck on Saturday. Rumor Inside Post is that Sports Desk could be shuttered entirely. The Washington Post might not have a sports section going forward. Yeah, man. That was, you guys correct me if I'm wrong. They had the best sports desk of any newspaper. in the country and maybe still did for a very long because I'll say it was one of the ones that

you aspired to like right like they would have Tony Cornizal Michael Wilburn Michael Lee you know what just a bunch of different people covering their local sports that were really really good you know and they still got that now like again a lot of lot of people over there my boy albert's somehow all those folks that are over there doing this great job like it was like because you could the New York Times didn't care about sports No, not at the way that the Post did. I mean, the journal did, I guess. So maybe it was maybe whatever you thought of the journal or the post.

But like it was like the LA Times, I guess. But the, but the Washington Post, I mean, I don't know, Brian, I mean, you know better. I don't know if you would call that like a national sports task, but it certainly had more of a national flare to it than any other. I mean, than any other regional paper. I mean, you know. It was it was a local sports section that had national aspirations and more than aspirations. Yeah. They covered everything.

Covered everything. Yeah, I think that was that, you know, that was one of the sort of like East Coast Awakening for me. It's like when you realize that like there, the Washington Post kind of has more stuff than the New York Times, you know? Because like New York Times has all, you know, is the one that you got access to no matter where you lived. And then the Washington Post has like all this great content.

Although we wouldn't have called it content at that time. We would have said stuff. We would have said articles. Yeah. Articles about sports. They were one of the first ones to integrate like the DC sports bog, right? Like they were one of the first that like incorporate and emerge with the blogosphere. Like they did it.

I felt like they were one of the sports sections that did it right at almost every turn. Like they never, you know, it was really hard to look at what they were doing for many, many years and be like, you know, no, they've retreated from their earlier news mission. mission. Like it seemed like they were still ambitious, still made an attempt to cover everything. And still, like, they had a really good Wizards beat reporter. I mean, you know, Rachel Nichols used to be like, you know,

the Wizards beat writer and stuff. She might have been Capitals, but she had Capitals and was like backup for the Wizards. That's right. That's right. Yeah. But it's just, I just, I don't know, man. Steve Weiss, you know, the D.C. football team. It just

all these names that have come out of there, and the idea that they're going to give up on it completely, bro? Like, what are young support supporters supposed to look up to? What are the people that live here that want to know about the kid, Baba Ola Latitud, the top kid who plays in a high school up the street from me, who signed at Maryland and is going to start his, you know, college basketball career there next year? Like, where am I supposed to get that information now?

I don't know, you know, I just, it seems like they're really giving up on a, a big opportunity. I don't, I just, doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It doesn't make sense to me either. And when I first saw buyers this thing,

I was absolutely shocked. But multiple people inside the post have confirmed to me that the section could be gone entirely. And one suggested even that extinction might be the most likely scenario. Though there's a chance

they could keep a tiny, zombie-fied section alive to cover the commanders, for instance. Hmm. I hear you guys saying names like, Will Bond and Rachel Nichols and all that. As you know, sports writing is my favorite thing in the world.

Sure. If we sit down and have a beer, you can be like the guest on first take and I'll just be like Stephen A and I won't let you win. I'll just tell you three hours of stories about Kornheiser and Wilbon and Boz. And you'll say Rachel Nichols and I'll say, hey, let's go back further. Let's go David Dupree. Let's go John Shulay. And let's go through all those people who walk through there. Jay Adande. There's a great one, right? Like, we could just go and go and go and George Solomon, the editor, and I could just tell you all kinds of things. I think we should resist the pull of nostalgia here. Because what is going to happen to those people in full or in part really has nothing to do with that stuff. It just doesn't. Like those guys and gals who were there before, they got there at bats.

they had their chance and it says nothing it didn't disparage anything about what they did that I just say we have to focus right now on the people that are there like I understand wanting to build the bridge from the great path to the end or near end of the Washington Post Sports section

but if I'm there right now and I'm worried about my job I don't care about all those old people that's not interesting to me I care about what's in front of and why this thing is, again, going to go away or nearly go away. And the answer to that, at least in part, is ridiculous mismanagement of the paper. A catastrophe of mismanagement, you might say. Yeah.

Well, I mean, listen, there's also, it's also true that, you know, there's probably no version of the Washington Post that meets the, you know, that passes the P&L bar that Jeff Bezos would set for any of his other properties. Which he knew going in. Sure. It's absolutely true. But so it's hard to say that like Supreme Management would have made much difference. It probably is more

more significant that like nobody mentioned them post sports page to Jeff Bezos in the time since he's, you know, at a cocktail party since he's bought it. Right? Like he's probably most interested in in, you know, reaffirming the parts that get him patted on the back. Or these are massive cuts to the newsroom that they're going to make.

And if they have to pick a section, they're going to go, okay, well, sports. Let's take a foreign desk we've seen also potentially on the chopping block. Let's also do sports. Why not? Throw that in there. I mean, the forward desk thing is pretty jarring as well because there's just not a lot of domestic publications that do that anymore. Right.

Like, I mean, how many domestic publications have foreign bureaus at this point? Not very many. It used to be a time, like even a large regional paper, like the Dallas Morning News, might have somebody overseas. But if you strip that from the Washington Post, okay, I guess what I would like to ask these people who are in charge, what are we supposed to be paying for? I don't. What do you want? What do you, in a world where there's just content? overload. I can lose my attention for 13 minutes doing anything. What are you going to do to make

me want to read? Like what about this is going to encourage more people to load up? And I mean, I guess the thing about the Bezos thing is, man, I just remember it was like five, six years ago we were talking about the Washington Post had been saved, man. You know, that, you know, and I remember when LA Times was bought by billionaire, it was like all these billionaires. All these we thought like, oh, you know, they want, they want to own these newspapers. They believe in the tradition of them. They see the legacy. And they also see that like it's a really shiny, nice piece to own. But as soon as times got hard, they gave up. And that was always sort of my concern about billionaires. It's just like as soon as it becomes a headache is like, eh,

they're kind of move on, right? Like it's just not, it's not a long term solution for the problems, the financial problems and undergird journalism right now. It's not. And let's talk about this particular billionaire because I think it's worth naming, names here. Jeff Bezos. You will remember that on October 2024, he pulled the endorsement of Kamala Harris with the same

uncanny sense of timing that his employees pulled the sports sections Olympic Straub. This Washington Post regime has a knack for doing extremely unpopular things at the last possible moment. What happened with the Harris thing? Hundreds of thousands of cancellations.

A massive number of talented reporters and editors walk out the door because they didn't want to work for the people running the paper. Remember that list from Politico last summer that found that 100 journalists had left the post? Yeah. A number that is now much higher. A number that now includes Sally Jenkins and sports columnist who took the buyout last July.

Remember how good Sally Jenkins was at writing a Washington Post sports column? Mm-hmm. You've seen the people try to write national sports columns for various outlets now and how tricky that is to get people's attention to have that kind of moral authority to feel like you have your hands on everything. She did it. By the way, if you ever saw Sally's social media, she was not an F the boss's person at all at the Washington Post. No. She was a, hey, this paper needs to change. We need to figure some things out. Let's be not, let's not be too hasty with anything. She's gone. She's gone, right?

and we've talked about on this podcast before that post reporters, which is distinct from post management, but post reporters continue to break stories on politics, on national security, maybe especially. In sports, that Robert Ursa scoop that three writers had over there the other day, that was a huge story. By the way,

also a traffic monster inside the post, I'm told me. But the thing is, when it comes to reporting, especially political reporting, there's always going to be that next man up, next woman up, that editor of the high school newspaper, that achiever that you and I guys, you know, and I know that always got the best internships in college, they're going to be ready to work for the Washington Post. But to take advantage of the talent, you have to have ideas about how to fix the newspaper they work for. What have been the ideas to fix the Washington Post? Is this more bleak than like a decade?

Like I felt like maybe this is more bleak. I answer your question right now, yes. They've had bad times before. This is way more bleak. The sports section potentially closing? Yeah. Yeah. What do you remember on that scale?

Yeah. I remember thinking once in one time, I was like, man, the Washington Post might not be here no more. You know, not really, but I just thought the version of the newspaper that people respected and revered was just not going to, you know, this was about, you don't know, 12, 13 years ago, whatever, maybe after the housing crisis, whatever, the economic crisis. But they made it through and got even stronger and better. And so, yeah, I just, I don't, I don't, you know, Bezos, man, you owe American society, bro.

Like, you have really fucked a lot of people's lives up, man. Like, you know, I don't, there's no way you'll listen to this. but you really you fucked up a lot of lives man like just like made them you know ruined their industries made it so that they can't work and pursue their dreams people that also like i mean presumably there's a lot of people around here that still take the post and depend on it for certain things right they look to it because it's a part of a pattern or a habit that they developed over the years a trust that they invested in this local concern and you don't i I know you're a billionaire, but you just, you shouldn't have the right to fuck all that up, man.

You really shouldn't. Can we also talk about Will Lewis, who's been publisher of the Washington Post since January 2024? Yeah. He was a radical change guy. Yeah. Remember that famous meeting where he said, people are not reading your stuff. I can't sugarcoat it anymore.

Two years later, what has Will Lewis done at the Washington Post? What are his accomplishments? Remember the third newsroom? Remember all the items you and I did, David, on that? And then at some point I turned to you, was like, David, I know I host a media podcast, but I don't totally understand what the third newsroom is. Yeah, no. Turned out I wasn't alone, nor were you.

I've never seen radical change move so slowly in all my life as it has under Will Lewis. Yeah, no. And again, like, we're realists here, right? He's got a very, very tough hand to play. Yeah. given what's happened in newspapers given the end of the sugar high from the first resistance

all the competition he's got from Politico Axios on and on and on. But he didn't have a radical plan. He didn't have a plan at all it turned out. And now here is the Washington Post contemplating gigantic layoffs including

much or all of the sports department. Are you kidding me? When have you ever seen the mastheads suffer for this stuff because they're the ones making the decisions, moving all the coins around doing stuff. Have you ever, like in the middle of all these? Because that was a thing that always sort of frustrated me from, and I look, it pretty much includes every place I've ever worked at, even the one most recently. When they had to let people go, the people that were in

charge of the news mission, and they would have come up with the ways to improve the news report and make money. Like, we're going to start turning a profit or doing better, making more revenue. And then when it comes time to lay people off, it was like, none of that shit worked, but it's not my fault. You all lose your job. You know what I mean? I just, when have you ever seen the senior managing editor lose their job out of this kind of stuff? And why aren't they the focus in this particular case? Yeah.

Why are the people who are currently running the Washington Post? Why should they run the Washington Post going forward? Yeah. I'm going to say something. They should be fired in a sane world. those people would be fired because you failed. In sports, that's the thing about sports that I love, that I kind of like. It's like, sometimes people get crazy on results, but they're like, all right, man, you don't know what you're doing.

Like, this team would fail. We, you know, we were into playoffs or whatever, and all of a sudden we're worse, okay? And like, we can't fire all these players, so we got fire you. And why can't that just happen in media? Like if you're in charge and you had a number of years to implement your vision and it doesn't work out, you should be fired. Why can't these people be fired? To quote a great man, I think that's right. The people running the paper shouldn't be running the paper anymore.

That's what it is. No, but isn't a large part of what they're getting paid for at this point to be the human shields, the people that enact these cuts? That's true. I mean, it's not going to happen. Right. And I would agree. And I would argue that that is a sorry legacy, even if that is your, goal. Yeah. I mean, come on, man. If you're, if you're if you're if you're presiding over the decline of

the Washington Post and the goal is a decline of the Washington Post, you can also leave. We can find somebody else. We'll do it in a better way than you have. Have some integrity. Like, just be like, look, this is not what I thought it was going to be. I don't want to be the steward of the end of this great institution. I'm going to leave before it gets bad. I don't agree with any of this stuff. Do that. I've known editors who've done that. Yeah. I just I don't get it in this case. I'm just like, Like, why is, why is Will Lewis not the scandal here? It's true. That's the scandal to me.

And, and you know what? Look, look, we're not sending the Nats riders to spring training. Can we send Will Lewis off to Florida to cover the, cover spring training? Well, we got the paper, actually. You, you, we've come up with a new assignment. Pitchers, catchers, and Will Lewis report in Florida. I wish we had like a, you know, a rousing bow to put on this because it's one thing for us to get mad. but I cannot in good conscience say it's going to be okay because I don't think it's going to be okay

especially in the larger sense so all I can say is I hope it's not as bad as it seems and I hope the people there get treated better than they've been treated over the last weeks months years yeah we all deserve better man they just them especially but we all deserve better than this bullshit that they're pulling right now you guys want to answer some listener questions sure cheer things up a little bit all right let's see are they are they going to be good cheery questions well some of them are

I call this feature our disillusion listeners which I stole from the old New Yorker that had a column called our disillusion readers we did really get some great ones this one is from Ben Spiker you have the only in journalism segment which leads me to wonder do you think that traditional news reporting that has a specific

tone style and vocabulary does more to make journalism feel special or more to make it feel inaccessible to modern audiences? That's a good question, I guess, because in other parts of life, I'm very anti, you know, specific, tone, specific vocabulary, argots, as you might say. But I do think that it's, but I, but I do feel like, But from my point of view, it's not a, it's a positive in journalism. Maybe I'm just so deeply embedded in, you know, as a reader and writer of journalism that I, that I'm biased, though. I don't know.

What do you think? I'm on, I'm on your team here, but I just wonder if people like us didn't grow up in the age of newspapers, this just didn't make any sense to them at all. Like you and I look at the Minnesota front page at the Star Tribune, we're like, having that there in that kind of formal journalistic language makes it seem real, makes it seem real. makes it seem more real, it gives it weight, it makes it seem important. But somebody who didn't grow up looking at newspaper front pages,

I'm like, when they read these stories, they're like, why are they written this way? Yeah, and also think that like, I mean, I've always sort of read

media, a content that has come from a different, that has like a specific aim or, you know, a viewpoint, right? Like, I feel like, that's,

I mean, I mean, if the only thing you ever read was your local daily, then I could understand why you might feel that way. But like, there's the first of all, I mean, there used to be all weeklies, right? Which kind of had some of those a little bit, right? Or they were a little bit right and without the seatbelts on. Yeah. And I, man, they used to be, I'm not going to even talk about what it is. If you got, because this, I don't want to answer too many questions.

But they used to be when I was, when I was growing up, there was guys that would at the corner. in southwest Houston Fondering and Belford for people who don't know and they would hand out these weekly newspapers you know and it had a specific viewpoint

okay and like I would read I would eat that shit up man because I just like I don't want to see what these people talking about and so I think that like people like I'm I've always admired people that wrote that way like that my idol was Ralph Wiley

it wasn't like necessarily a guy that was just like a straight you know, just the facts, ma'am kind of person. So, you know, yeah,

I mean, I've always, that's always been a part of my media diet. And so it does, it's not weird to me. I like that. Joe from Dayton.

I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'll just say, I mean, for the people who are considering the language moving forward, I mean, I think that there's a lot of the,

a lot of the rules almost are, are incredibly useful, you know, just like the sequencing of like, of the lead and the, and the, and the, and the,

and the, kind of stuff, but they shouldn't be followed. I don't think it's particularly helpful to follow some of those things to the letter of the law outside of the larger consideration that our goal here is to get information across to the reader. I agree. And it's okay, I think, as with anything, to say that was a time and place that that existed in, and it might not necessarily be the way to transmit information to the reader going forward in every case. There'll be certain stories where you want to be like, man, this is an inverted pyramid right here, right? The only way to do this, we're writing it fast, it's serious, it's important. And there's other ways where times where it's

like, you know what, maybe we just need to leave that world behind. Yep. And appeal to people in a different way. Joe from Dayton asks, is there a journalism pantheon for multi-sport athletes? Who's the Bo Jackson of journalism? Is there somebody who played multiple sports within the business? So we got a lot of like print plus TV I don't know that that's like a particular I mean we could we could figure out But is there like I mean it's like it did Frank DeFord do

S.I plus NPR plus Television plus he wrote novels too I'm trying to think of somebody Mitch Album is Mitch Album is Mitch Album being Bo Jackson of journalism Yeah I mean I mean it's people that you know Rick Riley did movies

You know He did got into movies and stuff. God. But I'm just thinking like who was great at another thing that wasn't television? So we probably have some people that were great at print and great at TV. In fact, we could come up with that list and now maybe podcasting. But like, did somebody do something else?

Like Dan Jenkins wrote novels. I mean, Dan is on the list probably. Yeah. Yeah. Great novels, great sports writing. Yep. That's a new. You're saying great at TV too?

Like that's a, I don't know. I only played two sports, right? do we give in how much are we doing the commercial with beau where he he knew how to do everything but well you know man dan lebertart man you know like he's done radio tv and was a really good columnist yeah for i mean it's still kind of like it it he did do tv though it felt like a radio show to me and i say that as a compliment okay we'll think about that uh this is from evan grossman to the trio grande of media podcasting i once stood in the urinal next to Jack Nicholson at Yankee Stadium.

What's your best coincidental brush with greatness? I want to stand. I mean, stood in a urinal next to David Spade. Is it only urinal things or is it? Didn't we have another urinal one together? That was a weird way to put that. But didn't we when we were,

you and I, David and I went to the movies one time with George Will or in the presence of George Will. Yes. We saw a beautiful mind with George Will. at a screening in Washington, D.C. Okay. And David, do you want to say what George Will was doing after the movie? I don't even remember.

What was he doing? Well, I just thought he was doing an impression of... Oh, yeah. The lead character from the movie. I think we might have seen that. Apologies to George Will, if our memories have faded. That was definitely the funniest one, David and I had. D.C. has a lot of those.

Or he used to. D.C. has definitely got that. small town like you can run into anybody but and it's a weird group right it's not like oh my god i saw guinna paltrow it's like i saw george will yeah i haven't uh i mean i've obviously had yeah i mean i've i can't remember one but i've never talked about this one before so i'm just going to mention it once when i was at the memphis airport um i was walking down the you know in the concourse and there was a gift shop right off to the side and into the gift shop walks in odis thorpe okay right now it's it

That's not who I thought you were going to say. Otis Thorpe walks in there. A minute later, Brian, big country Reeves, walks into the same bookstore. This is years after they've retired. Okay. They're both independently at the Hudson News of the Memphis airport. Both independently at this gift shop at the Memphis airport. And then they walked out as if they didn't see each other.

Like I didn't see them communicate with each other. And I'm like, bro, I mean, Otis Torp, 610 big countries, I think he's like 7-1, 7-2. How did you all miss each other? Yeah, you're the only other person in this. You're the only person you'll see all day today in the line of sight of your, of your eyeballs. Yeah, man. At the Memphis airport right next to the old intercontinental barbecue joint in there. So, I don't know if that was what it's called, but anyway.

Interstate, inner state. Anyway, go ahead. I actually spit on my camera when you said Otis Thorpe, so I'm just going to get a little wipe down here. Sorry about that. Speaking of all, speaking of old NBA big men, when I was in college, I got talked into going to Houston one night. and I'm sure you guys both know this, but for the listeners,

for old, old people like us, like Houston is where you went if you wanted, if somebody wanted to go to a club or eat sushi. You know, like it was the sort of like, was that your experience growing up, Joel?

I definitely did those things in Houston. Yeah, even in like Dallas, or was they had, it was, it was not to say, Houston is where you went for like the big city experience. Um,

but I went down there and, and I guess we were trying to get into a bar or a club, or something like that. And I was standing with like four or five people and there was a line sort of a mob scene. And all of a sudden the line opened up and the security is waving somebody in. I look over my shoulder and it was Robert Orrie walking past me. And I swear. Robert Orr, man. Robert Ori seemed like he was about eight feet tall. Like he was a very, very tall man. I've seen Robert Orrie about town several times in Houston. He like, he got out. He was a man of the people. Yeah. This is from Deacon Mike Hayes in Cleveland, I believe it was an actual

Deacon. My question is for David, and I wanted to know if being the son of a minister had any influence on his journalistic style or his writing. Well, my dad was a minister, but he's also a writer. He's a very writerly preacher. He writes everything out, and all of his sermons can stand on their own, not just, not just like orally, but like, you know, in terms of the written word, but he also writes books and stuff like that. He's a one. And, you know, he's the, he's the reason that I like the smell of old used bookstores, you know, like, that was, that was all him. So yes, absolutely. And, you know, there's a, there's a, if you're, I mean, I can't speak for all, all pastors out there. But there's, there's a certain, like, there is a real parallel to a certain sort of journalistic writing is that you kind of, it's, you sort of start with the premise and then have to, like, like break it down and work it out and, and defend it and circle back around to,

like, where you started in the span of like 15 minutes. Like, that's what a sermon is, you know? And so, yeah, I mean,

I'm sure there's, I'm sure I learned some of that for, definitely. This is from Grant Roderkes, and I'm so glad he asked this question because David, the other day, sitting in, Ringer headquarters in Los Angeles,

Joel walks in. This is after the national championship game. And Joel has written a really great column about Indiana. And he quoted somebody in this column, David, saying, the whole history of Indiana is Lucy pulling the football. So I'm sitting there at my desk. I'm enjoying Joel's column. I'm reading this.

And then if this sentence follows that, comma referring to a recurring gag in the Peanuts cartoon strip about repeatedly falling for the same trick. So Joel walks in, David. And I just, I'm like Rubin Bain. just all over Joel grabbing him when he comes in. I'm like, what editor did this to you? You tell me who that was.

If somebody here said you had to explain Lucy pulling the football because I'm going to stick up for you. And Joel, your response was? No, it was me. I did that. I did that. I did that. Nobody is a bigger Peanuts fan than me.

I walked around with a Snoopy doll so I was eight years old. Okay, there's pictures of me with Snoopy dolls. But then I was like, man, that's kind of old. I want if people know what that even means anymore. Yeah. That's kind of what hit me, you know. And yeah, I know. I probably, I don't know if it helped people or not.

But it's a good question. And that's what Grant was asking about, like the bar for pop culture references. Yeah. Because there's actually two things we're talking about. One is the ringer where you, you know, you don't have to explain everything, right? Like this is different. We're figuring there's people reading this generally understand the sports and pop culture universe in which we exist. but then there's a second question of do people still understand peanuts

man i don't know man like peanuts is hard is there a point where i mean peanuts is still a big thing the christmas special still a big thing but is that just enough that you're like i mean everybody will know what i mean do people read the funnies anymore no yeah and without that there's not the repetition of that sort of that gag going you know happening over and over again. Yeah. I saw what I'm saying. Yeah, I mean, I tried to get the peanut specials for my kids this year. Like,

and I could not find it. Like, you have to go pay for it somewhere. Yeah, you have to pay for it on Apple TV. It's on Apple TV. Yeah, man. And that's, I was like, oh, man, this stinks. So, I don't know if it's as quite as culturally relevant as it used to be, man, unfortunately. I love phrases like that. I'm a collector of them.

And I had one last year where the Wall Street Journal, Sam Shubi, our old friend, David, was called me up because he was writing a story about how broadcasters are the last American men to wear suits. That's a good think piece, right? Yeah. And I made a comment about how, remember the early 2000s when all the broadcasters in sports would wear the pinstripe suits? You ever been? I said everyone on TV looked like Nathan Detroit. And when the Wall Street Journal printed it, they said, comma, referring to the lead. character in guys and dolls and I just love that so much that I had been affixed with an

explainer phrase a few more here Aaron Warenko says a mailbag question did Brian's damn it exclamation start with the press box or is it something from Brian and David's past it is when David was at Baylor and I was at Texas David would call sometimes and for whatever reason we started answering the phone in our apartment David yeah really incredulously and that carried over 20 plus years later to the podcast. That's what that came from. You're using phone cards to call each other, man. From Waco? Is that long distance? Hell yeah. It was long distance. We're not that old. We're not that old. Come on. Yeah, man. Don't bro. Like the 817 area code to

214. Yeah. There's a different area code for sure. It was a long distance charge. I don't want to feel that old. I'm sorry. This is from Tim Manning. Since this should be in the form of a question, why is anyone a better choice than Chris Ryan to be the ringer staffer who offers hugs at a press conference to the losing coach slash player? All right, I'm all in. Chris is a very comforting person.

I would not see him as being that guy. Well, no, but as the actor, there's someone to play the role, there's no one better than Chris Ryan, right? He's certainly the best actor on stuff. This is from Paul Beer. I did not expect to be moved to tears multiple times by a media podcast. But between your deeply felt reactions on the tragic Texas floods and Brian's remembrance of his dearly departed road dog uncle, this podcast has revealed new depths.

Thank you for that. Now here's the turn. Here's the question. How the hell does Brian not know a single hip-hop song? I'm not expecting encyclopedic knowledge of the mixtapes of slim thugs. shout out H-town, but you can't name a single DMX song. Shoemaker at least has the excuse of a preacher's upbringing. Come on, man. That's not, come on, man. That's not. I don't know.

I am also a white guy of a certain age, and yet I find myself screaming at the car dashboard begging, begging Brian to name a single JZ track. Yes. I think it's why it is worth mentioning that, that maybe because of the unique prevalence of country music, like pop radio in Texas when we were growing up was incredibly segregated. Oh, man. Like you had to, there was no like, oh, and I incidentally no tribe called Quest. Like, no, you had to like, you would have to really seek that out. Yeah, man.

I mean, especially I, Houston didn't have a dedicated hip hop radio station until 1991. I remember driving to school and middle school and it started. You know what I mean? So I, yeah, I mean, what you told me, Brian, did you watch BET? Were you sitting around watching BET? your MTV Raps? I was not. No, I wasn't. And here's the, can I tell the actual answer to this question?

I don't know anything about any music, as David can attest. That's true. Really? Not yet. Brian, Brian knows like a couple of showtunes. That's about it. I know about Nathan Detroit. When you see a guy, reach for the stars and this guy.

All right. Give me a favorite Madonna song, Brian. What about that? I mean, I can, I know. Borderline? Come on. Yeah, I know names of Madonna songs. Like, that's not a problem.

And like what David's talking about radio and DFW in the 90s, like if you said, Brian, what's your favorite Brooks and Dunn song? I could come up with something. I just don't know very much about music at all, like nearly zero. Okay. You have to pick something. And for whatever reason that was picked for me or I picked it. So that's the reason. But anyway, thank you.

Thank you for your compliments, press box listener. This is from Daniel Martin. Brian and David clearly agree on a lot of topics given the show's trademark catchphrase. I think that's right. That Bono me is obviously part of the appeal of the show. but I'm curious, is there a topic that Brian and David disagree about? Taxation of the wealthy?

No, we don't disagree on that. I don't know. I don't know. RG3 of Vince Young. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, I mean, David, David, David doesn't, isn't going to say that RG3 is better than Vince Young. Come on, no.

They have a better pro career as short as it was? You know, this is, I'll tell you what the actual answer is, we, David and I would walk out of movies and he'd be like, what do you think? I think, I don't know. This, that I would name like two things that didn't work for me. And David, I don't know, I really liked it. And we actually had about the same opinion of the movie. We just expressed it in completely different ways.

Yeah. And I think that's how David and I are different. Yeah. We actually just, we start at a different place, but we wind up working to the same spot, if that makes sense. I think we just see, I think we just our brain search. slightly built just a little bit differently in that way. What do you think?

I definitely got that from my dad. Just like I'm in the best possible way, a prisoner of the moment. I sit down in a restaurant. I'm like, this is the best meal I've ever fucking had. You know, like I walk out of a movie.

I'm like, what an experience to behold? That was like the best part about living with David is every moment we were together in a bar was the best moment of David's life slash week. He was never in there being like, I wish I was somewhere else right now. If you were in there with him, he was,

in the moment he's happy to be there. I love that about him. My head was somewhere else. No, I'm just kidding. This is from Philip Sanford. Last question. Other than Texas, what has been your favorite place that you have lived? Who, who is that too?

All of us. Favorite place you've lived? Favorite place you've lived? I'll go first. Seattle. Really? I mean, well, we're counting in New York. I mean, New York.

But favorite off the track, you know, off the obvious one, Seattle. I loved it. those are for like 18 months David I mean I've lived I've moved around a lot obviously in my childhood and then even a little bit in my adulthood I mean if I had to just like magically pick up my life and my loved ones and move to a city that's a place that I've previously lived just like kind of blindly I might just pick Louisville kentucky

Louisville there we go it's great now like I've spent I've spent like a total of like 36 hours there in the past decade but like that would be a fun place to go back to. And I really, I mean, I enjoyed it at the time. I was a kid, though. Like, I can't, like, speak to it. Um, where are you magic being a move, Joel? I mean, it's kind of tough. I mean, I think, so if I've got a one shot and it's a place I got to live for the rest of my life with my family and everything, probably Atlanta. Um, but if it's just like, I want to just live and be surrounded by pure beauty and never worry about being stuck in snow again, off, though, man. It's really gorgeous.

I learned that I liked being outside being there. All right, there's only one way to end this. It's time for David and Joel guess the strain pun headline. Hell yeah. All right. Last Tuesday's headline about what the Chicago

Bears have after their loss in the playoffs was Magic comma Johnson. Today's headline comes to us from a bunch of alert listeners, including Adam Zalanka, K. Hawkins and K. Pelay. It's from ESPN.com. I know you guys saw the story that LeBron James is not going to start

next week's NBA All-Star game. Sorry, next month's NBA All-Star game. It's the first time he hasn't started in the All-Star game in 21 years. Yep. 21 years. So voters turned away from LeBron James. They were disinclined to vote for LeBron James. What was ESPN.com's strain pun headline?

Wrong gone? It's some about face. God, I can't think of what the phrase would be. If we go back to your religious training, David. What is a good version of the good book or a standard version of the good book? Oh, King James. Oh, King James. Oh, King James.

We call the Bible, the King James. Oh, King James Aversion. There you go. King James Aversion. Huh. It was the ESPN headline. I hope people go to the Spotify apps they can see Joel's face right now because he's just

completely. Well, aversion. Come on. That's not really an aversion, but it's a great headline you got to use. Yeah, all right. All right. I give it. King James Aversion.

He's David Shoemaker and he's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Proxomagic by Bruce Baldwin. get a huge week at the press box. Wednesday, the Democratic Dept Chart with Van Lathen. Friday. Finally, the January issue with Curtis and Shoemaker. Plus, of course, more lukewarm takes about the media. Can't wait to talk to you guys soon. Look forward to it. See you later, Brian.