The Press Box - Bernie Sanders vs. the Media, a New York Times Editor’s Demotion, and “The Hunt” | The Press Box

Episode Date: August 16, 2019

Bernie Sanders the media critic (03:00), the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week  (21:30), the demotion of New York Times editor Jonathan Weisman (26:30), John Hickenlooper ending his presidential bid (31:30), and Andrew Gruttadaro on what happened to the film 'The Hunt' (41:30). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Guest: Andrew Gruttadaro Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer podcast network. Season 2 of HBO Succession is back, and The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Jason Concepcion are here to give you the latest in Roy family drama. Every Sunday night, they'll be breaking down what we just saw on our new show called Number One Boys, A Succession After Show. You can tune in live on the ringers Twitter every Sunday night right after the episode ends. David, earlier this month, Bernie Sanders gave an hour-long interview to the Joe Rogan button. And what I want to know is what unlikely pairing of presidential candidate and semi-edgy podcast would you like to see? And by the way, Marion Williamson and Chappo has actually already happened. So that's not a joke.

Okay. I was going to put Marianne Williamson on. You Must Remember This just because I feel like she has the vibe. But maybe there'd be somebody else. Who's better for you must remember this? Don't you think Biden at this point in the campaign really needs that? That's really inappropriate. You must remember this.

I could see, I mean, I don't know about edgy. I mean, I think Kamala Harris would be a great character on Serio. She could really bring Serio back to its season one glory. Is that terrible to say? Just pairing people up with the podcast? Who's going to go to Adam Carolla podcast? I mean, it'd be really funny to see a very stiff candidate like Michael Bennett put into that. Put Amy Klobuchar on there and see how she goes.

Like, Corey Booker would actually be good on that podcast. Sure. Yeah, Corey Booker, I think it would be great in a lot of these podcasts. I think there's a couple, I mean, there's some people, like John Hickenlooper, we hardly knew ye. John Hickenlooper was like all of his entire life, I feel like has led up to appearing on like a TED Talks daily podcast or something. Just to talk about the one. He's giving a TED talk even when he's not giving a TED talk. Exactly.

We are the revisionist history of media podcast. At least we wish we were. This is the press box, a part of the ringer. Podcast Network. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here. Tons to get to today. We'll talk about the demotion of New York Times editor Jonathan Weissman. We'll take stock of the Times' love affair with gay penguins. We've got listener mail. We'll figure out what happened to the disappearing movie The Hunt. But David, I want to start by talking to you about Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is the media critic. because well before this election, Sanders placed corporate media

in the perp walk of powerful forces he was invang against. But on Monday, on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, Sanders doubled down. Listen. You know, if you look at the Washington Post, which is owned by the wealthiest guy in this country guy named Jeff Bezos, we fought with the workers on Amazon to get them 15 bucks an hour. We have pointed out over and over again. that Amazon made $10 billion in profit last year.

You know how much they paid in taxes? Who got it? Zero. Any wonder why the Washington Post is not one of my great supporters. I wonder why. New York Times not much better. If Sanders thinks the Washington Post is in Jeff Bezos' pocket, he has been happy to seek out alternative forums. Like the Joe Rogan podcast.

On August 5th, he appeared there for an hour-plus-long discussion let's listen to a bit of that surreal exchange. Do you get frustrated by the time constraints of the debates? Absolutely. You shouldn't even call them a debate. What they are is a reality TV show in which you have to come up with a soundbite and all that stuff. It is the meaning. It's the meaning to the candidates and it's the meaning to the American people.

You can't explain the complexity of health care in America. in 45 seconds. Nobody can. David, here's the question I want us to probe. Why is Bernie suspicious of the puppet strings pulling on the reporters and editors at the Washington Post, but seemingly okay with the Joe Rogan experience? That's a great question, Brian.

I mean, I think that, as with a lot of things about Bernie Sanders, you can try to, you can, you can try to piece together his logic, or his decision-making process, but that doesn't make the things that he's saying any less true. Now, I don't know if Jeff Bezos is like, you know, sent a memo to his top editors, the Washington Post telling them to shit on Bernie because of the, because the way, because of the way he risks his fortune. But, Marty, Martin called it a conspiracy thing. for the record about Amazon. But it is true that, I mean, but the things that he's saying, I mean, Amazon is owned by Jeff Bezos, right?

I mean, and it must be said that, you know, the other person who's loudly made this case over the past couple of years is President Trump. The Trump and Bernie obviously had a lot in common in the last election, and that's not a knock on Bernie Sanders. I mean, but in terms of being, you know, anti-international trade and, and suspicious of the establishment, you know, and there was a. direct line from a lot of disaffected Bernie supporters that apparently voted for President Trump in the last election. So it's not surprising to hear that sort of similarity there. But why is he,

I mean, but all that is to say, I'm not sure what Bernie's motives are. I'm not sure if he really believes that the Washington Post is out to get him. But it is easy to see, it is easy for one to imagine him looking at the landscape, feeling sort of left out of a lot of the current conversation or left behind by the horse race that's going on right now. And the lack of recognition that he perceives that he should be getting for the way he's changed the party platform and been a nominal leader of the party for the past four years to see his absence from a lot of the discussion

and to sort of whether or not it's a conspiracy theory or a convenient explanation to sort of retroactively read, you know, the corrupt media establishment into the equation as the answer. Why is he okay then? What is the connection to Joe Rogan? I mean, listen, Bernie, four years ago,

ran an insurgent campaign where he was scrapping for platforms to pay him attention. He announced his candidacy, if I remember correctly, on Chris Hayes' show, which four years ago was a lot less of, felt a lot less like news establishment than it does now, because this is happening at a time when Hillary Clinton is parading up and down every network news station every night, right? I mean, there was no, you know, having to declare your candidacy on a cable network regardless of what it is,

did seem like a sort of guerrilla tactic. And so, I mean, I think he's always had, there's always been a sort of affinity between Joe Rogan and Bernie Sanders, or at least their audiences. And I think it's a natural fit for him. And it's also a place where he can go sit down for an hour and talk. And listen, people are going to listen to the whole thing. You know, he's not going to have to deal with being a sound bite. So that's the point I want to focus on first. which is he has, he's making a point about media ownership,

but he also is making a point about the form that media serves up the candidates to us. He is a guy who apparently does not love the conventional press gaggle, but is much more into doing long form interviews. So Rogan, who is not a exactly a fellow traveler, as you point out, though they do have some, some places that they sort of, of intersect. He and this interview conducts something that's pretty close to the ideal interview that Bernie Sanders wants.

Yeah. The tone of it throughout, and you and I both listen to this, is tell me about your health care plan. Oh, would that be possible to implement in four years? Oh, it would? Oh, tell me about that. You know, sort of serving up all these questions that Bernie Sanders has very, very practiced well-honed answers to.

Joe, you know, Joe, I'll tell you how we're going to implement it. Let me tell you. I will tell you how we're going to pay for it. I mean, that is his, that is exactly the form of interview he wants. Jacobin, I noticed, also talked about that Bernie Sanders did a Foxtown Hall in April. And the author there said he actually seemed to have won over the majority of the attendees with his arguments for Democratic socialism against oligarchy and in favor of Medicare for all. So I think Bernie isn't in a way betting on his ability, if he can have time and if he can get his points across to win over the audience no matter who is exactly as conducting the interview. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think that was my big

takeaway from the interview. I mean, I've seen Bernie talk at length before, but to see him, I don't know what exactly I was expecting from his appearance on Rogan. I've listened to a lot of Joe Rogan in my day. I'm slightly ashamed to admit. But it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. But I did come away thinking that, I think in the four years since the last primary, Bernie Sanders has probably not through any deliberate action sort of morphed into a caricature of himself. I mean, at least in our consciousness. And certainly the debates, as he was saying, as he said on the Rogan show, the debates don't do anything to, you know, dissuade anyone of that perception, right? I mean, it's just, you have to get your stuff in so fast that you end up just be, I mean, especially someone with Bernie's sort of delivery ends up sort of being, you know, something of a self-parity. And when he gets to sit down and just like talk about it at his own pace and, you know, without any moderator rushing him, he's incredibly compelling and incredibly human.

but still has such a has such a handle on all the information that it's just really impressive I would also add to this whole why do you go this way on the Washington Post

and this way on Joe Rogan that Bernie is one of the few candidates who can afford to go in on the Washington Post in a way someone like Kamala Harris or Corey Booker or even Elizabeth Warren can't they depend at this point in the campaign to a pretty large extent on the MSM covering them and giving them oxygen. Bernie, as Dave Weigel notes in his newsletter, the trailer, and kids, you're not a real journalist unless you write a newsletter.

Well, Bernie has the largest Facebook and Twitter networks of any Democratic presidential candidate, an official podcast called Hear the Burn, and the Fields only channel on Twitch. So he's got this whole kind of in-house alternate media universe, which doesn't rely in voters that will find him there that doesn't rely on the mainstream media as much. So he can do this. It'd be shocking to see Kamala Harris attack the Washington Post in this way, whether she believed it or not. It just wouldn't work. And it would be totally self-defeating because she needs those profiles and coverage. I don't know that Bernie does. Now, it may not win him the Democratic nomination,

but he's got his audience, and I think he thinks they're going to find me wherever I am. I think that that might have been the conventional wisdom coming into the campaign a little bit. He has to be a little bit. There has to be some uncertainty about that at this point. And I feel some of that uncertainty when I hear him talk about it, lash out in the Washington Post.

He certainly doesn't. He didn't come into this campaign with the profile that one might have expected, certainly not the profile one could have thought one deserves and I'm overusing the one there as I discussed earlier listen if his only if his only intention was to change the conversation that was already accomplished he might have been more he might if his intention wasn't to be the president he could have very conceivably been more more powerful as a kingmaker or queen maker if he had just stayed out of the action you know but but stayed present and

and sort of decided who his candidate was going to be. But he's out there running, and I think that he's, you're right that he doesn't need the Washington Post in the same way that basically everybody else does. But I do think that there's, I do think that, you know, going on the Joe Rogan show is a deliberate decision.

It's not, that wasn't, I'm sure, an easy choice. I mean, it might have been an easy choice, but it wasn't, it probably wasn't the most obvious of choices. Was it any harder than doing a Fox News Town Hall? I asked that genuinely. I really don't know. I think the audiences are pretty similar. Joe Rogan's not a Republican.

His audience, you know, I haven't seen any like sociological breakdowns of anything, although I will say that like, you know, there was a time not too long ago that if you pulled up Joe Rogan on YouTube, like all of the sidebar links were to Joe Rogan or to like UFC fights. And now there's, you know, Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson are heavily. featured. But what a change from the U.S. UFC octagon. But I do think that Bernie's strangely Bernie's strategy, and maybe this isn't strange. But interestingly, Bernie strategy is this sort of is a, you know, it's certainly a populist

appeal. The way that he had, that he appealed to the Fox News audience. It's very similar to the kind of way that he appeals to Joe Rogan and his crowd just through... Oh, yeah. You know, it's weird. Bernie is the Democratic candidate that's actually addressing kitchen table issues, despite how many times Joe Biden will use that phrase. Bernie Sanders is the candidate who is actually a functional centrist in the fact that he can bring both sides of the aisle together on issues that everyone agrees on, right?

is just that he's like a far leftist and a lot of his other philosophy. I would think, I would say he's a functional leftist that can bring parts of the left and right together on certain issues. Like when you hear him inveying against drug companies or, you know, a fixed system on the Joe Rogan show,

you can hear Joe Rogan's ears perk up and go, yeah, I can get behind that. You know, if you tell me socialism, if you tell me socialized medicine, If you tell me Canadian-style healthcare, maybe I'm weirded out by those phrases. But if you put it in a critique of powerful forces arrayed against working people, then there's a continuum. And Joe Rogan and Bernie are both on it.

Yeah, and he's found a really, he's found the, he's found the lane to be able to go after sort of the, to go after the Republican Party and the sort of misrepresentations that are at the heart of a lot of their, at least national political platform, without being so antagonistic, right? I think it be, I think just like so many other things we discuss on the show, there comes a point where if you say, the Republican Party says they're on your side, but they're not really, that just falls on deaf ears. If you don't make the argument, if you make the argument indirectly, taking on the banks, taking on the drug companies to, you know, universal or socialized health care, whatever the case may be,

you know, this is what people are talking about when they're talking about, you know, tax cuts too. This is what people are talking about when they say the Republican Party is not really on your side. But he's actually just making the case point by point.

And it turns out that a lot of, you know, undecided or conservative voters are very open to those ideas. And it takes sometimes a weird outlet like the Joe Rogan show to get the time to say that. When I don't know if to bring this thing full circle,

I don't know if the Washington Post is out to get Bernie Sanders. I kind of doubt it. But there is a huge element of institutional journalism or of the institutional media that is not as interested in hearing certain ideas as they are in others, where they predetermine what the topics of conversation are, where they kind of steer the horse race indirectly from a distance. Bernie Sanders has to find ways to have the conversations he wants to have because they seem to be proving really affected. I think that was probably a bigger issue in 2016 where his ideas were so quote unquote radical that lots of people in the mainstream media couldn't get their minds around them. And then Bernie wound up doing so well, you know, and better, I think, than almost

anybody thought he would against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. I think this time around, there's also this, there's this calculation, and we've talked about this before, that every media company is making. How many resources do we, do we? devote to Bernie Sanders. And they're looking at those polls and they're seeing that he seemingly has a ceiling. And they're saying Bernie, we don't think Bernie's going to win the Democratic nomination. So when we're spending money and you're spending money every day to cover these guys and gals, we're not going to maybe spend as much money or devote as many resources to him as we might

somebody else who has similar poll numbers or worse. It's interesting, Jeff Weaver, who is a Sanders. advisor makes this point to Wigel. He says there seems to be a direct correlation between the media's coverage of polls and Bernie Sanders' specific standing in those polls. And Wigle writes that at least in this one narrow example, Weaver had the receipts. A National Kwinipiac poll, Sanders at 14 percent, appeared in 47 major media stories, while a National Democracy Corps poll, Sanders at 22 percent appeared in just two. Now, whether that's a conspiracy to exclude Bernie and his ideas and stuff. I don't believe that. But I do believe there are lots of just decisions

being made. And you and I, we talk about Bernie Sanders on this podcast as a guy who is really interesting, who's running a compelling campaign who clearly has a basis of support, but is probably not going to win the nomination. I bet MSM editors, assignment editors, producers are doing the same thing, but when they do it, there's a resource expenditure at the end of the conversation. And that kind of shoves him out of the news just a little bit or at least out of the same kind of coverage. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think that's a much, again, not throwing around conspiracies or accepting them or

denying them or anything here. But that's, I mean, that's a serious conversation too, right? I mean, this isn't like deciding not to cover John Hickenlooper. You know, it's not, I mean, when you're allocating resources and not, you know, one of the options is someone who narrowly lost the primary four years ago might have been, I mean, there's a compelling case to be made that he should have won and is polling in the double digits now. Like, how could you not, like even if you're sure he's going to lose, it does seem a little bit like an abdication of responsibility to not be covering him. It's like you cover every other frontrunner.

But, you know, you're right. They have to make these choices. And I'm sure they're not making them, you know, with some political motive. it, you know, in play. But, you know, it sure does open the door for conspiracy theorizing. Oh, well, I also think we should, we should end this topic by talking about the gamesmanship of this. Because there is nothing older in politics than saying the media doesn't want you to vote for me. Oh, yeah.

The media is against me. Nothing older in politics or sports, by the way. Nobody believes in us to quote the boss here at the ringer. You and I are old enough to remember the 19. 1992 presidential campaign when, and I swear one of my friends, one of our friends, moms on her suburban or Volvo, I don't think I'm making this up, had the bumper sticker annoy the media reelect Bush, as in George H.W. Bush. That was a thing. And, you know, and I remember in 2004, you know, John Kerry and hearing from everybody, oh, don't worry, these polls are stacked against John Kerry because the media doesn't know how to reach young people with. cell phones. This was in 2004. Wait, wait, that wasn't true? I'm so holding, I'm so grasping on to them.

So true, yeah. So I'm you know, working the refs, claiming the media is against you. That's politics. That's pure politics. And that is, again, Bernie, Bernie may be one of the guy, one of the few guys or gals who believes a huge percentage of what he says

deep in a soul. There's a political part of Bernie Sanders. And he realizes that this is an effective way to gin up your base and get people excited. I think that's exactly right. And frankly, separate from the Bernie Sanders specific calculations of this, we talked about the breakfast club before. You know, I just kind of wish we had more candidates giving hour-long interviews. I don't care who the person asking the questions is. At some point, you get into something interesting. It's totally right. And you get weird questions. You get different questions that they're not going to get from Lester Holt. And that's good because sometimes that stuff produces interesting answers.

And, you know, we've seen all the candidates. We've seen almost all the candidates go to the Breakfast Club. I'm not sure I want every candidate to go to Joe Rogan. I'm not quite sure I want to be in the world where that happens. But I'd listen if they did because who knows what would come up. All right, David, it's time for 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 nominations to at the press box pod

where they will be gratefully received. This week, David, a tweet from Business Insider reported, Scoop, workers say Starbucks pumpkin spice latte returns to menus on August 27th, its earliest recorded official launch ever. We have never seen the pumpkin spice latte this early. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write, another undeniable sign of climate change.

Thanks to our pal Brian Cogsaw for that. Donald Trump tweeted something weird this week about a World Series champion and TV talking head. Quote, Kurt Schilling, a great pitcher in Patriot, is considering a run for Congress in Arizona. Terrific at Fox and Friends.

It was an overword Twitter joke to write. Trump was turned down by his first choice, John Rocker, thanks to Augie Hayes. was a weirdly big one. I thought we'd all forgotten about John Rocker. This one, David, comes to us from Mark Eisenstein. We sports fans are still immersed in the saga of Raiders wide receiver Antonio Brown, who's dealing with both cryogenic freezing damage to his feet and a rebellion against the NFL's new helmet rules,

both of which in different ways have kept Brown out of Raiders camp. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write, Antonio Brown, causing Raiders John Gruden problems from head to toe, thanks to Mark with that one. And finally, a lot of good gallows humor about the inverted yield curve on treasury notes, which is a possible sign

of a coming recession. Now that's not funny, but this tweet from Alex Yablon was, I love this bond yield and its inverted curve. As a teenager, I was often teased by my friends for my attraction to bond markets

on the inverted side. On's where the two-year yield top the 10-year. markets at the average, basic bro, might refer to as indicating a recession. If you compared our coming financial calamity to curvy wife guy, congrats. You made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. All right, David, before we move on, let's take a quick break.

Today's episode is brought to you by Luminary, a new podcast subscription service with some of the best content around. I'm excited about Luminary because it's the only place you can listen to the newest show on the ringer network. Breakstuff, the story of Woodstock 1999. This is definitely a podcast you can't miss. Breakstuff, Woodstock, 1999 is the story of a music festival that took place in upstate New York that became a social experiment. It was the third iteration of Woodstock, a festival known for peace, love, and hippie idealism. But Woodstock 99 revealed some hard truce behind the myths of the 1960s and the danger that nostalgia can engender. Along with Woodstock 1999,

and Luminary gives you access to a bunch of original shows from innovative, dynamic creators you can't find anywhere else, like our rewatchable spinoff, The Rewatchables' 1999. The Luminary app is free to download in addition to Can't Miss Originals. You can use it to listen to thousands of podcasts,

including this one. Whether you're into music, TV, and film, comedy, sports, or more, Luminary has the right show for you. Check out Woodstock 99 and so much more only on Luminary. And get your first two months of access to Luminary's premium content for free

when you sign up at Luminary. Luminary. Link slash Pressbox. After that, it's only $7.99 a month. That's Luminary. dot link slash press box for two months of free access. Luminary. com slash press box.

Cancel any time. Terms apply. All right, David, tie for the notebook dump. Let us begin with the Department of Demotions. Wow. Today's focus is the New York Times is Jonathan Weissman,

who had some bad tweets writing congresspersons, Rashida Talib out of the Midwest, and John Lewis out of the deep south. and then had a weird encounter with a Justice Democrats House challenger and then had a weirder encounter with the writer Roxanne Gaye. Weissman was Deputy Washington Editor of the Times. He's now just an editor after meeting with executive editor, Dean Beke. He's also no longer tweeting.

Weissman tells the Times as Mark Tracy, I accept Dean's judgment. I think he's right to do what he's doing. I embarrass the newspaper and he had to act. Are you surprised at all? after Wiseman-Palooza, that this is where we are. I'm surprised that I got a push notification about it. I'm surprised that this was such a big story. Not a big story in terms of its merit,

but just in terms of like its publicity. I mean, I'm not sure if it's possible to keep demotions. First of all, it's surprising that he got demoted and not just sort of, you know, put on the bench for a while. But beyond that, it's surprising that it's become, that the New York Times allowed. to become the media story that it's become. Yes.

It was very public. You notice they made a statement the first time around saying he repeatedly displayed poor judgment, which I bet if we went back and looked at New York Times statements about their own employees is pretty unusual. And then after his demotion, they said, we don't typically discuss personnel matters, but we're doing so in this instance with Jonathan's knowledge. And isn't this all about the symbolic value? because the ambient noise here is not just Jonathan Wiseman, but the Times is coverage of race in general.

And that headline after the El Paso shootings. Yeah. And so by being public about this, you are telling Times readers and media critics, look, we think we've got an issue here about how we cover race. So that's a complicated question, getting into newspaper style and Trump and what is the Times in 2019.

But this is not complicated. This guy who had a bunch of bad tweets of which race were involved in almost all of them is now not the deputy Washington United anymore. That to me is it's almost, you know, it's not a sacrifice, but they're offering him up as this is the easier one to do. Yeah, I mean, I think you made the point exactly right. It's a sort of mea culpa for a lot of it, an implicit meaiculah. up for a lot of different issues. And doing this so publicly shows that they're, that they're, they hear the complaints that are being registered against them, they being the New York Times sort of broadly.

I think that, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of lessons to be learned here. You know, one of our bosses is famous, it has a famous line that is never tweet. I'll leave that to the listener to try to discern who that is. But problematic Twitter activity or problematic Twitter presence is a sort of, you know it when you see it, sort of situation. And I don't know exactly what the lesson, if there's a lesson you can put down in a rulebook from what we've learned from Jonathan Wiseman. but you know there certainly seemed to be a point where confronted with one grievous error he felt compelled to double down and become even more outrageous and I think all the other issues aside a public excoriation or punishment I think was justified but it is it is an

interesting note, just that this is where we are sort of in the modern media landscape, that the New York Times would seek to, to, you know, make a story out of their own in-house, you know, HR decisions. Dean Bekay held a town hall for Times employees on Monday, which he told CNN's Oliver Darcy was convened because of, quote, the Wiseman tweet, the collective Wiseman, as well as the headline. Now, I love the phrase the collective Wiseman, which is a like a greatest hits album of fuckups, you know, hey, you had a bad day on Twitter,

but don't go the collective wise. Don't, don't, just don't stop it. You know, just cut it off before we get into trouble. That is interesting, and I recommend Darcy's report on that meeting, which is a very interesting event in and of itself. Just as we went on the air, David, we got some news from the presidential race. It no longer includes John Hickenlooper.

The banjoing Colorado is following Eric's, Swalwell into the sunset. And he is thinking of running for Senate, which he probably should have been doing all along. So my question for you is, and I know you've not had a lot of chance to prepare for this, but what was your favorite moment of the John Hickenlooper for president campaign? Oh, my gosh. I have no idea. I literally don't have it.

When he kept saying the word brew pub during the debate? I created a brew pub. Yeah, there should be a Hall of Fame for people like who, diminish their own corporate accomplishments to see more folksy. Brew Pub, it might be the, might be the perfect one for 2019. Never quite got the, quite gotten the same level as the hipster vote. He was clearly courting it. Brew Pub.

Bruhub. A lot of microbrews here. I've made, I've made my share of Chris Matthews jokes, especially in relation to John Hickenlooper throughout the past several months. But I definitely think it's safe to say that the highlight of the Hickenlooper campaign, the highlights all occurred before he declared for the camp, for the president, you know, for the nomination. Um, the sort of notion that he might run was much more compelling than him as a candidate.

And, uh, and, and, you know, hopefully he will, um, run for and win, uh, a Senate seat in Colorado and, and being, I mean, and be an influential voice from there. I don't think the guy's a joke. Um, but I do think that to, run so, as we discussed in the debate podcasts, to run so sort of loudly as a centrist in current year, it's just such a gross miscalculation that it, you know, makes you wonder whether or not someone's a viable presidential candidate or a viable president, you know?

And he was running, he was being himself, and so give him credit or whatever. But I think that his role probably makes a lot more sense on a congressional level. Is some of this with him and Michael Bennett and some of these other guys a matter of timing? Because they got in so late. And it was, you know, nobody I don't think really quite realize that 20 plus Democrats were going to run. But if you see a crowded field coming, there's a huge advantage like Pete Buttigieg did to get in early when the press is bored and do as many interviews as you can and as many stump speeches as you can and get your name out there rather than coming at the end.

end when everybody's like, oh, God, another candidate, no matter how good you are. Yes, but at the same time, I think that that goes into the same question about judgment, that you couldn't foresee that coming, that you thought, I mean, who knows if this is true, but, you know, you can imagine one thinking that the world is sort of waiting for you to declare, you know, that you're building hype, you're building tension, and that's certainly not true. I think that Yeah, I think that you're right I think that getting in earlier

might have been better but I think at the end of the day it's a question about politics and, you know, to think that there's this vast, untapped resource of voters out there that's just wanting people to get along

in this day and age. I mean, it's worth a shot, I guess. You know, you're not going to trick anybody into thinking you're a socialist or whatever, but like, it just seems. It's just sort of, I don't know. If there was any, if there was, if there was, if there was, if there was any chance for a real, for a real centrist candidate, I guess, I guess Joe Biden has claimed that mantle for himself.

But all these, all these, like, real mediocre milk toast candidates have not done the cause any, any, any great help by by trying to be the face of modern centrism. I want to, I just wanted to mention that the, that the New York Times headline, I mean, there have been all this talk over the past couple of days that they, people have been trying to recruit. him to run for the Senate in Colorado, similar to the call from some in Texas, which Texas paper was it that asked better to, was the Austin paper that asked better to come home and run for the Senate there. But I think it was the Times headline today said John Hickenlooper ends presidential campaign will give Senate bid, quote, serious thought. Now, I don't know if he's actually thinking about running for the Senate. One can only assume that he is. I'm not sure what the point of the little song and dance about serious thought is. I feel like it would be more powerful for him

to be like, you know what, I care about this country and I'm more needed here. You know, like I'm going to do this instead. And there's a lot of factors that might go into it. But yeah, I mean, there is something kind of compelling about the idea of all these Democratic candidates just being like, just sort of, you know, in one day, just fanning out across the country and running for congressional seats to try to like, you know, use the presidential campaign as a platform and then, and then, you know, really try to affect the other branch of government. but anyway.

Yeah, it's training camp for your Senate campaign. You get warmed up in the presidential campaign. You get some national TV exposure, which you're not going to get running for Senate very much. And now you're ready to run for Senate. And the money, and maybe the money comes in a little bit better. No, I think that's right. And I think he wants to be, by the way,

I think he wants to be courted again. Just what you said. I think he's still waiting for the groundswell. It didn't come for the presidential race, and he thinks maybe it'll come for the Senate race. So there you go. Department of Mystery interviews, David. Remember Uncle Chaps?

Co-host of the Barstool Military Pod Zero Blog 30? Of course they do, yeah. Yeah, we last talked about him and them back in May when they did an interview with Congressman Duncan Hunter in which Hunter casually confessed to killing civilians in Iraq. Well, on Wednesday, Uncle Chaps tweeted an interview with a presidential candidate today. After the interview was over,

the campaign staff reached out to me and asked me not to run the interview. We will be running the interview on Friday on Zero Blog 30. Any guesses who the mystery candidate could be? Well, as people are listening to this, I guess they'll probably know the answer.

So this isn't much of a quiz show. But my first instinct was Pete Buttigieg, because he's ex-military, so that it sort of checks that box. He's very obviously, I mean, I don't know if media savvy's the right word, but he's, you know, definitely open to getting his word out there through, you know, any sort of modern outlet podcasts, of course, are a big one of those. And he also seems like,

just this is totally speculation, but he seems like the sort of, he seems like the, it seems like the, it seems like the, the perfect level of candidate for whom, uh, come on zero blog 30 would be an immediate yes. And then, one, and then if, if, if it, It was after that that you realized that this is a barstool property, then your campaign would try to transform that into a no. Does that make sense? They seem like, of course, they would go on a military podcast with the listenership of Zero Block 30, but then, of course, you know, one can imagine them saying,

we don't want the backlash from being associated with Barstool in the same breath. So that was my guess. Is that what you thought? Is there any chances as Tulsi Gabbard? military thing a staff that might not have fully investigated what was going on I don't know

one can imagine the kind of comedy of error situation maybe a little bit more with her campaign I will I guess my gut reaction with Tulsi Gabbard is that I don't know that she would decline to go on zero blood 30 even knowing it was a barstow. I don't know that she would

shy away from barstool attention and I'm not that's not really a knock one way or the other, I just feel like, I feel like the way that she's situated, I'm not sure that that's it, that it would be a net negative. One, to be getting the word out however possible, but two, you know, I don't know if like the barstool Democrat is a demographic, but if it is, I think that sort of fits into the Tulsi Gabbard game plan. David, I'd like to talk to you about the New York Times' love affair with gay penguins. The writer Steve Pearlberg, who I really like, tweeted this on Wednesday, people give the New York Times a lot of shit. but you have to admire their years-long dedication to the gay penguin beat. And he is referring to a new story called Gay Penguins and Their Hope for a Baby have enchanted Berlin.

That is the headline. That is that is that is a real headline. And then kind of assembles a mosaic of other headlines in this genre, including the gay penguins of Australia. New love breaks up a six-year relationship at the zoo. and my favorite, and this would have been a great pun headline, love the dare not squeak its name. That's pretty great, isn't it?

That's a good one. Love the dare not squeak its name. Let me tell you why I love this. I love it when the Times does clickbait because it's elevated clickbait. It can't be what time is the Super Bowl. And it can't just be an animal story. Animal stories being the mana of clickbait.

It's like there's somebody at the times who says, we can't just do cute penguins. We have to do cute penguins and identity. Like we have to, there has to be a hook here. And four stories, though. It looks like these started in 2004. But anyway, congrats to Steve Burlberg on that observation. David, I know you and I have both been a little confused and interested in the disappearance of the new movie, The Hunt. Yes.

Do we have someone there in the New York office who could explain what happened to The Hunt and how it became a political issue? Thankfully, yes, we do. As soon as this topic came up today, I yelled across the office. I said, Andrew Grudadarro, can you please tell me what's going on with this movie The Hunt? And he did a very good job explaining it to me. But I stared at him so blankly afterwards, the only thing I could say next was, do you want to come on the show and explain this to me again? So we've had one episode of Alyssa explains it all. Now this is, I don't know if this is Andrew explains it all or Alyssa explains it all with special guest, Andrew Grudadarro.

But Andrew, welcome to the press box. Hey, I'm so thrilled to be here. Can you explain to us what the movie The Hunt is and why we keep seeing it in headlines right now? Yeah, I can't. I sketch out a little timeline because I think the timeline is quite interesting. So, first of all, the hunt is a movie in which 12 strangers wake up in a clearing, and then they soon realize that they're being hunted by other humans. Wow. I'm sure you're familiar with the most dangerous game.

Yes. Are you familiar with surviving the game from 1994? No. Ice tea, Rucker Hauer. Oh, wow. Okay. Go watch it. It's incredible.

So this is just to say that, you know, this concept has been. been done before. But so on July 30th, the trailer for The Hunt is released online. It's actually been in theaters since mid-July, although no one really talks about it until it hits the internet. Right. And when it does, you know, the trailer includes the word elites, quote-unquote. And then it also includes the note that the people being hunted are from mostly southern

states. They have very thick southern accents. But that's kind of the extent of how political the trailer gets. But was the implication be that this is northeastern elites hunting that's not the implication. Northeastern elites

hunting southerners. Right. That's... But is the implication being that like the elites are the bad guys, right? This is like a pro-common man a pro-red state film? The trailer doesn't, like the hero in the story is Betty Gilpin

from Glow and the story seems to be that she kind of turns the tables on these elites and the hunters become the hunted. Okay. But you know that the trailer comes out and mostly

all writing about it is like mostly positive. You know this is coming from Blumhouse which did get out. It's co-written by Damon Lindelof who has done Lost. So like It's got pedigree. People are excited about it.

No one is really up in arms about anything. A few days later, August 3rd and August 4th, the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings happen. And as those shootings tend to do, sort of reinvigorate discourse about violent pop culture, video games, movies. but still discourse around the hunt is completely quiet. Then August 6th, a bunch of networks most prominently ESPN decide to pull the ads promoting the hunt. Oh.

Because with, and they cite El Paso and Dayton. Sure. You know, they just don't want to be sort of supporting gun violence in the wake of a mass shooting. And so in reporting on this decision, the Hollywood reporter publishes a story, and in the story, they print two lines from the script of the hunt. And the two lines are this. It's a dialogue exchange.

And someone says, did anyone see what our rat fucker in chief just did? And the response is, at least the hunt's coming up. Nothing better than going out to the manor and slaughtering a dozen deplorables. So there you go. Wow. That's... Are you sure that was Damon Lindelof writing that and not William Shakespeare? Because that's the...

Obvious... Within this story, THR also reports that the original title of the movie was Blue State versus Red State. That has not been confirmed, but obviously, you know, this ramps up sort of the political discourse around the movie. and this is when sort of Fox News activates Laura Ingram does a segment on it and then August 9th

Donald Trump seemingly tweets about it the tweet that he did is somewhat incoherent it's one of those tweets that you really only fully understand if you're also watching

whatever he's watching when he tweets it yeah we read it last week on the show actually this is about elite Hollywood hates you. But that was the second part, right? So there's actually two parts of this. There's the there's the whole we don't want to be involved with a grind house people being hunted by guns movie because of what just happened. And then there is a media and president purposefully or maybe accidentally, probably purposefully, misunderstanding the movie and saying the decadent elites in Hollywood have made a movie where they hunt people like you, regular. Is that about

it? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And it's definitely worth noting that Donald Trump at all seem to have completely misconstrued the arc of this movie. Unless it already matters at this point. So what is the, Ryan, what's the media question about this? Is it, is the way that it's covered is obviously actually more, more significant than the contents of the film, right? Yeah. I mean, I think that's, that, that might have been bound to be the case anyway with a movie like this.

You could also imagine in a totally kind of alternate universe, this is one of those Blumhouse movies that quietly makes like $80 million. Sure. But yeah. But yeah, no, I think, I think it's one of those things, one of those movies that just happens to wander into the clearing if I'm going to just go with the hunting metaphors here at exactly the wrong time. and become, but look, the makers of the movie knew what they were dealing with. They knew the buttons they were pressing. That's the thing, yeah.

And that's, that's a, you know, a longstanding thing of grindhouse and genre, right? You're pressing political buttons. And then let's see what happens. Yeah. I think the thing that sticks out, I mean, obviously one has to think about the interview, right? The Seth Rogan, James Franco movie,

North Korea took exception to it, and so the studio decided not to release it. I mean, I guess that what made that decision so exceptional to me, at least sitting from my seat, was that, you know, if Seth Rogan and James Franco are in the trailer on the poster, then like, it's like clearly satire.

Now, I don't expect, you know, anyone in North Korea, anyone in, you know, Kim Jong-un or whoever to like to register that necessarily. But, you know, the satire here was implicit, and that's sort of what made it seem so outrageous that the studio would get. away from it. It seems like with the hunt, the script very well may have been heavily satirical. Maybe with the original title, Red State, Blue State, the satire could have been a little bit more.

So we'd been so heavy-handed that the satire, if it's there, it could have been clearer. But I guess to me, even if the studio knew they were getting into, they clearly didn't know what they were marketing, or they didn't know how to market it. Because you can't, if the, if the audience is left with any question, about the earnestness of this film, then you can't release that film with or without tragedies that make it seem inappropriate at the moment, right? Like, you got to, it has to be more clearly satirical or ridiculous. You have to be able to convey in the trailer

both sides get their licks in or something, right? No, I think that's right. And somehow note that this is all ludicrous and that this is almost like a, this is almost a comment about where America has got, as opposed to where a particular side of America has gotten? Yeah, I think that's right. What do we think, Andrew, what do we think that the next step is for the hunt?

Is this going to go straight to streaming or is it going to pop up eventually on some platform? I would expect it to pop up. The last line in Universal Statement and when they pulled the movie was, we understand that now is not the right time to release this film, which sort of leaves a door open for another time in which it's okay to release it. I don't think Universal or Blumhouse is too concerned about pushing political buttons. I think their side of it is they don't want to be so closely related to overt gun violence

in the immediate wake of mass shootings. I'm not sure that Trump's... sort of escalating of the situation is really behind, really behind their decision to pull the movie. I think they're sort of just going to sit on it until it quiets down. There's a chance, and I think even more so than with the interview, oddly, that this becomes a giant cult film once it actually sees the light of day, right? I think that's probably possible.

It's also worth noting that no one has really even seen this movie. Right. No one knows. exactly how overtly satirical it is or, you know, even if it's offensive or if it's even good. No one even knows. With the interview, people had seen the movie and people had seen that it wasn't really worth the, uh, the kind of attention that it got. Um, so yeah, I think, I think it is totally possible. This is, this movie has the pedigree to become sort of a, uh,

occult interest. I'm excited. I can't wait to see the hunt. To close, has anybody done parody the old variety headline with politics, Nicks, Hick, Picks? Have we done that?

Oh my gosh. This is why people listen to the press box. Can we go there? Politics Nix Hick Pigs. Thank you, Andrew. We appreciate it. Thanks for coming on, man. Glad to be here.

Thanks, guys. All right, David, from the overused Word of the Week Department, you know how I get fixated on the language of journalists. Yeah. And how derivative it is, how similar it is. Well, in that pedantic spirit, can we have a very quick discussion about the word gaff?

Oh, God. Okay. Yeah, I think Gaff may be the single most used word in the Democratic primary or a close second to Lane. Like, what lane is that guy in? Because whenever a politician does something wrong now, we say he or she made a gaffe. I think I did this earlier in the week about Joe Biden. Kamala Harris made a gaffe when she said, she smoked and listened to Tupac and Snoop while she was in college.

Elizabeth Warren may have set a new land speed record in presidential campaign trail Gaffes, the Boston Herald reported earlier this year. Webster's defines Gaff, and don't you love it when a paragraph starts that way in an article? Webster's defines Gaff as a social or diplomatic blunder and a noticeable mistake. So I guess it's not technically wrong because anything is a noticeable mistake. But then there's also the Michael Kinsley tradition, which is the Kinsley Gaff, which he famously wrote, is when a politician tells the truth. And he later amended that to say it's when a politician says what's really on his or her mind. So a gaff to me in politics is more like Obama talking about voters clinging to guns and religion.

That's not something he would have said on the stump, but it came out of his mouth during a fundraiser. and it was, or at least people imputed to him, that that's what he really believed about rural voters. The one that Kinsley came up with in 1984, and I'm quoting him here, was when presidential candidate Gary Hart told a California rally that he'd rather be in California than New Jersey. Rival Walter Mondale rose to the defense of New Jersey, and this actually became a big issue for a week or so, which is pretty incredible. How dare you insult New Jersey by saying you'd rather be in California? So I guess my question to you is, are we using gaff where we really just mean mistake? Yeah, that's it. I mean, first of all, we should point out that the title of last week's podcast had the word gaff in it.

So or the earlier this week's podcast. I'm an offender. We're an offender. But yeah, I do think that the political gaffs are a real thing and that the word is useful as we cover the campaign. But I think we do have to kind of, you know, drill down on what it, we, really mean by it. And I think you're making exactly the right point. It's not a mistake, right? I mean, a gaff is when it's a subset of mistake. It's a subset, right. But it's not a simple mistake, right? To just misuse a word, to say one thing when you mean another is not necessarily

a gaff. I think it has to have some deeper meaning, some deeper significant, some reveal of truth in the Kinsley mold. I think that, you know, if Joe Biden, at the Iowa Fair, we covered this earlier this week when he said, when he said, what was the line about just poor kids aren't necessarily, what was it, Chris? Yeah, he compared, he contrasted poor kids and white kids as opposed to wealthy kids. If he had said, if he had compared poor kids and, you know, blue kids or something, you know, if it had just been like the, like a, just to use the wrong word, that's a, that's a mistake, right? But to say something that sort of gets at a deeper point, I think that's the real gaffe.

So I think that, yeah, we got to be careful about how we use these things. And certainly your run-of-the-mill mistake is not necessarily a gaffe. I saw a Fox News headline about that Washington Post story that was full of errors we talked about the other day in the food section. The Fox News headline was Washington Post embarrassed over gaff-filled story. Okay, those were not gaffes. Those were errors. Yeah.

Those were errors. Enough of the gaffes. quickly to listener mail. Listener Jacob Scott has solved a mystery that vexed David Chris and I equally. Jacob writes, My brother is in Iowa for a campaign, and he did confirm that there are wings served

at the Democratic Wing Ding dinner. So there we go. Speaking of Iowa, we talked Tuesday about Max Boots report from the Iowa State Fair. Thank God some children are interested in showing prize pigs rather than playing video games, he wrote ridiculously. Gene Monterecelli, who lives in

Brooklyn sends us a picture of his niece who has a sheep that she is showing at the Johnson County Wyoming Fair. Adorable site there. He writes, Gene writes, we also regularly play FIFA 19 on Nintendo Switch over the internet. So it is possible to show a sheep and also want the video games. That is a normal child. On Tuesday, David, we talked about what happens with the president of the United States embraces or at least entertains conspiracy theories.

And I said, this is like if LBJ said the Cubans got Kennedy. Well, Nick Field sent this in. It's not quite the same. But an interesting interview with LBJ that Walter Cronkite aired on the CBS Evening News in 1975. During a long interview I had with Mr. Johnson at the LBJ ranch in September 1969, we talked about the Kennedy assassination. A portion of the interview was not broadcast at the president's request on the grounds, he said, of national security. I asked Mr. Johnson then whether he was satisfied there was no international conspiracy in his assassination.

I can't honestly say that I've ever been completely relieved of the fact that there might have been international connections. You mean you still feel that there might have been? I have not completely discounted. Well, that would seem to indicate that you don't have full confidence in the Warren Commission report. you know I think the Warren Commission study and I think first of all is composed the ablest, most judicious

bipartisan men in this country. Second, I think they had only one objective and that was the truth. Third, I think they were competent and did the best they could. But I don't think that they are, me or anyone else, is always

absolutely sure of every thing that might have motivated Oswald or others that could have been involved. That aired on CBS three years after LBJ's death. Very interesting stuff. All right, time for David. Shoemaker

guess is the strained pun headline. Tuesday's winner was Norway has haddock enough of fish mugglers. And by the way, listener Kfei Brabant tells us the print headline and his economist was cod awful. Cod awful. Let's move

from Norway, the icy waters of Norway, to NFL training camp when I saw this story. Thought it was going to be about an Oregon duck who was playing in the league, but no, David, there's a bearer's cornerback name Clifton Duck, Clifton Duck, the UCK. He was undrafted out of Appalachian State, but looking good in camp. You know the genre story. Long shot, long shot is really turning some heads. NBC Sports is Chicago's JJ Stankovitz Kind of wrote his Clifton Duck headline

His Clifton Duck is showing well at camp headline in his tweet It didn't actually appear on the story, but it was it was in the tweet And this is what I'm going with So David, you've got the basics What is the strained pun headline About a great camp performance from Clifton Duck? This could be a whole episode. Thankfully, I assume Duck is the word that I'm playing

around with. You are indeed. This is, this, I could spend an hour coming up with funny duck headlines. First of all, shout out to Boone, North Carolina. App State is a lovely school, but Boone is just an incredible, incredible town. Okay, so is he playing, is he doing well? Can I ask if he's doing well or poorly? He's doing well. He's doing well. He's doing well. That is the point of the, he's having a great camp. Okay, so I'm throwing out sitting duck. I'm throwing out, uh, I'm throwing out, uh, I'm throwing out dead duck.

I'm throwing out Yeah, I'm throwing out Oh, God. What is it? Lame duck. Lame duck is definitely not the answer. That's when he goes on IR. What position does he play?

He's a cornerback, but that really doesn't have a lot to do with this. So duck and cover is not the answer either. Duck can cover is pretty funny. God. Actually, that might be the end of my duck puns. What if I take you to a Chinese restaurant?

I'm going to tell you to gaze at the menu. Peking Duck? Yes, he is Peking. Oh, P-E-A-K-I-N-G. So he is Peking Duck. That's really it? Peking Duck. That's it. Wait, there's a different one in the headline also.

Yeah, and then on the... on the shareable Twitter headline was Can Clifton Duck Quack the Bears roster? That's great. It was a double. Would you say that he's in the duck hunt for a roster spot? You're bringing it all around. He is David Shoemaker.

I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Chris Almata production magic by Jen Cunningham. The official brand of the press box is Gin Blossoms. We're back Tuesday, bright and early, with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian. David?

Uh, sure. I embarrass the newspaper. How dare you insult New Jersey? There's a chance, oddly, that this becomes a giant cult. Yeah, I can get behind that. He should just beat the shit out of people. Like, punch somebody in the face until they bleed. Like, I need my crazy cult leader, like, backwards, mussely guy to do that.

And then let's see what happens. And guess what happened? Nothing better than going out to the manor and sloth. Lauddering a dozen deplorables. Are you sure that was Damon Lindelof writing that and not William Shakespeare? Because that's a... Cod awful. Cod awful.

Right? Mm-hmm. No, I think that's right. Ha, ha, ha, ha, no.