The Press Box - Beto Late Than Never | The Press Box

Episode Date: March 5, 2019

How the Dallas Cowboys got Jason Witten back (03:00), Jane Mayer’s New Yorker story about Fox News (22:45), and what the Bob Kraft media coverage says about the way we cover a scandal (36:45). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. With The Bachelor wrapping up, be sure to check out the Bachelor Party podcast with Juliet Lipman for all your news and coverage as well as interviews with former contestants, producers, and personalities from Bachelor Nation. Also, with opening day right around the corner, the MLB Show podcast is back, covering Bryce Harper and Manny Machado's recent signings and much more. You can subscribe to both on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And make sure to follow our NFL team for full cover.

of the NFL Combine and pre-draft analysis on the ringer.com. David, the reporter Michael Cruz tweeted this week that a Columbia Journalism Review poll revealed that 60% of respondents, 54% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans believe reporters get paid by their sources sometimes are very often. 60% of people believe reporters get paid by their sources. What I want to know is, what else? do 60% of people believe about journalists that is so clearly ridiculous?

That they what, did they pick their nose and live in their parents' basement? That they make a lot of money? That they make a living wage? Oh, I guess apparently they make... Yeah, if we're going off the 60%

think they're getting paid by their sources, I guess they must think they're rich. You know, 60% probably think that most journalists are like, you know, that they're on TV most of the time because that's how I'm sure a lot of people encounter it. They certainly think that 60%, And it's definitely not 60, but it's not zeros.

They probably think that 60% hang out in, like, laugh-filled bullpins with their boss sipping a jet, like a vinty iced coffee, just like cracking wise with them. I'm just guessing this, because if you think 60% of journalists are paid by their sources, you must be a lot of your journalism from TMZ. But yeah, I cannot even, I don't even want to think with those 60% believe. We are 60% listenable and 40% listenable if you were asleep or maybe working out or just comatose. This is the Press Box, a part of the Ringer podcast network. Oh, man.

The Press Box is the media podcast where you always publish your Stormy Daniels story immediately. Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here again with three topics for your pleasure and amusement. First, David, we'll talk about the pretty shocking news that color analyst Jason Witten has left Monday Night Football to return to the Dallas Cowboys. What is the standing of Monday Night Football in the culture in 2019? Second, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer has dropped an anvil of a story on Fox News, our votes for the most interesting tidbits about Stormy Daniels and more. And finally, David, we're going to backtrack to that Bob Kraft massage parlor story.

Specifically, let's talk about it as a piece of journalism, how it was covered and how it changed the way reporters can write about Kraft's extracurricular life, plus the notebook dump and the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, let's start with Monday night football. Thursday morning. I'm going to set a scene for you. One bright morning in February, I looked at my phone and got a text.

It was from Sean Fennacy, editor of the ringer. As you know, David, when you get the fantasy text, it's important. This is like the sports media bat signal shining over Gotham City at that point. The news, of course,

was the Jason Witten, who was the impossibly inspiring Cowboys Tide End, had left and had once left for Monday Night Football, is once again an impossibly inspiring Cowboys' Tight End. And thus ends a year in which, Witten was often tongue-tied and probably, at least in the broadcast booth part of sports media, the favorite target of critics and media Twitter. So give me your sports guy, but not sports media guy, take on this.

What did you make of the Jason Witten news? I was sort of perplexed by it. I feel like the coverage elided, I think, some of the very most basic questions that I had about it. Like, can he still play football? That's important. Can he still run? Can he's yeah can he's I mean I don't know I mean it didn't seem like running was that important his last season but he did seem to be on the you know downside and then you know it's just like anything

else when the story I watched the story break on ESPN and it was and it was you know they gave it a little bit of ironic fanfare to just to sort I mean I think it was I don't think they were being dishonest or anything but they certainly made it seem like a bigger deal than in my mind it really was I guess it is a huge deal when the when the when the when the you know esteemed or not esteemed but famous color guy for Monday night football decides after a year in the booth to go back to playing the game. But yeah, I mean, it was just, you know, the presentation was resplendent with just like hilarious turns of phrase about, you know, the Cowboys had a hole that on the tight end spot and now ESPN has a hole in the broadcast booth or whatever. But I think it's

really interesting. I think it's an interesting, I mean, it makes, it certainly, you know, puts a wrinkle in his you know Wikipedia page and I'm going to be kind of excited to see where he goes on the field you know and it's been fun to get like the immediate post-mortems of his broadcasting career even though

it was sort of you know a very abrupt very brief tenure in that in that genre when you talk about ESPN I figure if we were still in the back in the 90s Sports Center era remember when the anchors did those long very righterly kind of of intros and outros.

I just have, I just see like one of them sitting there going, the novelist Thomas Wolf said, you can't go home again. Well, Thursday, Jason Witton announced. Dot, dot, dot. So I was also surprised. And I was very surprised because almost a month to the day that Jason Witten announced he was coming to the Cowboys, I had sat down with him at the Super Bowl and talked all about how he was going to fix himself as a broadcaster.

And had this, you know, listen to him. and he did most of the talking, describe in incredible detail all the stuff he was going to do. Everything from watching tape, kind of in the manner of an athlete, like how he'd watch tape as a tight end, to seeking out people like John Madden and Jeff Van Gundy to ask them how to be a better broadcaster

and maybe watch his tape with them. And then he turns around and he's like, never mind, I'm going to play for the Cowboys. So that was wild. Jerry Jones, I noticed this was an athletic piece by Calvin Watkins. from the combine this weekend. He said that Jerry Jones said this weekend

that when he went to introduce Jason Whitten at last year's ESPN Upfront, this is when they were unveiling the new Monday night team of Joe Jester, and Booger and Witten, that Jerry Jones at that moment felt like something wasn't right

and that Witten wasn't ready to retire, which is probably a bad sign if you're about to be on a national television broadcast. I think, but I think the thing that's highlighted for me, maybe I've been watching too much NFL Combine, is just like with actual football, football announcers, broadcasters, broadcasting, you know, and networks like ESPN, what they're doing is essentially drafting raw tools. They're looking at somebody and saying, we think you can be a broadcaster. Yeah. We don't have a ton of evidence. This is

the case. I know he did some, you know, sample games with them and stuff like that, maybe one major sample game. but mostly it's like we're going to sit down across the table and talk to you. And if you seem like the kind of guy who can talk on television, then we're going to hire you. And that's it. And they're guessing as much as the NFL teams are guessing, maybe even more in this case, because Jason Wooden had not been like a college broadcaster. He was doing a totally different job. But they're guessing as much as the teams are guessing about who's going to be good. Yeah.

And there's not, I mean, it's not like there's a tradition of like farm system, at least for these kind of big name color guys. I guess that the, I guess in part of it is just the reputation that you come in with when you're someone like Jason Witten, right? You get signed, you get paid a lot of money. It's like to carry on the football parallel. It's like, you know, drafting a first round quarterback where you kind of feel obligated to play him, regardless of whether or not they're ready to play. And then especially when you see, you know, if you're the, if you're the Arizona Cardinals and you see that the Jets are starting Sam Darnold, then you feel a little bit pressure to start to see, you know, see what Josh Rosen has. Your fans are clamoring for it.

And I'm sure there was some of that with the Jason Witt and Tony Romo parallel in the broadcasting world. But yeah, I mean, it is, it is. You just take it on faith that they can be good at what they do. And it's kind of wild that Monday Night Football, which is certainly not the franchise it was, you know, once upon a time, but that that would be a place for someone to have a first job. Yeah. And speaking of which, by the way, just the fact that it's so subtle, the difference of what makes you a good broadcaster versus a not as good broadcaster? Like, you mentioned Romo, the Romo comparison, which I've already beaten the ground. So let's beat into the ground some more. But it is a small thing that you're able to, in that 10 or 12 seconds, you know, talk about

football intelligently and just basically get the words out of your mouth, right? On to television. And, And that seems so, that seems like a kind of non-insight, but that's actually the same thing it is with writing. How many writers do you know who are really funny and really smart when you talk to them over a cup of coffee? And then when they sit down on the page, it just doesn't come out quite as well. It's just not quite as eloquent or certain characteristics. And then you talk to other people who are completely tongue-tied and they sit down and they're

just great. And the difference between Romo and Witten, I think, you know, I'm sure there's some natural talent involved, but it's when Romo sits down in front of the mic, he knows what to do. And he just has a sense of, here's what I'm going to say, and here's how I can say it cogently and in a funny way and predict plays. And Witten in year one anyway, just never got to that point. Yeah. That's just funny.

You're not going to believe this, but I have a professional wrestling corollary here. Please. You'll hear from a lot of, you hear sometimes about wrestling, about, you know, potential prospective of professional wrestlers that sometimes. and has all the charisma in the world and they have when they're talking in the in the locker room they have everybody wraps nobody can turn away but then they get in the ring and you hand him a microphone and it's just not there you know it's there's there's some of that I think with these guys too um you know I know you wrote about uh the Witten Romo comparison in your piece

um and a lot of and a couple of the points that you made um were also echoed or or or you know Adam Schaefter said the same thing on ESPN. Going back to the ESPN presentation, it was so bizarre that he, when they announced, it just seemed like a sort of vague media story to me, but then Schaefter was there on the hotline talking about how the criticism that he got,

I mean, that Witten got as the, you know, on Monday night football is what drove him back to playing and saying he never got criticism playing, playing tight end. And you hit on some of that in your piece too. Yeah.

And also said that the comparison to Romo getting so much praise while he was getting kind of dogged was hard for him to deal with. I mean, did you guys talk about that? Yeah, a little. And I would just say, and I didn't hear the, I didn't hear the Schfter thing. So I'm just going off what you said there. But I've had a lot of broadcasters sit down and tell me and spell out in no uncertain terms how unfairly they're being treated by Twitter and how pissed off they are. That's like a pretty common thing if you're a famous sports broadcaster. Jason Witten was on the way low end of that and pissed off is not a word I would use.

Hurt is not a word I would use. I'd almost just more use like he was just kind of looking at all this stuff going, oh, wow, people are really mad at me for the first time in my career. And he was also looking at all that stuff going, which of this stuff is just sort of weird hate and which of this stuff can I actually use to be good in year too? I just, I got a real, you know, he was more concerned about being better than he was about writing the wrongs of Twitter. So I didn't get the sense he was bothered at some spiritual level. To the Romo thing, I think there is, I think Romo was so good that, you know, perhaps there's a part of Jason Witton that goes, you know what?

I'm, I'm probably never going to touch this guy in broadcasting quite like that. So if I see my ceiling and my ceiling is like three floors under what Tony Romo's ceiling is, then maybe I should just go play football. But I just, I think the biggest thing is he just wanted to play football. I don't think anything that happened to him in broadcasting, other than not being great, generally, his first year, I don't think than anything it happened to him in broadcasting drove him back to football. I think he wanted to play football again. Yeah, was there a standing offer from the Cowboys?

I missed that piece of the story too. Is there a standing offer or a new offer that he decided to? to take? I mean, what, was there, was there some sort of urgency or did he just change his mind in a hurry? So a lot of data points. One, Jerry's saying, you know, he didn't think Witton was really ready to retire and maybe got kind of talked into it because look, it's Monday night football. It's once in a lifetime. He talked to the Cowboys at one point last year about coming back during the season when the Cowboys started winning all those games, we're clearly going to make the playoffs. And then he apparently talked to Jason Garrett, you know, a couple of times

this year after the season was over. So I think he sort of had those longings. And One thing is remember when, remember the 2017 NFL season and more specifically the 2017 Cowboys season was uniquely terrible. This is kneeling. This is Jerry Jones's failed coup against Roger Goodell. This is, you know, the Zeke Elliott domestic violence saga. And so Jason Witten walking away from that team is probably different than walking away watching from the broadcast booth that team goes on that huge run last year. And him saying, boy, this would be fun to be a part of. So I think that's got to be part of it too.

I mean, just normally, like, what organization do you want to go back to? That one at the end of 2017 or the one that, you know, beats Seattle in the playoffs last year and actually looks pretty good. The other thing I'd like to add to this, David, is the one part of this that wasn't a surprise is that something crazy happened behind the scenes of Monday night football. This is our entire life. This is before we started paying attention. This is even before we were born. Monday night football has been it's like a mini version of Saturday night live

where there's the stuff on the screen but what's more interesting is everything all the crazy stuff that's happening behind the scenes the short version would be Keith Jackson was the play by play guy Monday night football year one gone after one year Don Meredith part of the greatest booth ever there walked away for a few years and a huff

they had OJ as an announcer which was terrible they had Joe Namath as an announcer which was terrible boomer as size and now Michael's hated each other and had to split up, which is what got us Dennis Miller in the booth of Monday Night Football very famously. They sort of re-ran the Dennis Miller thing with Tony Cornheiser a few years later. We had seemingly 100 seasons of Mr. Spider-Wy banana after that, you know, just never stopped. And now you have three guys who are pretty drama-free, loyal soldiers, good employee guys in Tessator McFarland and Witten, and there is still drama

behind the scenes of Monday Night Football. Yeah. Right? I mean, it's just, it has never stopped ever. And I think part of the reason for that, and this kind of gets to why they hired Witten in the first place, which is another interesting question, is that Monday night football has been sort of undergoing this three-decade identity crisis. Yeah. Since the beginning of like, what are we now? We know back in the 70s we were, we're the thing that brought football to prime time. We combined football and showbiz. this, right? We had Howard Kassel being kind of the moral authority. Once they got out of that, to me, it's been the same thing every couple of years, which is, what is Monday night football in fill in the blank year? Yeah. And I think when they hired Witten, they looked at apparently 12 people. Kurt Warner, who now does a radio version, gave a really good audition, but I think

they looked at that and said, we don't want to sound like the Fox number two game or the Fox number three game. We want to be different because this is Monday night football. It has to be different. It has to take chances. It has to roll the dice. So what do they do? They go pull Jason Wittin out of the Dallas Cowboys. But that just all goes back to Monday night and the people who produce it trying to figure out what are we now. Where do we fit in? And this is just merely the latest iteration of that. Yeah. I mean, and on some level, they would be fine if they were just the CBSB game. You know, I mean,

there's not a, you know, drastic need for them to, for them to stand out from the crowd. And it's admirable that they want to. At the same time, you know, they're always going to get more,

they're always going to get more media attention. They're always going to get more pressure. They're always going to get scrutinized more than another broadcast because they're just sort of this institution. They're this sort of like totem of what, you know, of how we watch football and how we watch it over the years.

That's just like SNL, right? It just means more than it actually is now because it's just such a big brand. Or like you remember when like Meet the Press went through the hosting controversy a few years ago, or not controversy, but all the kind of ups and downs of who was going to be the post-Russert chair of Meet the Press. It doesn't matter how few people are actually watching this show, right? I mean, it's just it just matters what the show once meant to us and meant to the people who were writing about it and thinking about it. Yeah, I just think that at the same time, it doesn't matter that that Monday Night Football means less now than did once upon a time, as long as ESPN is holding on to that history, and they want to

hold on to that history because that's the most meaningful part of the broadcast, right? I mean, it's certainly not the games that they're getting anymore. And I think that's why you kind of can't be the CBSB game, because nobody watches the CBSB game. CBSB game is going to Cincinnati and, you know, the fans of the Jets. It's not a national, it's a national game. So, I mean, my whole thing is any night game in the NFL, and really in college, too, should be fun night. It should be different.

It should feel looser. I actually thought what Joe Buck and Troy Aikman did, kind of doing that lounge act last year during Thursday night football, where they were just kind of looser and funnier. Yep. And a little less serious than they were on Sunday afternoon. That was a right idea. It just should feel like fun night.

Like it's, you know, we got his money. It's extra football. And, you know, again, like somebody thought that and hired Dennis Miller. Somebody thought that and hired Tony Kornhizer. So this is, again, this is the variation. We're going through this thing. We are not an absolute have to watch NFL broadcast like we were in 1975. But how do we artistically differentiate ourselves and make ourselves stand out from the pack as kind of the second national night game of the week?

It's just a really interesting puzzle. Yeah, I think that, you know, hiring the comedian and hiring the whatever you consider, Kornhizer, I mean, part of that is, is just looking at, is just trying to break what made John Madden so great down into particles and just sort of like, and trying to reproduce that, you know, piece by piece. And, you know, that's just a mugs game, right? I mean, you can't, you can't recreate magic. And it's going to be interesting to see where they go next. Do you have any ideas or thoughts about what's next for the, for Monday night?

I think Tessator and McFarland together is the simplest solution. but I'd be shocked if they don't call Peyton Manning. I'd be absolutely shocked. And I'd be shocked if they don't just spend some time thinking about what they're going to do. Because they have time. There's no, we don't need, nobody needs an answer on this for, you know, a few weeks or a month or whatever. And I just think at some point, I think they know they could roll out tessitore and buger and be fine. Mm-hmm.

And now it's sort of like, but what else is out there? What things do we need to think about? So I guess I'd make them the betting favor, just because that's a. simple as possible solution. All right, David, now it's time for the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. David, did you see that conservative gadfly, Jacob Woll, was permanently banned from Twitter after he revealed a USA Today that he was going to create fake social media accounts to try to monkey with the 2020 election.

Yes, they did. If that is your plan, do not reveal it to USA Today. Of all places, right? That's everybody everybody in every airport is going to see that. It was an overworked Twitter joke to, of course, go back to the hipster coffee shop bit. At the hipster coffee shop looking at my phone, it tells me Jacob Wool has been suspended. People are crying, pouring out their lattes for a real one. That was one I liked.

Another one was I told everyone in this hipster coffee shop downtown that Jacob Bull's account was suspended. And they all said, who the hell is that? Thanks to Eric Felke for that one. David, important news from the baseball hot stove league. Last Tuesday, someone tweeted that the ownership of the San Francisco Giants wanted to offer Bryce Harper a long-term contract, contra the wishes of the Giants president of baseball operations. Now, this is a standard baseball rumor, except that the source tweeting the story was smashmouth. So smash-mouth is woge now.

Or maybe Jeff Passon. He is smash-mouth has got the scoop. It was an overweight Twitter joke to preface this rumor by writing. Somebody once told me. And somebody did the whole thing, by the way, which is kind of impressive. Bryce Harper told Zaidie, I want $300 million in change. He was looking kind of dumb because the owners like the sum of his age stats, fame, and fielding range. Not that's not bad.

Not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Not good, but not bad. And finally, David, a tweet last Thursday from BuzzFeed. This got a lot of attention. Old Navy and the Gap are separating. What?

I miss this news. Fundamentally a business story, right? Old Navy and the Gap are separating. It was an overworked Twitter joke to say, someone tell Baby Gap it's not their fault. Thanks to Paul Bonson for that one. It would really great stuff. Fantastic work.

All right, David. Topic number two. Jane Mayer and Fox News. Today in media Twitter, you may have noticed a big story and the New Yorker for mayor about Fox News. And by the way, dear media Twitter, when a story like this comes out,

you don't need to just tweet, Jane Mayor is the goat. Just tell us, pull out a fact from the story that might be interesting. Tell us whether you like the story, what you liked about it specifically. Jane Mayor is the goat. I just love that.

Thanks. So the big revelations were, I think, in order, that a Fox.com, the Fox News.com reporter named Diane Falzone, and here I'm quoting from mayor, obtained proof that Trump had engaged in a sexual relationship in 2006 with Stormy Daniels. Falzone's story kept being passed off from one editor the next. Falzone told colleagues that a Fox News executive said to her good reporting kiddo, but Rupert wants Donald Trump to win, so just let it go.

Later we learn Falzone also discovered that the National Inquirer in partnership with Trump had made a catch and kill. deal with Daniels. Fowlzone pitched that story to Fox 2, but it went nowhere until the Wall Street Journal broke the story a year after Trump became president. What was your first reaction to that revelation and the other stuff that Mayor wrote about with Fox? First of all, this is, I mean, this is a fantastic piece. And I assume most people listening to this have read it or have it, you know, have consumed it

in the Twitter way. Yeah, have it printed out and stuck in their back pocket or save the Insta paper or this tab will be open for the next two weeks. one of those things. And to that end, I mean, it's, I, I had literally forgotten the Diana Falzone, Stormy Daniels portion of the story by the time I got to it again in the piece. I, you know, I read it excerpted on blogs and whatnot. And when I finally got to the piece, half of the way through this however many thousand word just tidal wave, uh, it, it kind of struck again. But specifically to that, I mean, listen, I'm not going to say anything no one said before, but, you know,

in another age that we're not that far removed from, and another administration, that story alone would just be earth-shattering for Fox News, right? I mean, just for that to just be acceptable or to be shoulder-shruggable, I think sort of explains the rest of the piece in a certain way, either through, you know, the changes that Trump has brought about in the way that we sort of consume,

national news media or just in the way that Fox News has shifted in the way that they present it. And I think that the point that the piece makes really intelligently is that those two ideas are interwoven inextricably. But wow. I mean, just the idea that, I mean, the chief attacks on CNN and to a lesser extent MSNBC are conspiracy theory versions of this same thing, right? I mean, that don't really have truth to back it up. And the fact that this is just laid out and presented as absolute truth, and I don't think has been refuted at all, is pretty incredible.

And it's not even just that they refuse to publish this story. It's that they did their own little catch and kill with it, right? I mean, that they managed for the story to not, this isn't a situation like a Ronan Farrell. thing where I was like, oh, well, my boss doesn't want to publish it, so I will quit and find another home for the piece. It's the piece, I mean, the story did not end up anywhere else for a full year. It's right. You know, didn't even leak to somewhere else. And then Diana Felsone herself seems to have, or was demoted. She says suspiciously, and then, and then, you know, filed suit or something and now has a, you know, is, is legally bound to not discuss her employment at Fox News, presumably after

some sort of settlement fee it's just the whole thing is just sort of wild right? It is totally wild and a

hallmark of Trumpism is for him to charge, throw out a conspiracy theory that is actually true about him

and that's going all the way back to the campaign against Hillary Clinton and in this case true about the

as mayor puts it in the piece the state TV network after underlining and I'm glad you did just how

incredible those revelations are can I then steer us into a boring journalism point, which is, I admire the absolute hunk of long form granite that this story was. I admire how the New Yorker is still working in the hunk of long form granite mode in terms of storytelling. I'm glad it exists. I enjoyed reading this story. Is it not a little amazing to you that when they got this revelation, they weren't just like, if this is confirmed, this needs to be up on the website in like two minutes before Gabe Sherman or Brian Stelter or one of these other guys or Jim Rutenberg or somebody nosing around figures this out.

Because we're going to, we have this explosive network rocking out, you know, piece of information. And we're going to put it in this, again, very well told story. But the idea that Fox is Trump TV and state TV at this point is a pretty well known. And, you know, the idea we're going to bring in academics to tell us and all that stuff, I think most people paying attention kind of get that point. But they are dedicated to the thing. And actually, when I was reading it, I was like, oh, wow. This is, you know, they're still devoted to that form of storytelling. What do you make of that? Well, I mean, implicit in what you just said is, I mean, you're talking about when they uncovered this news, if it be it three months ago or six months ago or whenever. Yeah. Anytime, anytime, but literally this morning. Yeah, that they should have rushed this to the press. And I agree with that. I think there's another question, a similar question that needs to be asked, which is today when you publish this thing,

is there not some sort of motivation to present, as the New York Times did, a short form version or a blog post version of the revelations that are in this bigger piece, because as great as this piece was and as necessary as this piece was, because, as I said, you have to do the work to make the case, right? Just to, you know, you can publish the one story, but to, but to assemble the broader argument is a sort of, you know, monolithic endeavor and Jane Mayer and the New Yorker, I mean, this is a story that people, I'm sure, have tossed around in so many editorial board meetings where they're like, yeah, well, we should write that piece, but it has to be done right. You know, it has to be, it has to be comprehensive, it has to be everything. And that's something,

it's really impressive that Jane Mayer and the New Yorker pulled it off here. But just to the little news items, like, why are you, why in 2019 would you forfeit traffic to all the people you mentioned before who were going to publish little posts about it, all the news items about it, all of the blogs, you know, the children of Gawker that are out there just like publishing paragraphs out of the story, you know, that I think that's an interesting question too, whether or not there's another way. And listen, by the way, the ringer deals with this in a much, much lighter form, you know, every day or so we ask ourselves, you know, when people excerpt something, that Bill says in a podcast.

Like, should we have put that on a blog first? You know, I mean, it's, this is a thing that every media outlet is dealing with. Yeah. And when, and I don't, I don't even saying, I think they should have done either one of those things. First of all, I think it takes an kind of an amazing amount of, what's the, what's the right word? Can we just, is balls the right word? An amazing man of balls to sit on a scoop like that. Yeah.

And, you know, that, again, it's a devotion to a particular form of storytelling. It takes an incredible amount of devoting. to that form to sit on a scoop like that. You're right. It also takes a devotion to not just like have, here are the bullet points, here are the easy to link to bullet points from Jane Mayer's store. And it's a very 10 years ago form of journalism

where one outlet publishes a very long, detailed, writerly thing, and then all the aggregators come and do their short, snackable version of it. And the New Yorker has innovated in a lot of ways, It has a kind of, you know, nice, readable, chippy website now. But it's just, that is just really interesting to me. And when I read that, I was like, oh, wow, just imagine.

And I don't know when she came up with that fact, but imagine sitting on that for days or weeks and not rushing it out with that. A couple other notes from the story that I thought were interesting. One is a sense that when Murdoch was creating Fox News, this is around 1994. He had just bought the rights to the NFL, which of course something I'm interested in. And he tells somebody, he says that the core viewers of Fox News would be football fans. And the aim, that was the aim. He said when he brought the NFL rights, what he was, and this is what person who he said to being quoted here, Reid Hunt, what he was really saying that he was going after a working class audience.

He was going to carve out a base, what would become the Trump base. So Murdoch, excuse me, mixed him up there. Murdoch is saying that I've got these NFL fans. Now I'm going to create a news network for NFL fans. The kind of things they're worked up about. The kind of fears and the kind of anxieties that they possess. I just thought that was fascinating because if somebody was written a lot about him buying NFL rights, I never thought of that particular.

I never heard that particular sort of weigh in before. And just to fill in one tiny gap, Reed Hunt was at the time the chairman of the FCC. That's right. And I believe that this conversation took place over a fancy dinner. that Murdoch invited Hunt to, which is not, I'm not trying to imply any sort of malevolence or anything,

but it's just, I mean, just the circles that these folks travel in, you know, in the places where these conversations take place. And I think that, you know, this is a, I mean,

maybe a little, maybe an obvious point. But that conversation, I think, is the first, sequentially, the first indication of, the sort of,

I don't even, now I'm going to grasp at words, callousness, sort of moral ambivalence that led Rupert Murdoch to and Fox News to the place where they are right now. Yeah, I mean, it sort of depends on where you date it with him. You could date it to British newspapers, Australian newspapers.

I guess I should say from the very inception of Fox News. I mean, it was built on a sort of smarmy moral ambivalence. Like, it's not, this is not, it was not trying to be news network and any pristine version of the phrase. It was pure Murdoch. It was exactly how he's conceived of everything he's ever done, you know, in terms of newspapers. And like I said, on three continents. at that point. Yep.

The other thing that stood out, and this was from Greta Van Custrin, this is mayor writing about Greta Van Cestrian. For Greta Van Cestrian, a host on Fox between 2002 and 2016, Hannity's rally appearance. You remember he appeared with Trump on stage at the end of the 2016 midterms.

Illustrates a difference at Fox since former Fox Rancho Roger Ailes' departure. For all of Ailes' faults, Van Custrin argues, he exerted a modicum of restraint. She believes that Ailes would have insisted on at least some distance from President Trump, if only to preserve the appearance of journalistic respectability embodied in the motto ails devise for Fox Fair and Balanced.

A couple of times in the piece that note comes up, not from mayor, but from people she quotes, can we just get rid of this strange new respect for Roger Ailes thing that is bubbling up, which is just, I mean, this idea, and I remember reading this in a New York Times piece, and I think it was a Jim Rutenberg column two a couple of months ago. This idea that, you know, boy, Fox has really gone off the rail since Roger Ailes life. Do you remember the Roger Ales Fox? A modicum of restraint? What modicum was that?

And first of all, if you also, if you read in the piece, Roger Ailes, the guy who would have allegedly built a wall between Fox News and President Trump, is the guy who, when he got cashiered from Fox News, went to help Trump prepare for the debate. And then when Trump was inevitably going to lose a presidential election, was going to help Trump start Trump TV. So that's the guy that was going to protect you for becoming state TV? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, this is another, I mean, and just to just to hone in on that for a second, this is another example of like a story that I'm sure would have been the focus of much, much reportage in another administration. But you remember even they teased Trump TV at the end of the campaign and everybody was saying, I mean, I guess is he making? Is this the exit strategy? If he doesn't, you know, if and when he doesn't win, and they, and Jane Mayer pins that down in this piece, I think really well.

But just to think that, you know, all these plans were in motion. I mean, between Trump and. Roger Ailes to start to start the nationalist opposition to Fox News, which is just sort of wild to think about that like now Fox News. Fox News is now the CNN. Yeah, I mean, to out Fox Fox Fox Fox, exactly. Yeah. I just, again, I just, I think it's, I think it's enough of a narrative to say that Fox News was a malignant force in American life. And then it became a malignant force that was aligned with the President of the United States. I think that's the narrative. It was not, there was this fair and balanced, restrain Fox News, and then, oh, boy, Roger Ailes left, and, you know, all the, and Sean Hannity became the big star and all the seatbelts went off. I don't think that's, I don't think that's what it is at all.

Well, there's people at Fox, there's people at Fox News who were trying to kind of like legitimize what they'd been doing post facto, right? I mean, it's, that's, it's, it's presented as the argument of the piece, but I think it's, it's mostly from sources who would like to think that wasn't this bad in a previous era. topic number three David someone on Twitter with the amazing handle of at bent Kaysmore bent Kaysmore tweets at us why hasn't the ringer done more on Bob Kraft now bent if I may David and I can't speak for the ringer on this but we can't speak for the entire media and what's interesting about the Bob craft story as journalism is that I think it was both it both opened up this opportunity for all this reporting and it also threw everybody off balance at the same time. If you remember, David, on February 22nd, which was the day we learned that Kraft,

who was of course the owner of the New England Patriots, was being charged with solicitation of prostitution by the Jupiter, Florida police, everybody immediately turned to the jokes. Because we have a frame for famous guy sex scandals. As a society, we know what to do with that. But then, oh wait, the story was about human trafficking. And as one of the sheriffs involved in the case said, I know the story is about craft, but the bigger story in the moral universe is that these are trafficked women. These are women that are brought here from China under some kind of ruse, some promise of a job that never materialized because it was never there in the first place. And then everybody on media, Twitter, goes, uh-oh, because not only is it harder to crack jokes about Kraft now, but it's also actually harder to report because the big reporting get now is not he did this and he's going to apologize.

or make a deal or whatever it is. But you've got to figure out, did Bobcraft know about any of that stuff when he allegedly did what he did? Yeah. And that just to me changed the whole tenor of the story right off the bat. Yeah, I think so.

I think that you framed it exactly correctly. The fact that everybody went first to jokes and known on this podcast is claiming to be above the fray, at least where our minds went. You know, this is just one of those weird like dinosaur brain subjects that that it doesn't you know we haven't as a as a culture whatever kind of grappled with the fact that when we talk about people going to massage parlors or make

jokes or whatever like we are almost inherently talking about sex trafficking right and and that the and that and that the you know moral imperative is is has a really specific focus that any sort of Mary making totally allies, right? I mean, that we're, that there's a, there is a real problem here, and it's one that we, you know, that it's really easy to turn a blind eye to culturally, personally. And, you know, maybe this will be another moment where we can, you know, kind of write that wrong. I mean, just rectify the way that we think about those things.

Yeah, it reminds me when people are going to prison, right? Especially men going to prison and the sort of prison rape jokes, joke industrial complex immediately starts. And then everybody says, you know what, that's actually really, really, really, really not funny and a really, really, really serious problem. The couple of notes off of this. One was the Adam Schaefter thing. Do we want to

listen to Adam Schaefter and what he said right after on ESPN, right after we learned the news of the charges against Kraft? There are people down there in that area, I'm told, who say that this story is going to heat up and get a lot worse. And I don't mean involving Robert Kraft.

I'm talking about with all the human trafficking that has gone on down there. I'm also told, that Robert Kraft is not the biggest name involved down there in South Florida and we'll see what police turn up in the report. A spokesman for one of the state attorneys later told Deadspin, nobody around here has any idea

what he is referring to. Schefter then goes on WEEI and says what I have been told is that there are other people involved. There are other names that will come out in this particular investigation. We're talking about an area of South Florida, rich and famous South Florida, lots of people live down there,

lots of people vacationing down there. We'll see how all that. all this unfolds in the days and weeks to come. Some will be just regular people whose names we don't know, but there could be other names we do know, and that's how it was explained to me. So that potentially huge news has not come to light yet. Not materialized, no.

David, of course, you know that Barstools, Dave Portnoy, decided this issue was way too explosive for this for his typical brand of provocation and didn't go anywhere near it. Oh, wait, he went on Tucker Carlson to launch an NFL Gadell conspiracy theory. a bit of that interview. Your point earlier today, I agree with you completely. Why are they hassling Bob Kraft?

We don't have enough problems in this country? I couldn't agree more. But, I mean, Bob Kraft has also been at odds with some pretty powerful figures in American life, like the commissioner of the NFL. Oh, Tucker, you may be on the thing. They can't beat them on the field. They've had six championships in a row. And this misdemeanor suddenly comes up an eighth-month investigation.

I wouldn't put it past Roger de Goodell to say, I can't beat him Fair and Square. So this is, I believe they have a word for it called entrapment. So we're going to lure him into the spa. And next thing you know, again, he's getting dragged in. There were two totally amazing things about that exchange. Wow. That was right.

One was Carlson just leading portnoid to the conspiracy theory? Like, no, no, I don't want to just talk about prostitution. I just really want you to just go right to the conspiracy theory. But second, and you have to watch this to really appreciate it, is that you know how Carlson has that performative frown whenever he's on one side of the end. interview box on Fox News. He's always frowning. During this, he's actually smiling. This is one of the few times I've ever seen Tucker Carlson smile while a guest is talking. And I don't know if he just knows it's so ridiculous. And this is just pure wackiness that's

going to get picked up on Twitter. What do you think? That's called plausible deniability, right? That's him, that's him. That is the disconnect that is necessary when he's putting on this something that he knows to be a comedy routine. And listen, I mean, you can look at this as, as, you know, just silliness, and it is. But, yeah, but it's, I mean, Tucker Carlson will be the first in line to distance himself from a conspiracy theory when it's gone too far. The first to tisk-tisk at Alex Jones or, I don't know, who might, Mike Cernovich or whoever else, but like, you know, this is, this is the mindset where those things get started.

He's presenting it on a news program, I mean, an opinion program, but on a news channel. and they love to blur that line as much as anybody else. And listen, I like a conspiracy theory as much as the next person. But to say that craft has run a ride or whatever has angered very powerful people. And then, let's Roger Godell is the only example. I mean, Roger Goodell can't get video footage

from a casino in Ohio when he wants to. You know, to think that he could somehow like have control over a Florida police department for the state. of harming Bob Kraft. And by the way, I mean, Bob Kraft, I mean, I think that the story coming out of this is that Bob Kraft has been remarkably lucky to have the most brilliant person in football in his employ, right? I mean, this is, if Bob Kraft had the power of, had the power of Jerry Jones, I can't imagine that the Patriots would be in the same situation. And we'll assumeably see from his looming suspension whether or not that's true. I mean, we can fact-check

that in the future. I don't want to overdo it, but entertainment is fine. But don't act like you're not part of this, like conspiracy industrial complex in two months when you have cause to be when you're just like throwing this kind of trash out there on TV. Smile does not get you off the hook. All right, David, let's do the notebook time very quickly. True Detective season three ended. Yeah. I was listening to something Chris Ryan said on the watch with Andy Greenwald. And if you haven't checked out Chris and Jason Katsy owns all the stuff they did about season three, which is amazing. And also I recommend Chris and Andy's recap at the end, which was also really interesting. Chris had this line at the end of the podcast where he said something to the effect of,

all the stuff we looked up on the internet this season wound up not mattering. I think that is the journalistic coda to every peak TV show. Yes. All the stuff we looked up on the internet didn't matter after all. That's like that's every show. Yeah, we were talking about this after we both watched it. And I think I texted you like the real joy were the things we Googled along the way or that whatever. The ancient texts we Googled along the way.

Was that your response? I mean, it's really incredible. I remember when True Detective Season 1 came out. It was my favorite show. I mean, just full stop. I loved every bit of it. And I had one of my good buddies. We shared an appreciation of just about everything, TV, movies, books.

And I kept trying to get him to watch it, but he was working on Sunday nights or something. And then he finally watched it six months later. And he was like, yeah, it was okay. And it took me a while going back and forth to him to realize, like, 90% of my joy of that was like from that show was hanging out on Reddit and seeing what people were figuring out about the show or thinking they were figuring out about the show and just like deep diving into HP Lovecraft as I was watching it. And I think that there's a real, I think that I don't think that that that's a bad thing. I think that I just, but it is, but it does leave, it does mean that every show is almost inherently disappointing at the end. I was listening this week, David,

to Tina Brown's TBD podcast. She was interviewing David Remnick, who replaced her as editor in New Yorker. Tina hired Remnick as a writer and then he replaced her as editor of the New Yorker. And she was comparing the challenges that she faced and that Remnick faced when they became editor of the New Yorker. Listen to this small bit, which is vintage Tina. And your role was probably different from mine. Your role was to come in in 1992 and waken the thing up, which is an expensive thing to do, it was a politically tough thing to do.

It was also so strange because, I mean, people like Joe Mitchell, would suddenly float into my office wearing a Trilby hat like the ghost of Christmas past or something. And I would think, wait a minute, I thought that you were dead. I thought you were dead. This is what I love about Tina because Tina published bushels and bushels of brilliant long-form journalism. But Tina does not have the excessively, ridiculously reverential to long-form journalist gene. Tina Brown will not be appearing in the gang-gray comment section, right? Tina Brown and Wright Thompson are unlikely to have, you know, a glass of whiskey comparing great pieces by Gary Smith.

That's not going to happen. And I love that about her. I just love that. I thought you were dead. Joe Mitchell, old Mr. Flood. She thought he was dead. Yeah, there's a lot of people for whom getting that chair at the New Yorker where, like, the first thing you would do is just to like schedule lunches with the Joe Mitchells of the world, right? Just so, like, who can, who do I get to talk to now?

Can we go to the full fish market together? All right. 2020 notes, David, quickly before we go. Politico's newsletter informs us that at least a half dozen of the declared Democratic candidates will be at South by Southwest next weekend. God help us all. South by Southwest as a political launch event. What else do I have here for you? Joe Biden is still deciding whether he wants to be president.

Just an update. Last Wednesday, Gromer Jeffers, reporter at the Dallas Morning News, had these scoop that Beto O'Rourke will not challenge John Cornyn for Senate, thereby making it look like Beto O'Rourke is going to run for president. My first reaction was, what a day for the long-form community, if Beto O'Rourke. And then I immediately cut David, as I often do to the headline, right? Now, you remember, I suggested when he finally lost to Ted Cruz, I suggested Mo Beto Blues was kind of left right there on the table.

So I've already got some headlines for the Beto-Oeric launch of the 2020 presidential campaign. Are you ready? I'm ready. It gets Beto. Beto watch out. A betto tomorrow. Beto luck next time. Yes.

Okay. That's good. Beto luck next time. And given the fact that he's coming into this race after a half dozen plus Democrats have already joined, Beto late than never. So anyway. And by the way, that's not free. You know, if you are Jay Fielden or Jake Silverstein

or whoever, just send the check to the press box. We don't work for free. No, we need new snacks. No, that took at least two and a half minutes of my day. We can talk about Hillary Clinton next week. Let's talk about Hillary Clinton next week. Okay.

Because I want to play David Schuemaker guesses the celebrity profile headline. Oh, no. I, David, speaking of Tina Brown, clearing out some old stuff out of my office and found the January 1990 issue of Vanity Fair. This is the high Tina period. First of all, magazine costs $2.50.

He can't buy a newspaper for $2.50 now. $2.50 for a glossy magazine. And I've got two items from the front of the book Fanfare section for you, okay? One was a short item about, and you have to guess the headline. David, in this case, guesses the headline,

which is usually a terrible pun. Hint to David and all who am I listening. Okay. The first item was about a 27-year-old Demi Moore's future being ahead of her. A 27-year-old Demi-More and her future being ahead of her. Mm-hmm.

That's all the information I get. That's all you get. This is, come on. I mean, there's obviously, like, the more the merrier. I'm not sure that that really, fits. It's a good one.

Oh, oh, oh. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Ooh. That would be kind of a long. Maybe just the first half. Maybe just the first half. Oh, yeah, that's true. It was actually just more later.

Kind of basic, right? Okay, I like that. I thought Gimmy Moore was also an obvious place to go there, especially in that kind of vanity affair. We love the celebrities kind of way. One more for you, David. Michael Moore had just made Roger and me. I'm using the same puns.

I know. He just made Roger and me, all right? So an item about Michael Moore that touched on General Motors and his life story. An item that touched on General Motors and Michael Moore's life story. Oh, God.

I have no... Is this not enough... God, now I'm thinking of Flint. Cars. Cold. Oh, no, warmish, warmish, cars warmish. Auto.

Well, now my mind's going in really weird places. And his life story. And his life story. Autobiography? There we go. Oh, really? Oh, hey, that's good. Oh, man, what do I get?

What do I win? You're one in three. Congratulations, buddy. That's the press box for this week. He's David Shoemaker. Chris Almeade does the research. Jim Cunningham is a producer. More lukewarm takes about the media next week.

See you then, David. See you later, Brian. David, I thought you were dead. Gone after one year. I don't think they were being dishonest or anything, but they certainly made it seem like a bigger deal than in my mind it really was. Somebody once told me, Bryce Harper told Zayden.