The Press Box - CBS Shake-up, Elizabeth Warren, and the End of ESPN the Magazine | The Press Box

Episode Date: May 7, 2019

The “sweeping changes” to CBS’s news lineup and what it means for other network news institutions (03:00), the legacy of ESPN the Magazine (20:30), and Elizabeth Warren’s rise in the latest polls plus her game plan of pumping out policy ideas and dad jokes (37:45). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Season 8 of Game of Thrones is underway, and you can stay up to date with the ringer staff as we make your way through the final episodes of the series. On the podcast side, listen to Binge Mode Game of Thrones with Mallory Rubin and Jason Concepcion, the watch with Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald, and a pre-capable series on the recapables feed

where we'll make predictions on episodes to come. In addition to our Sunday night Twitter after show called Talk the Thrones, our YouTube channel has tons of other Game of Thrones-related content, which you can find at YouTube.com The Ringer. And for even more Thrones coverage, head over to the ringer.com. David, Bill and Chelsea Clinton have a new podcast. And it's called, Why Am I Telling You This? Based on a rhetorical device that Clinton uses in speeches, what I want to know is what alternative

titles would you have considered for the Clinton podcast? Oh, man. I'm trying to think of good Clinton jokes here. Unfortunately, like, there's no good news. NAFTA puns that spring to mind. Maybe a podcast called Hope. Is that a good one? Solid. The what do they call them now? The explainer in chief cast, maybe.

I feel like I'm leaving Chelsea out of this. But this, gosh. POTSave America, I feel like took all the good ones. The best. So what did he say? The best social program is a good job. Wasn't that a big Clinton thing? The best social program is a good.

The best social program is a good pod would be, I think, my final answer. Oh, I was just going to say for the way this business is going, the era of big podcasting is over. Bill Clinton and the pod funk all stars. That's my new one. We are the comeback kid of media podcasts. This is the press box, a part of the ringer podcast network. The press box is the media podcast where you may have already been named the host of the CBS evening news.

Ryan Curtis and David Shoemaker of the ringer here with three topics for your pleasure and amusement. First David, speaking of CBS, the network is blowing up its news lineup from morning to early evening. What does that say about the old and gray institutions of network news

in 2019? Second, ESPN the magazine, announced it will stop printing in September. We discuss its legacy and the uncertain fate of words at ESPN. And finally, Elizabeth Warren is putting out tons and tons and tons of policy ideas. How is that playing with the people who cover her?

All that plus a notebook dump and the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, let's start with CBS. And by the way, if you're writing about what's happening at CBS News, you are contractually obligated to use the word shakeup. This is a shakeup at CBS News. Though we will also accept sweeping changes, by the way,

sweeping changes. That's okay too. amongst those sweeping changes, Mr. Shoemaker, all coming at the hands of new president, Susan Zerensky, in an effort to repair CBS's Les MoonVest, Charlie Rose, Jeff Fager, Hellscape, a new morning crew

with Tony DeCopal and Anthony Mason joining Gail King. Nora O'Donnell is taking over the CBS evening news, and the newscast is apparently moving to Washington, D.C., John Dickerson formerly the morning show is going to 60 minutes. Full disclosure, I used to work with Dickerson and DeKobel. All right, a couple thoughts here. First is, and I've bored you with this before, but the Curtis theory of network news,

which is that nowadays, the behind the scenes, machinations and bloodlettings of network news are orders of magnitude more interesting than anything that actually appears on television? Yeah. Is this yet another example? Could you have named

who was on the CBS morning show if without any help I mean I might have needed a little bit of help CBS is weirdly would have weirdly been the one that I would have gotten because I watched it a couple times recently and I think just because I had the channel on from the night before I have no idea why

but also because like I'm a fan of John Dickerson like I like the Slate Political Gab Fest and so it was always sort of a novelty to me that he ended up as a morning show host which I think is probably a piece of this conversation. I mean, I think the big question here, and you alluded to it, is just like how big of a deal is this in the real world, right?

I mean, are we just, you know, is this a significant move for the way, for entertainment, for the way we consume news, for any, you know, for anything that's even remotely concrete, or are we just kind of shuffling the deck chairs, you know, in a battle over a nominal sliver of a dying audience? You know, I mean, it's just, it's, it's an interesting question. I picked door number two, first of all, and second of all, dying sliver of a dying audience or tiny sliver of a dying audience.

But it's really funny because every article I've seen about this has alluded to the network of Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow. And this is like every time something bad happens at CBS, people drag out Walter Cronkite. My way, he stopped doing the news in 1981. Like this is, we are no longer. or besmirching the network of Walter Cronkite because nobody remembers that he was on television. Like this is, I think for anybody who's, you know, not my grandfather's age, this is the network of Katie Couric doing the news or of Dan Rather screwing up the Bush, you know, Vietnam War

story. This is not, this is not Walter Cronkite. So it's just funny to see that pulled out because, yeah, I agree with you. I think it is a small thing. I guess I guess the related question though is like what are these shows if these shows are going to be on television and I read a figure that even the CBS this morning show which is third place in the ratings gets $253 million in revenue. So it's not nothing right. What should they be? Yeah.

And I think it's kind of interesting that CBS when they when they were trying to figure out what to do in the morning has consistently gone with small. smart. There was Dickerson, whom you mentioned, who was a print guy. Before that, there was Charlie Rose pre-scandal, who was definitely in like the smart realm. There's Norodontal. And now there's Tony DeCopal, who was another former print guy. So they feel like they've leaned into, we're going to be, we're going to kind of maybe bridge the gap between morning chat that you're used to and the kind of MSNBC style, you know, this is like a hyper smart, hyper literate person who's doing the news. Does that make sense?

Because I feel that's kind of what the future slash present is. And network news has kind of stayed out of that realm, really. But they feel like they're kind of at least nodding in that direction. Yeah, I think that that's right. I mean, I think that, again, we're sort of, I mean, we're operating, I mean, along in some very narrow margins here and we make distinctions between the different shows because everybody's

sort of a role on these morning TV shows, right? I mean, everybody sort of fits a certain mold. And even just to look at CBS in particular, I mean, I told you, I love John Dickerson, but, you know, when he replaced Charlie Rose, it felt like it was because he's, you know, Charlie Rose's stunt double. You know, I mean, it's, they were

he was playing the same part that Charlie Rose played, like you said. And, and, and, yeah, I think they did. I think they, are, they are, they, they, they certainly are leaning towards, I think that overall, I mean, this is, this is a little bit weird, but the, but the overwhelming feeling I get when watching CBS this morning, or at least in the, uh, King O'Donnell Dickerson era was that, you were a little bit blessed by their presence and not in a snooty way, but it was like sort of, it was like three

people who, who didn't, I guess with like, on NBC, there's a sort of like chippy or chirpiness that like everybody's just like excited to be doing morning news. And on CBS, it's like, these aren't people who would naturally be up at seven in the morning and fully and ready to go. They're people who have, they're people who would have other jobs, except they were, like, called into this line of work,

which it did feel a little bit like a blessing. I, I, that's a really interesting way to put it. It's funny, because I was never, never much of a morning Joe fan, but that was kind of the quality of morning Joe.

What are these people doing here in the morning? Yeah. And in fact, in morning Joe, I always felt they looked a little sleepy, looked like they'd be kind of rushed out of bed a little bit. But as you said, that gave the show kind of an authenticity because it wasn't chirpy.

It wasn't Al Roker, you know, in doing a cooking segment. Sure. When Joe Scarborough takes... When Joe Scarborough takes a day off, you don't wonder what other obligation you had, you just assume he's still asleep, right? I mean, that's exactly the sort of vibe of the show. So that's an idea.

I think the other thing that, they've been, the other way they've sort of stuck out is by just landing big interviews. And Gail King has become this really unlikely star. She got better O'Rourke for an interview, which we talked about in the pot a while back. But, you know, the real big one was R. Kelly. And she's in the middle of her contract negotiations this spring. I think the idea was that she was going to come back and be part of whatever reinvented morning show CBS was going to come up with. But, you know, I think Gail King Star was was burning pretty medium bright at that point. Then she sits down with R. Kelly. And should we just play a little bit of R. Kelly footage so we can

remember how amazing that was. Hit it hit it, Jim. Here we go. Please, please. This is not me. Y'all. I'm fighting for my life. You, God. I get it. Robert. That relationship with my kids and I can't do it. That very deadpan Robert. she uttered in the middle of that rant was worth. It reported $11 million in her new contract, according to the Hollywood reporter.

So that, Gail King and Oprah Winfrey recently told the Hollywood reporter also, I sent her a text saying, Jesus loves you when that R. Kelly thing hit. Because there has never been a better timed moment in television history, in recent television history than that. You know, that all of a sudden, Gail King was not just a star.

She was a big star. And CBS was like, oh, boy, we can't afford to lose her at all. Yeah. No, I think that's exactly right. I mean, I think that she's, I mean, the huge amount of profit these shows get aside, you know, I mean, and certainly the celebrity of people like Gail King and Noro O'Donnell, you know, is nothing to scoff at. We spend our public consciousness spends way to, as,

spent way too much energy, figuring out who's hosting the Today Show in every time block over the past couple years. I mean, it's a real thing. But it is sort of fascinating how much a star can rise and fall based on one interview and how much sort of credibility and market values, a moment like that, can provide. And Gayle King obviously was sort of a star before she was a star.

but her climb, you know, her career arc is just, you know, it's pretty incredible and pretty fascinating in its own right. Remember when we were listening to that Beto interview she did a while back and there was that semi-tense exchange between her and Norodont, at the end, Rodana was kind of like, did you ask him about this? And Gil King said something like, yeah, that's on social media.

That's what social media is for. Page 6 did a whole article about how there was tension between the two of them, which they and CBS fiercely denied. But I can't help but think that page six is listening to the press box and actually taking us at face value, which is a huge mistake. David, I want to have a moment of silence for Jeff Glore. Do you know who Jeff Glore is? I know because of, I now know who Jeff Glor is, but you go ahead. He is the, if we had to describe him, I think he is the Star Trek red shirt of network news.

Oh, wow, that's great. He is a guy who's been hosting CBS Evening News for 18 months. and doing so extremely anonymously. He got two Trump interviews in five days last year, which was kind of when he last popped up on my screen. But I actually had to look him. I just had to read Wikipedia to be like, I need to remind myself who this is.

He's 43 years old, still a young man, Buffalo native and Buffalo Bills fan la Tim Russert. He went to Syracuse, of course. and really he has apparently been offered another job at CBS as he's going to be replaced by O'Donnell and decided whether he's going to do that or not

at this recording. The only other article I could find about him was this. The Greenwich, Connecticut Hospital announced today that Jeff Glor will serve as Master of Ceremonies at the Under the Stars event on Friday, May 17th. So big things, Godspeed Jeff Glor and big things are in store for you, I'm sure. another thing came out of the CBS thing

that was kind of surprising to me that did you remember that Oprah was a 60 minutes correspondent until recently? Yes. She did this big interview with the Hollywood reporter and revealed that she had quit

and apparently nobody knew and she told the Hollywood reporter how should I say this? It's never a good thing when I have to practice saying my name and have to be told that I have too much emotion in my name. I think I did seven takes on just my name because it was quote too emotional.

I go, is the too much emotion in the Oprah part or the Winfrey part? And I think she's talking about the beginning of 60 minutes where it's, I'm Steve Croft. I'm Leslie Stahl, et cetera, et cetera. And apparently Oprah got into it with producers because she said, I'm Oprah Winfrey with too much emotion or too much excitement. What in the world should we make of that? That seems like such an, But maybe that's indicative of the, I mean, maybe that's symbolic of the whole thing. I mean, it's like this old media enterprise, these morning shows, these news magazines, the evening news that we're treating with such gravity. And it's just, we're clinging to these like little contrivances of the past.

And it all just seems, I mean, honestly, like, I don't, I pay attention to this stuff. And I don't know if, if becoming a correspondent for, going from the CBS this morning to a correspondent for 60 minutes is a slap in the face. or is that like a golden parachute or is that just like a lateral move? I have no idea. You know, like I don't know. And the same, I mean, Glor, you know, I think that your, you know,

eulogy for him was spot on. It'll be interesting to see what happens with him too. I mean, the whole thing was presented. A week ago, we just knew that there was, or a few days ago, we knew that this was, you know, kind of about to happen. There was going to be a major shakeup. There you go, I use the term.

We didn't know what it meant. Sweeping changes, David. Sweeping changes. changes. But when the changes were finally swept, it just sort of felt like, okay, so we, I mean, this seems like I would, if they had just done it without any fanfare, I'm not sure that I would have noticed. No, I wouldn't have noticed for, for a year at most. I would have just, I would have seen a clip from CBS this morning and I would have said, wait, is John Dickerson still not on that show? Something happened? Yeah. Yeah. On the, by the way, on the Oprah thing, because shouldn't Oprah at the

beginning of 60 minutes just come on and said, I'm Oprah. We don't do. She need a last name. I'm Oprah. That's it. You know, you know me. You don't need any more introduction. If I can squeeze a final bit of symbolism out of this, uh, mostly non-story, I will say

this that moving the evening news diminished though it may be to Washington, D.C. is interesting to me because it seems like CBS is saying, that's where the action is, that the world, at least as long as Donald Trump is president, has reoriented itself, that the news out of Washington is not only the kind of, you know, what the president did today is often the top story, but it is always the top story now. And that we feel that doing this out of New York, which they've done for decades and decades, is really just feels off. And if we're trying to gain traction and grab a little more of this aging, small audience, we need to go where the action is.

I think that's sort of interesting. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right. And I think that the, you know, I mean, I don't, I don't, again, care too much about where the evening news is going to emanate from, given that it will look and feel almost exactly the same, although you're right, there is a certain nod in that direction. And you won't watch it.

Yeah, and I will continue to not be a regular viewer of it. You know, I mean, it's like when, it's like when Conan O'Brien moved to show out to L.A., you know, when they do that with the late night shows, because you kind of get a different caliber or different, different sort of guess, depending on which major, which metropolis you're located in. Yeah, I mean, I get it. It definitely is, it's relevant. And I, and I, you know, in so much as all of these things did seem a little bit like deck chair moving, that seems like, you know, maybe, maybe this that'll end up being the biggest move of the day. 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 happen to see the controversial finish to the Kentucky Derby over the weekend the horse maximum security won the race yeah and then we got disqualified for interference meaning that country house a 65 to one long shot God is there any more insufferable name for a horse than country house became the the winner. It was an extremely overworked Twitter joke to say that Country House lost the Kentucky Derby but won the electoral college. Thanks to listeners, Tim Samson

and Brian Coggshall for that one. Speaking of horrible controversy, David, did you watch the trailer for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie? Oh, did I? Yeah, the semi-beloved video game character is rendered in director Jeff Fowler's movie is going to have human teeth

one of those step counters that people use for fitness and also weirdly is scored to music by Culeo, which I guess is keeping with the whole 90s bit. After the trailers release, Game Informer reported, Sonic the Hedgehog's movie director has heard the feedback and vows to fix the design. It was an ever word Twitter joke to write. The people have spoken, they're going to give Sonic visible genitalia. That was a fun one this week. And finally, David.

This week, Twitter had a lot of fun with the Pope. on Friday, His Holiness, Pope Francis tweeted, quote, we need a journalism that is free at the service of truth, goodness, and justice, a journalism that helps build a culture of encounter. That was a tweet from the Pope. Like I said, a lot of fun with that. Here are some examples.

Quote, when I started reading this, I honestly thought the Pope was complaining about reaching his monthly free article limit. This is the lead from the Pope's, why I'm joining the athletic essay and confirmed at Pontefx also copies and paste story URLs to bypass paywalls.

Thanks to our great pal Isaac Chips for that. All right. Topping number two, David. ESPN the magazine. On Tuesday, it was reported that ESPN will publish its last print magazine in a regular print magazine, I should say in September, which will be the body issue,

one of the most successful things they've ever created. A couple of top line items, if you missed them. No layoffs yet at ESPN, though we'll see, especially when it comes to those production personnel, ESPN may still do quote unquote cover stories for the website because Dirty Secret, one way to get famous athletes to let you do interviews with them is to promise cover stories. And a source who's seen the finances of the magazine recently told me that the mag

was losing money, but only single digit millions. Okay, I got a couple of thoughts about this. Number one, I think it's important to understand when we're thinking about ESPN magazine, legacy and history of that it was founded to kill Sports Illustrated. Yes. And if you read James Andrew Biller's oral history, if you talk to people, that was the explicit idea and was staffed by John Papineck and Steve Wolf, who were S.I. X's.

And there was a little bit of an element of a revenge tour with them. And, you know, it goes back to 1998 when S.I, which was still viable S.I. at that point in history, was one of the few national sports voices anywhere that competed with ESPN. So ESPN is saying there's one media entity out there that has a tiny toll hold in the sports conversation. Let's kill it. Yeah. I mean, it was a, I guess it's hard to look, it's hard, it's hard now to look back and feel what it was like then and how bold a move launching ESPN the magazine seemed at the time, right?

I mean, it was to take on, I mean, obviously there was Sports Illustrated wasn't the only sports magazine. I mean, my house was a subscriber of the sporting news for quite some time, but SI was it. It was the standard. And ESPN, you know, had the influence and the power to take it.

on and to kill it, I mean, that's obviously that was the goal. But as a, as a consumer, um, you could, you could read between the lines and see that. And, uh, regardless, just to, just to compete with it. I mean, that seemed like, um, just such a bold move, at least from my, you know, from, from, in my young brain, it seemed like just pretty, pretty ballsy. But, um, certainly they had more influence and more power than just about anybody else in sports. And, and, you know, starting the magazine was a, I mean,

in some ways a very logical move. It went super young. S.I, you know, they really were intent on portraying SIs your father's sports magazine, if not your grandfathers. And ESPN was trying to undercut them. Yes.

Be younger. Be hipper. And remember when you first read it in 1998 and its idea of hipness, felt like a kid with his cap turned backwards, spray painting a brick wall. Absolutely. I was just like, hey, kids, look at this. We got a sports magazine for you, not for your square old dad.

Yeah. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, it was a really good looking magazine. I mean, a lot of the magazines, the sort of like the, I mean, I'm thinking specifically of like ESPN the magazine play, which I know you were involved with, but also like, you know, there's the later, you know, just general interest or political magazines like George, they all really design heavy. And in some ways, you look at ESPN the magazine and it, it, it, ESPN.com looked like, you know, a word document at this point in time, but ESPN the magazine was

sort of designing the web or designing what the, what ESPN would eventually look like in a lot of ways. It was a, it was a very forward thinking, but you're right, very deliberately youthful. It almost felt like a, like a, like a, you know, 80 page ad campaign or something. And in some ways it was. I guess you could make the case. But it was, the whole aesthetic was, was very, it was just so much different than what you were used to with sports magazines. It was so busy, aesthetically speaking. Yeah. That front of the book designed by Darren Perry, that typography, the photos. And it was very creative. But, you know, when I look back at those issues, it was a lot. And, you know, the front of the book was very, very clever. But it was almost

like going to a restaurant and eating three appetizers and then you're not hungry for the main course anymore. Oh, sure. Like, God, I can't take anymore. I'm done. Give me, I am, I am, you know, I'm finished, man. I can't do this. And it's funny because I think they kept their features really, really short at the beginning. And, you know, in trying to get young kids in the door, they, I think, sacrificed some modicum of seriousness and of heft. And, you know, it was like almost like they were trying to be so different than Sports Illustrated that at the beginning, they just weren't competing in the same kind of feature playing field that SI was really at all.

You know, they certainly had good stuff, but it just never added up, you know, to what S.I was putting together week to week. I think the body issue, which was a Gary Belsky idea, if I'm, if I'm not mistaken, was really one of the most genius things they did. Because, you know, when you're trying to, when you're trying to compete with SI, you take the SI swimsuit issue, which was already controversial, forever had been controversial. And you in one stroke make it into this out of touch, Hefneresque thing by saying, look, we're not, we're not going after swimsuit models. We're going after athletes. And we're not just going after female athletes. We're going after men too.

And we're going after all shapes and body types. And we're going to create this little franchise. That was so simple and yet so smart. And speaking of killing, I mean, obviously the SI swimsuit issue keeps trucking along. But man, that was really, really nifty. And to go back to the ad campaign point I made before, I mean, the body issue probably does a better job of at least queuing me and mentally to kind of what I was getting at. You know, in SI, you could, it seemed like it was always very clear where like the ads were on one page and the stories were on the next page.

There was just some, there were like just mental cues of the old magazine format. And ESPN, it was just full bleed, every page, just saturated colors. And I, and you could, I mean, the, the body issue looked like, you know, these like heavily workshopped national ad campaigns, you know, And it had, it definitely had more of a, well, I mean, just more of a modern, more of a coherent aesthetic than, then, you know, the competition did. Yeah. And the key, I think, for that first issue was getting Serena Williams to play along. Absolutely. Once she did it, everybody did it.

Once you convinced her, everybody did it. And the floodgates open from there. We got to play the classic commercial now. Stefan Marbury and Kevin Garnett accidentally predict the creation of the body issue. many, many years before it was actually created. ESPN magazine is going to be fat, but please, no sunsuits. Yeah, no becham, no one piece, no thorns, none of that. All new, tastily done.

But definitely all new. That's important. Very important. By the way, that commercial would not air today. No. That would not be on television. today. And the basketball players would not agree to do it. But it was funny at the time. It was very funny. And no, their agents would definitely not allow them to do that. I mean,

frankly, like Marbury and Garnett, assuming they had like different representation would probably not let them appear together in a commercial. You know, I mean, there's so much about that besides just the content that is something of a bygone era. A couple of people mentioned this week that 98 and that period around then was when ESPN branding was just, just go into all these amazing places. You and I spent many a random weekend day in the ESPN zone in Washington, D.C. That's kind of the mandatory citation here. A lot of people forget, I think, about the ESPN Gatorade flavor that was developed around that time. Oh, wow. Yeah. And our boss, Bill Simmons, has compared this to like ESPN Scientology period, which is, you know, I mean,

I mean, they were going crazy. So ESPN the magazine. And that, And that title sounded weird from jump in 1998 was just another sort of part of the armor there. That is always, it's always reminded me of that scene in spaceballs where Mel Brooks, Yoda character goes, spaceballs, the flame thrower. You know, that's like, that's ESP in the magazine to me. I think its best period feature wise was the last decade, much of which was in the Chad Millman and Allison Overholt eras. I mean, this is

Thompson, Wicker Shand, Van Nata, Kimes, Van Valkenberg, Kuhn. You had moonlighting longformers like Eli Saslo and J.R. Mooringer. Tomlinson's feature that became the book appears then. Fantastic, yeah. They took a magazine

that was good, but had a really silly name and often a really silly reputation and gave it some heft. Do you agree? Yeah. I mean, I think that from my vantage point, it looks like they spent, you know, their first period trying to be the anti-Sports Illustrated. And then they realized that, you know, there is value in having their own Sports Illustrated, right? I mean, to have this sort of home for the great long form writing and under the ESPN umbrella, it makes sense for that to originate from the magazine.

And obviously, a lot of that appeared online and, you know, had different homes. but that sort of heft is a aspect of real value to a company like ESPN, and you kind of have to figure out where it lives. I thought at ESPN the magazine, it was really well conceived, and it was a wonderful home for all that stuff. And those writers that I mentioned pulled it out of a phase where it was a little bit Players Tribune at times. Yeah.

It was a little bit, you know, I mean, like the good examples were like Dan Lebitard talking to Ricky Williams. Here's what my season was like. Here's my first season was like. I seem to remember that. But they did a lot of that. And that cast we just named took ESPN the magazine and reoriented it to a I'm the writer and I'm going to tell you what you need to know. This is not a magazine run by athletes, except when we do that special issue where the athletes of the editors. We are, we're the people here. We're the writers. We're the reporters.

And we are reasserting ourselves. I thought that was really important. And the irony, which you just alluded to was kind of in that moment, it ceased to be a magazine, you know, to a lot of people. I think I read almost every feature from the people listed above as in the mag on the website. You know, the front of the book, front of the books are impossible to do now. All those things, you know, covers and all those things are so much harder to do in the world we live in.

But, you know, people are reading those pieces on the web. And apparently and hopefully, I guess that brings us to our next topic, which is what's going to have no words at ESPN now. This is something I think a lot of us have been wondering, not only with a new Jimmy Petaro regime, but just with the way the world is going and with ESPN's, you know, the way they're getting less money from,

from cable than they were in the old days. But I guess, you know, John Skipper, who was the now former president, now over at DeZone, was, you know, the night protector of words at ESPN. He was Mr. Longform, but self-styled Mr. Longform. The website has gotten way more functional,

now than it is, you know, something that showcases words. And when you see this happening, on the one hand, you know, a print magazine that stops printing in 2019 is not terribly surprising. But I think the obvious sort of question to ask or at least situation to monitor is, you know, what happens? Does ESPN care about words? Does it care about these kinds of stories in the same way. did a couple of years ago. I mean, that's a great question. You know, it's, there's part, I mean, this is, this is sort of an age-old question.

I mean, at least it's maybe a new media age-old question. You know, I mean, there's a reason why websites count, you know, the amount of time that every reader spends on every page, you know, it's a long form is an easy genre. not even long form, just good, you know, good writing of a certain length is, is an easy target to streamlining and to cost cutting. And, you know, I mean, I used to work in book publishing. We've talked about that before, but, you know, there's a, there's, in the modern era, I mean, after, I mean, a lot of the major publishing houses were sold to European conglomerates and, you know, were brought in, made parts of bigger companies. And, and, you know, at the end,

people used to always talk about how the best, their best case scenario was sort of like a European billionaire who got, who, for whom having a serious book publishing imprint was like a sign of, of accomplishment, you know, something that he could talk about at dinner parties and, and,

and, and, and, it's a, it's a, you know, a gold ring. And,

you know, because serious writing and, and writing of any certain length, I mean, of any length is, is, dying animal, right? I mean, you have to be committed to it as an art form and as you have to see the significance and the importance in doing it because it's not just going to be a moneymaker every

time. And that's a real question ESPN is going to have to face going forward, especially, I mean, you mentioned John Skipper. His podcast, when he was on Bill's podcast, it was sort of an unintentional eulogy for ESPN the magazine and for, you know, this whole era potentially of, you know, great writing at ESPN. Now, I don't think they're going to ever like cut right thompson loose but it's a real question about what they look like going forward yeah and and you know i don't think the answer is either ESPN absolutely cares about words they don't care about words at all but i think people like right and all those other people we mentioned just have a different value in the ESPN universe post magazine and you know

ESPN's got to figure out what that is and you know my my vote is that they keep doing the great stories that they're doing. I don't know the business part is is whatever it does you know but I obviously want that to keep going. And I think you know, reading all this stuff on the web is just great and it doesn't it doesn't bother me at all. But it's just sort of it really is something to think about. I think when we look back, we're going to look back at the period from, you know, 2011 to 2015 when ESP in the magazine was in their high period feature wise. And and those of us over at Grantland were occasionally showing up to work sober as the, I hate to attach the word literary to sports writing ever, but as the high, to the extent that I will, the high literary period of ESPN. And that's going to be it. And, you know, what what happens in the future are going to have awesome podcasts and awesome television and lots of, you know, lots of these smart people, Meantimes is already a star in like nine platforms. Right. That to me is going to be, that's going to be the, that's where words at ESPN. written words, written printed journalistic words,

crested. And I'm going to be fascinated to see if they ever climb up to anywhere near that high again. Yeah, I mean, we talked about in the CBS segment about how their morning show is sort of looking for people that came out of print or, you know, focusing on sort of smart, you know, that sort of person as a television presenter. And one wonders if he has been,

if you have to be a multi-platform star to be a successful, you know, a serious writer. Yeah, that's a good question, man. Topic number three, David Elizabeth Warren, in that new round of polls that Joe Biden got a big bump out of. Elizabeth Warren also got a bump. She's up an average of three points according to Nate Silver. She is one of these candidates who I'm fascinated by the kind of collective image of what we think Elizabeth Warren looks like and sounds like on the.

stump versus what she actually sounds like. I was reading a tweet thread from the Washington Post, Dave Weigel, who was at her stump speech in Nevada. First of all, did you know that Elizabeth Warren's stump speech is full of dad humor? I didn't. She was talking about how she wanted to be a teacher her whole life. And she says, I knew what I wanted to do since second grade. I used to line up my dollies and teach them. I was tough but fair. So this is dad humor. Okay. This could be the, this could this could be straight of the award Twitter joke of the week. This is Wigle writing Warren on what the on what her proposed wealth tax could pay for. Universal child care, universal pre-K, universal college student debt cancellation, quote,

plus if you sign up now 12 steak knives. Now that now that is a that is a reference to random commercials that used to come on in the 1980s when you and I were kids. So Elizabeth Warren is doing steak knife humor. then she has these kind of big lines. She says, the good news is that I have the biggest anti-corruption plan since Watergate. The bad news is that we need the biggest anti-corruption plan since Watergate. She was also explaining her wealth tax. How many people here are going to hone home?

Weigel reports that most hands went up. And then Warren says, you've been paying a wealth tax for years. They just call it a property tax. I just want their tax to include the diamonds, the yachts, and the Rembrandt. She's talking about the super rich. but the most outlandish thing she's doing, David, is I think just putting out tons of policy ideas and daring the media and Democratic voters more generally

not to pay attention. What do you make of that? Yeah, I mean, in some ways she's addressing, I mean, there's obviously a straight line between the Bernie Sanders campaign from four years ago and Elizabeth Warren just in terms of, political leaning, although Elizabeth Warren would not cast herself in that light. She certainly is playing to a lot of the same constituency. And I think in some ways she's answering a lot of the

critique of the Sanders campaign from four years ago, which was that, you know, all these suggest, all of this policy proposals were sort of high in the sky, that they wouldn't, you know, they weren't, they weren't functional in the real world. It was, you know, that kind of thing. And all of her policy proposals are very concrete. Most of them are very plainly paid for, even if they're paid for in such a way that would be politically, seem to be politically inviable. And it's just, you're right,

it's just a steady barrage of, you know, really, really straightforward, mostly big think ideas of, of ways that she thinks, you know, that the country would run better. And that a lot of voters, I think, are inclined to agree. I think that, you know, in general in politics, the biggest, you know, a regular critique is that, is that there's not a lot of substance, right? I mean, that you're running on power of personality or, you know, just sort of vague ideals.

And she is deliberately tacking the opposite direction from that. Yeah. And, of course, you know, then we get pieces. I read an Eric Ultraman, one in the nation. I think there's been a lot more saying, wait, why isn't the media? lapping this up. This is what the media, and I'm making giant air quotes here, because we know when you take on the media, you're undefeated because nobody can really defend themselves. Why isn't the media covering or more? And it's interesting because I thought about this a little bit. And it's, I think what the media is doing right now is just guessing about the viability of candidates. They don't have nobody, no newspaper and no cable network has endless resources. So there's just, just figuring out like how should we how should we spend our money right now who should we cover who should we trail around the country and this would be like if the ringer at the beginning

of the last NBA season had to send writers to certain teams and and and pay for them to travel around the country like would we have sent somebody to Milwaukee for sure at the beginning of the season I'm not sure I'm not sure we would have and you know so essentially and I think when the media looks they look at things like fundraising you know she raised six million dollars in the first quarter which was not only a third of what bernie sanders raised but a half of what camala harris raised um she was not doing particularly well in the polls until this recent bump and if you want to argue she's getting extra viability points deducted because she's a woman i won't argue with you i guess if there's an argument to be made about the quote unquote media it's that

viability questions should probably just be tabled because the last election showed us that very few reporters really had a sense of who was viable. And by that, I mean, Donald Trump. And, you know, maybe there's value. And again, it's like, you know, Joe Biden is going to be at least a big story. You know, a couple of these other people are going to be a big story.

But there's beyond that, I'm not sure we know the answer to that. I'm sure anybody knows the answer to that. Yeah, I think in general, the question of viability is a red herring and that's giving it a really a really positive spin. I mean, listen, the whole point of the primary is to choose the ideals that your party is going to follow, right? I mean, to choose the politician who's who has the platform that you're, that you want to get behind. And sure, there's some viability, you know, aspects to it. But I think that's more built into a person, to a personal choice. I mean, it should be a matter left up to the voters. And I don't think that's a

problem specific to the Democrat Party. the idea that we're like worrying about candidates ages at this point. I mean, I think it's just, it's easy fodder for the news. And with, you know, 24 hour news cycles,

I mean, the 24 hour news channels and nonstop news cycle, um, it's just, it's just a, an easy time killer, you know, but it doesn't really,

it's, it doesn't seem to be particularly meaningful at all. And all it does is end up, is, is actually just like skew, it ends up skewing, um, you know, people's perception and ends up, I mean, I think, skewing the entire race. And,

and, you know, I think that you're right to say that at this point in the Democrat, you know, primary, we don't know. We don't know. And it's, it's, I think Elizabeth Warren is doing the right thing by making her campaign about issues. Um, because, you know, in a, in a viability race, I mean, if all we're worrying about is viability, then what's sort of the point of all this? You just pick the person who looks the most like or the most unlike Trump and go forward from there. I mean, it just seems sort of, you know,

she's actually seems to be taking the process seriously and kudos are her for doing it that way. Yeah, I mean, I just say again, it's just if I have any sympathy for assignment editors, though, it's just that you just, you don't have unlimited resources. You have to pick your spots to some extent. There are 20 Democrats.

Let's say that 15. or probably we're spending a lot of time on. What do you do? It's like, you know, somebody could look at the ringer and say, why don't you, you guys sure spend a lot of time on Game of Thrones.

Why don't you cover other TV shows that may be having a better season in the Game of Thrones? I say, well, you know, right? You got to make decisions. And,

you know, I don't believe. I also think in a way this gets solved because if you want information about Elizabeth Warren, there's a lot of information out in the world. And, you know, I also go back to this idea when you and I were talking about this this idea a couple weeks ago.

Twitter is not real life, which has now become the great cliche of the 2020 Democratic primary. She in a way is playing to Twitter. Elizabeth Warren is with all these policy proposals and saying, here you go, Ezra Klein. Here you go, Matt Iglesias. Here's some policy. Right about this is what you want. This is this is the red. meet for a certain segment of the media population.

And, you know, this is the kind of thing you want. And you're going to, I will get coverage. Look, that may be, that may be a harder work around to get people to mention me on the Today Show. But it's a great way to get into the liberal Twitter sphere, blogosphere, think, thinky kind of liberal world. And, you know, that, that to me is a strategy of sorts. and it's kind of an interesting one.

The other idea, by the way, about Elizabeth Warren that I'm interested in is that she used to be really bad with the media. When she was in the Senate, she did not like answering questions. She was not a good interview at all.

She started to have kind of get better at that in late 2017, according to the Boston Globe. But now as president, as a presidential candidate, where she needs the attention, she's all about being better with the media. So, you know, again, reporters being humans, I sort of wonder if that doesn't play into any of this at all.

Now you need us. Now you want to talk to us. And a lot of these are the same reporters that cover around the hill. And, you know, are we going to be as receptive to you as we would have been to somebody who was giving us interviews all along? Yeah. No, I think that's a, I think that's a real thing. I mean, even when she announced her candidacy, there were reporters, you know, that were, mentioning her

reputation in the media on national television, even, you know, regardless of whether or not it was sort of an actual issue to bring up. But I do think it's a real thing, and I do think that that affects the way,

you know, especially the swing as you, as you described, I mean, it's a real thing that's going to affect the way people cover. So, yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a, she's a very interesting personality. But I think, you know, I mean, you can,

obviously look at it like she's that she's capable of evolving of learning and that's a positive thing. But I think more than anything, it's just, you know, how much she's learned to play the game. And, you know, that can be a positive or a negative depending on where you sit. Let's do the notebook dump quickly, David. Stephen Moore is not going to be a governor of the Federal Reserve. He was done in by CNN's K-file, which found him saying a bunch of terrible things about women announcing basketball games, women refereeing basketball games and other. the stuff.

Here's what I found amazing, David. Stephen Moore was a CNN contributor, kind of one of the reliable, you know, Republican guy to go on CNN. He is nominated for this job by Donald Trump. A CNN reporter destroys his candidacy. And then he is now no longer working for CNN, according to Jeremy Barr, the Hollywood reporter. So did you see the life cycle there?

I am a perfect, CNN considers me a perfectly, viable replacement level pundit. Then I do this and CNN says, I'm terrible and I'm actually a very offensive, awful person. And now I no longer work in CNN. I just thought that would. What an amazing life cycle. That's kind of like 2019 in a nutshell. That's perfect.

Yeah. Also interesting this week, James Bennett, who is the director of the New York Times editorial page, is recusing himself from any 2020 editorializing because his brother Michael, the senator from Colorado, is running for the Democratic nomination. David, did you see that Michael Bennett announced his candidacy in a Medium post that takes 14 minutes to read? Oh my gosh. When we were publishing with Medium, did we ever have a 14-minute story? We might have had one or two.

Did Jordan Khan ever go 14 minutes? I mean, is that this? Maybe, maybe. Nate Silver had a great line where he says he's the kind of candidate who needs an editor. Well, that was funny. Maybe this is all a kind of backdoor attempt to get for James Bennett to be able to like just take it easy during the, during the season. puts his brother up to running for office so he can recuse himself from part of his job. More people should be thinking in depth like that.

You can just see James Bennett in the New York Times office, you know, putting his arms behind his head, kicking the feet up on the desk. And well, this couple, yeah, you know, I'm going to edit this little editorial about China policy. And I'm going to call it a day, you know, because I don't have anything else to do. That's pretty nice. I wrote down Mark Halpern's comeback being helped along by the cast of morning show, but I really don't care. Let's play David Shoemaker, guess is the terrible pun headline, and or book title.

Oh, no. Remember last week, David, yeah, the terrible pun headline was the biography

of Kingsley Amos called Lucky Him. We got an important tweet from Nicole Hay who says, how is the pun biography title not? You come at the Kingsley.

You'd better not amiss. Which is really, really great stuff. I'm so really embarrassed. We didn't think of that. Thanks to Nicole Hay. We also got a tweet, David from Kyle

Poletta, who writes for Harper's. You saw the story about Japanese emperor Akihito who abdicated the throne thereby making his son Nura Hito the emperor of Japan, okay?

What was the Guardian pun headline celebrating the new emperor of Japan, which also may be a reference to a continuing piece of American pop culture? Oh my God, I have no idea This one's way too hard Is it, I mean, what is the biggest

Pop Culture story in the world? Is it Game of Thrones? Okay. Game of Thrones. Okay. So I'm going to something with Game of Thrones, something with Japan. Yeah, take the S off Thrones.

So let's go Throne. This is very basic. This is Lucky Him basic. Not Game of Throne, but. Yeah, you're going to have to tell. I'm sorry, I'm out of it today. I can't figure it out. No, no, it's a tough one.

The Guardian headline was gain of throne. Gain of throne for the new emperor of Japan. Thanks to Kyle. Kyle, I think, said it was great and I agree. It's just simple, but simple, but to the point. If I wrote that headline, I'd be on deadline. I'd be awfully happy with myself. All right.

He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Our producer is Jim Cunningham, research by Chris Almeada. More lukewarm takes on the media next week. See, David. See you later, man. Robert. Oh, no.

I'm Steve Croft. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Oprah. CNN says I'm terrible and I'm actually a very offensive, awful person. Not a good interview at all. Fantastic, yeah. Yeah. Speaking of horrible controversy,

hey kids, look at this. We got a sports magazine for a European billionaire who got tons and tons and tons of diamonds, the yachts, and the Rembrandt. Oh, did I? We basically conquered the world. I mean, I might have needed a little bit of help. We're going to create this little franchise. Yeah.

That was so simple. And yet, and we're not just going after Robert. Going after Oprah. Yeah, I think that's right.