The Press Box - Debate Chaos, Kamala Harris’s Big Interview, and Leaving CNN With Oliver Darcy of ‘Status’

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Hello, media consumers! On the Final Edition of 'The Press Box,' Bryan welcomes Oliver Darcy to the pod. They discuss the following: The rules of the upcoming Harris-Trump debate (1:49) Kamala Harris’s upcoming interview and what to expect (10:42) Sarah Palin’s new trial against The New York Times (15:49) Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to the House Judiciary Committee (17:33) Then Oliver discusses why he left CNN to build his own platform, ‘Status’ (21:32). Plus, David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Oliver Darcy Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, humanoids. It's the Maskman David Shoemaker. It's a new era in professional wrestling, and that means a new era here at the Ringer Wrestling show. Kaz here, every Monday and Thursday hang out with me and my guys' shoes on the Masked Man show. And Ben Cruz here. Come kick it with me, Cal and Brian on Tuesdays for Ringer Wrestling worldwide, where we hit on the most interesting headlines and even react to some of Maskedmans and even your hottest takes. Don't tap out. Tap in to the Ringer Wrestling show feed now on Spotify. or wherever you get your podcasts. Worldwide. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox.

Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Brian Waters. I want to bring in today's guest host, Oliver Darcy. For years, Oliver wrote the media newsletter, Reliable Sources for CNN. As I have said before, it wasn't an essential resource for this podcast. It was the essential resource. And Oliver made a specialty of covering stories at the point where the media and politics, politics rub up against each other. Oliver just left CNN to start a new venture and a new newsletter, which is called

Status. I've already hit that subscribe button. You should too. Oliver, welcome to the press box. Thank you, Brian. Thank you for that very generous introduction. All right, before we get to your new gig, let's talk about a few election stories you've been covering this week in status.

The first Kamala Harris-Donald Trump debate is happening September 10th. We think on ABC, the rules. of the debate have been at issue? What's your latest reporting from inside ABC News? Yeah, the two camps, the Kamala Harris camp and the Donald Trump camp can't seem to really come to an agreement on one pretty simple rule, which is whether the microphones are muted or whether they're not. And so back in 2020, I think everyone remembers, there was an issue with the debates and Donald Trump talking over Joe Biden. And so the presidential, the commission presidential debate, they made a decision that they're going to mute the mics in one of the later

debates so that there wouldn't be that constant, you know, obnoxious Trump talking over Biden. And so this time around in 2024, the CNN debate, they had the mics muted. But this time now, in this latest debate, the Harris camp doesn't want those mics muted. I think they want to show to the country, you know, who Donald Trump is, they want him to be interrupting, they want him to be obnoxious. they want people to see that side of him. They don't want him to, you know, sit there or stand there and, and I think, look presidential because he's, his mic is muted. And so there's just been back and forth between the two camps over this one issue. And ABC News seems to be siding with the Donald Trump campaign. I think they want Mike's muted. I think that keeps the trains on the tracks.

They won't be derailed. And so they sent out formal rules to the campaigns on Tuesday. Donald Trump posted on True Social that he had accepted those rules and was going to do the debate. Strangely, though, ABC News and the Harris camp have not said a word since then. And I think that is because they're still trying to get those mics to be unmuted. So internally, inside ABC News, Rick Klein, the Washington Bureau Chief, he sent out a memo to staffers saying, do not report on Trump accepting the debate rules. Even though every other outlet reported on this, especially because Trump had teased whether he would accept the debate or go to the debates or whether he would not. So him saying he was going to do it was news.

But ABC News advised journalists not to report on that. And there's still been this quiet behind the scenes, I guess, negotiation with the Harris Trump trying to get those mics to be unmuted. So this is interesting. So ABC's silence and the Harris campaign silence could be interpreted to mean that at least theoretically, the mic-muting stipulation is still up for negotiation. I'm not sure how much of a negotiation it is as much as like whether the Harris camp is trying to pressure ABC at this point. Like ABC did send out.

I actually posted on threads earlier today. ABC did send out the formal rules. Like they have been written down. They went out to the Trump campaign as a formal invite. The Trump campaign accepted this. that. And the Harris campaign has not accepted that, apparently, because they are still trying to negotiate on the microphone issue. So, you know, I don't know if it's, I guess I don't know if it's negotiation as much as the Harris camp isn't accepting the rules as they are and trying to still

change them. It's a very strange situation here. And just to add another layer, you had another scoop in your newsletter saying that ABC had actually sent out the tentative rules to the campaigns last week. So all this public back and forth we had between Harris and Trump, a lot of it was occurring after they knew what ABC's tentative rules were, which just adds another funny layer to this whole thing. That's exactly right. Just so people understand the kind of layers of the mic muting. As you mentioned, 2021st debate, Joe Biden doesn't have the mics muted.

Donald Trump choose scenery for the entire debate. But according to all the polls, Donald Trump lost that debate because he chewed so much scenery and he wouldn't let Biden talk. Then at the Biden camp's request, the mics are muted and it winds up hurting Biden badly because he's left completely silent to try to explain his issue positions, which he doesn't do a very good job. He loses the nomination. But now Harris is trying to revert to option A, which is to show America just what Donald Trump is. It almost goes back to this inability for anyone really to figure out or settle on how to cover Donald Trump. You know, know, there was obviously a lot of airing of his rallies back in 2016.

And the conventional wisdom coming out of that was that the news media air too much of Donald Trump, too much of his antics, right? And so, you know, after 2020, there was actually not much of a, not much coverage of him. I mean, you even saw Rupert Murdoch say we wanted to make him a non-person. And I think in the past year or so, news executives and newsrooms have really come up, you know, come to the conclusion that maybe they overreacted. And so you've seen Democrats encourage news media to air more of Donald Trump because I think they think that by not doing it, you're almost sanitizing who he is, hiding who he is from the public. And so this debate over the microphones

is sort of a smaller subset of that, which is that like the Kamala Harris camp very much wants now, Donald Trump to be on full display, unfiltered, they want everyone to see who he is. And the idea that the microphone would be muted when he's not allowed to be talking would almost give the country, in their eyes, a misleading view of how he would behave if he were in office. From your reporting, do the people inside ABC News think this is just two campaigns working the referees, or is there an actual fear that, this debate will not happen on September 10th? I think it's a mix of both. I think there certainly is

the idea that the thought that the Harris campaign is just trying to get their way here and work the reps and that they will come to terms. And I also think, and I've talked to people there, who are still skeptical this debate will happen because Donald Trump has since the beginning talked openly about skipping the debate. You know, even when he accepted the terms, he said that ABC was, in his words, or view the nastiest broadcaster out there. He's attacked George Stephanopoulos. He's gone after John Carl. He has really assailed ABC News. And there was this other issue that the campaign that was floated was that Dana Walden, a Disney executive. Disney obviously owns ABC News, is close with Kamala Harris. And so I think that no one is going to actually,

you know, think this is 100% in the bag until he shows up on stage on September 10th. And certainly this back and forth over the microphones has not instilled confidence that this debate is going to happen. I think most people still think it will, but there's, there are people inside ABC News who just think that, you know, this is sort of curse from beginning. There's not a lot of nostalgia out there for the commission on presidential debates since both campaigns wanted to throw it in the garbage can. But the one upside about having some kind of authority is that these things would not be negotiated in public before every single debate during an election year. Yeah, I think you've also seen, too, the networks kind of play against each other in a way that wouldn't happen if the Commission on Presidential Debates were calling the shots.

And so, you know, you've seen, for instance, with the vice presidential debate, CNN, got J.D. Vance to accept the vice presidential debate. And then there was a statement that went out from CNN saying that he had accepted and that Harris didn't. And it's almost like a bit of a trying to pressure, I think, the other person to accept him because one has accepted. And you've seen a lot of them playing against each other like this. And so, you know, it's almost like there's anarchy now. There's no one body calling the shots. And I think you can debate whether it's good or bad, but it certainly has a, has left room for, you know, a lot of elbows to be thrown at different networks.

Absolutely. It's interesting to see the horse trading happening from not just the campaign side, but the network side. Oh, well, you know, J.D. Vance is in or you win? Right. Exactly. And the Trump campaign, as you know, is accepted basically every single debate that's come their way.

Fox News is also trying to do this saying, you know, they invited both candidates and Trump immediately accepted and Donald Trump is not trying to pressure Harris into accepting the Foxx. debate, I highly doubt she ever will. But this jockeying in public for debates wasn't something to happen when the commission was around. Another big story you've been reporting on this week is Kamala Harris's first interview as the Democratic nominee. It's going to be with CNN's Danna Bash. It's going to air tonight. Tim Walls is going to be part of it too. What have you made about the whole when will Harris finally talk, chatter? I thought, well, I think one, this debate is a major coup for CNN to get this the first debate because it has now been hyped so much because she has not given

an interview since she was officially or since she secured the nomination and since Biden stepped out. And so I think it's important that she do the interview. I honestly think waiting a month was probably a little too much. I also also think that a lot of this, you know, shaming of her for not talking to the press has maybe been a little bit too much as well. And a lot of it has come from people who actually hate the press, ironically, right? You know, all these Trump supporters and the MAGA media going after Harris for her treatment of the press is just a little bit rich given they literally call the press the enemy the people and bash the press 24-7.

And so, you know, I think it's good that she's sitting down and I think she should do more interviews with the news media. But I'm not sure this was, you know, I just think it was a little bit. over rot at times. So two things about that. I saw Jonathan Shea making the case in New York Magazine that she should just do lots of interviews because that way if you're her and you're trying to, you know, let's say limit, you know, bad things that can happen.

If you give lots of interviews, then they tend to all blend together. So maybe this will be the first in a number of interviews. But like you said, it's been by waiting a month, it's acquired this weird sort of gravity to come on Kamala Harris finally. I think from there from their respect, I think they think that the more spotlight is on Donald Trump, the better because he is just his own worst enemy and whether he is making sexist remarks on true social or whether he's making remarks about pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists. I think they very much think let him just

go out in public and let the spotlight be on him because every time he speaks, people get turned off. And so they've been trying to lay low for the most part. I do though happen to think as well that people want someone to vote for. And she should do interviews. She should go on podcasts. I was talking to Kara Swisher. She wants to get her on the podcast. She should do stuff like that. She should do CNN, but she should also do all the other networks as well and show that she can, you know, really articulate a vision for America. You mentioned people on the conservative side who have latched on to this issue, but there are also liberals you'll find on Twitter, including people who are journalists or in the journalistic constellation of what we call journalism now who are also criticizing the media for

criticizing Harris. And to me, it's one of those things where it's self-evident to people like you and me. Of course, she should talk to us. Of course, notable people, especially politicians, should talk to reporters. Is there a way for us to make that case to normal people who are sitting at home about why powerful people, even people they want to win, people they don't want to sit in front of Dana Bash and make a terrible mistake, why those people should talk to report? I think the simple case is that anyone who holds power should be held to account. And the press is, you know, when Dana Bash sits down with Harrison Walls tonight, she is representing the people. She is going to, she should be asking questions on behalf of the

public, you know, and that is your, that is your person who is going to hold these politicians to account. So I think that's the, that's the, the arguments he made. I think too often, however, sometimes reporters ask questions that aren't really on the minds of voters. And I think that frustrates a lot of the voters. And so focusing on the important issues when having these interviews, I think is crucial into helping winning back some of that trust. But anyone who is going to potentially have the nuclear code should be able to sit down for 15, 20 minutes with a journalist and answer some hard questions. What did you make of CNN landing the interview? I thought it was huge.

I mean, because of the gravity that this has accumulated at this point, you know, this is a big gap. People are going to be paying attention to what she says. She like we talked about hasn't talked in a month, you know, since Biden dropped out, since she accepted the domination of the DNC. And so people are very curious, I think, to what she has to say. And also, you know, what positions does she have that are different than Joe Biden's? You know, what does she make even of the ABC situation? Like what, like there are so many things that you can ask her that are going to be interesting to hear from her.

It's been like 19 different versions of CNN that we've seen over the last couple of years, as you know, perhaps more than other people. But the one thing they all had in common is we want to be the place where politicians come to do an interview, to do a town hall, to do a debate. Like, we want to be that destination. So on those grounds, anyway, it's a big win for them. topic number three for you. You wrote about this briefly in your newsletter. Sarah Palin versus the New York Times. This is this lawsuit that Palin filed against the time she lost a trial in 2022.

She's now going to get another trial. You write, the case will now head back to a lower court for a new trial because of, quote, several major issues at the last one. This is one of these cases without dipping too far into the specifics that people in the media just are terrified of, right? they're so terrified to get one of these judgments on the books that for a plaintiff like Sarah Palin to win. What, what have you heard about that? Well, one, this is the case that just doesn't seem to go away. I feel like I've been covering this case forever. It's like almost a decade now because, you know, I think was it filed in 2017 or something like that? And it went through the courts. You know,

she ended up losing at trial. Then she appealed. And now finally, the appeals court has come back and said that she should get another trial. And so this case just is just the zombie case. that just never ends. But you're right, anytime you get one of these cases that can set precedent in terms of media law, I think it always makes everyone nervous, not only the Times lawyers, because they're, I think, worried that if they lose, this could affect everyone in the industry, but everyone focuses on these cases because they can have huge ramifications. The other one that's also making us way through the judicial system is the Catherine Harwich case, and she's the former Fox News correspondent who has been ordered to give up her sources as part of another

case. She's not even being sued, but she's a party to a case. And that is also raising a lot of press alarms because any time something happens, it sets precedent for everyone in the industry. And so, yes, there's going to be a lot of eyes on the Sarah Palin case, not only from just the New York Times because they're the ones being sued, but from everyone who cares about press freedoms. Another topic for you, Mark Zuckerberg and the Republicans. You wrote about the this on Tuesday night. He sent a letter to the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, criticizing the Biden administration for, quote, repeatedly pressuring meta to, quote, censor COVID-19 related content. What did you make of Zuck's letter? I thought it was really

interesting. You know, it comes just, you know, a few months before a high-stakes election. He's writing to Jim Jordan, who is one of the most dishonest conspiracy peddling. members of Congress. And he's using the language that Jim Jordan almost uses, right? Censorship. The White House wanted to engage, wanted to censor content. He says that he regrets not speaking out against the White House, the Biden White House earlier about this. He gave into their, you know, Hunter Biden narrative and said that it was a mistake to throttle the New York Post story while it's fact checkers reviewed it. He said that it was a mistake or not a mistake, but he would not in the future give to money donations to support election infrastructure as he did in 2020. And he explicitly

even said, it's not because I was trying to sway the election for one side or the other. And I don't think I was at all. And the data doesn't support that. But because some people believe that I'm not going to do it again, effectively giving into the Republicans because they had dishonestly accused him of rigging or helping to rig the last election. election. Donald Trump has referred to him as Zuckerbach, the money that he gave, you know, as Zuckerbach to, to stack the election against him. And so I just thought, you know, this was a massive gift for Republicans right before an election, because immediately after he sends this letter, the House Judiciary Committee, they say that he's admitted to these three big narratives they've been pushing. And it's part of a larger pattern, I think, from Zuckerberg trying to appeal to the GOP, you know, after the Trump assassination. He went out of his way to call Trump badass. And he's just made a lot of his actions in public have been interesting. And it's even more interesting when you consider the fact that they come after Donald Trump publicly threatened to go after him if you were to

win office again and to even jail him. And so, you know, Trump makes that threat. And all of a sudden, Mark Zuckerberg is shifting to be quite friendly to the Republicans. in your theory here is that Zuckerberg just doesn't want to be boogeyman number one for the GOP? Yeah, I don't think any of these business leaders want to be boogeyman number one for the for the GOP. I mean, I just don't think that that's what they want. I mean, you know, Donald Trump can, you know, when he makes these threats, some people might brush them off. But if you're a business leader, the federal government can be a real thorn on your side. And I don't think that someone like Mark Zuckerberg wants the federal government coming down on it.

Donald Trump can make his life hell if you were to win office. And the polls are, you know, it's not like Hummel Harris is running away with this campaign. You know, it is almost a coin flip election here. And I don't think Zuckerberg wants to be targeted and have meta in the crosshairs should Donald Trump find his way back at 1600 Pennsylvania land. It seems like a very, very hard process to be boogeyman. yourself, especially if you're Zuck, you know, like, is that going to work? You know, you give, okay, so you write this letter, you admit something or other, whatever it is. It just feels like

that that is not likely to work, but okay. It doesn't, it doesn't feel like it will have much of an effect, but who knows? I mean, who knows what's also happening behind the scenes here. I'm sure that we're only seeing a glimpse of what's what's really taking place. Let's talk a little bit about status. You've covered a lot of job-changing journalists. I remember that first and reliable tag. I used to read in your newsletter. You are a job-changing journalist now.

Why leave CNN? You know, I just had this entrepreneurial hitch that just wouldn't go away. And I really wanted to just build something on my own and to build value for myself. And I think that in 2024, it's never really been easier to, to do that. I mean, 10 years ago, could I have done this? Could I have left CNN? No, probably not. I would have needed their infrastructure, right? But now I'm on Beehive. It's a newsletter platform. There's substack. There's ghost. You can just build a media venture, an independent media company on these platforms that make it quite easy. And with Stripe, which is a payments processor,

you can accept subscription payments. And it's pretty seamless. And so, you know, I think life is a little short to never take a place of bed on yourself. And so I wanted to, my contract was up and I wanted to go out and build something in my own. And then could status include not just the newsletter, which you've now transferred over to your own entrepreneurial venture, but events, things like that, if we're talking, if we're using Caris Wisher's name here? Yes. I mean, well, Caris Wisher has been very helpful, I would say, in offering advice. And I would certainly love to build status into something that is a big franchise, that, yes, houses the newsletter, which is the core product. And I actually expanded it already. It's now it's five nights a week.

It comes out on Sunday through Thursday. But yes, also, you know, maybe one day we'll have our own podcast like you will do live events. There's a lot of different ways, a lot of different places you can take this. I'd like to have published columnists, you know, in status. And so I think right now, my strategy has just been to get the core product on its two feet, but I'd certainly like to grow the brand. Let's just be clear here. The media podcast should be the bottom floor of the venture. It's all up from there.

That's not get carried away. I did want to ask you about this, because for a while when you were at CNN, you found yourself in the same spot that many New York Times and Washington Post writers have found themselves in, which is that you were covering your boss, who for a time was Chris Licked. What was it like to cover CNN from inside CNN? Well, I've been asked this question a lot, and I'd always say it's always uncomfortable, right? Like, you never feel like super excited or stoked to have to cover your boss, especially when they're plagued and scandal, right? Like, and Chris Lick was for months.

And so it wasn't something that was fun to do, but I thought it was something that was necessary. And I, when I took the baton, the reliable sources of baton from Brian Stelter, I wrote a note to readers and I said that we were going to cover CNN with the same standards as any other news organization. And that meant offering readers hard-hitting coverage of CNN. And if CNN were going through a scandal, we were going to not pull any punches. And I think that's what we did. It did obviously, I think, bother Chris. So when he was reading some of that coverage because it was unsparing. But that's exactly what I promised readers.

And I would say, too, that if I went soft on CNN, then it would not only look bad for me, but it would ruin or tarnish the reliable sources brand. And that's an iconic CNN brand. So at the end of the day, it's really bad. It would have been bad for CNN as a news institution. I think it was actually something nice. they can say is that not only the CNN ask hard questions of everyone else, they have journalists who go and pester members of Congress, the White House, you know, but they also had

a journalist inside the room, inside the house, who was asking tough questions of them. And I think it says a lot that they, that they were willing to let me do that. They never interfered with your ability to write anything in reliable sources? I would say that, no, at the end of the day, I was able to write what I wanted to write. I would say that I think that there interferes an interesting question. You know, what constitutes interfering. It is expressing this pleasure with your work constitute interfering. I don't know, I guess.

I'd say that there was obviously a few moments where there was some displeasure expressed. But at the end of the day, I didn't let that affect my work. And so I, and I think that's reflected, actually, if you go read the columns that I had written about CNN, I never pulled any punches. And honestly, if they did try to stop that, I would have resigned the position. I still remember your column after Trump went on the town hall with Caitlin Collins there on CNN. And speaking of displeasure, that's when Puck's Dylan Byers report. that you were called into Chris Luxoff's and criticized for being too emotional in your coverage of CNN? Yeah, I thought the emotional thing was an interesting way to describe that.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't describe myself as emotional at all. I would say that that column accurately reflected not only how people inside CNN felt, but also how people felt externally. I mean, if you were on, I think I was still on Twitter back in the day when that happened, if you were on any of these platforms and just looking, like, it was pretty clear that, that there was very little support, if any, support for CNN's handling of that town hall. And so my coverage reflected that. I think it probably stung the most because, again, I was on the CNN payroll.

And so if you're the head of CNN and you're reading what your own employee is writing, and it's pretty uncompromising in its analysis, that might be a little frustrating. I remember those hit in my inbox and be like, whoa. It was right up at the top. It was a lead item. I was, again, I was executing the mission that I was charged with. And that mission meant to cover CNN the exact same way I would cover any other news organization. And while we were very, I think, tough, on CNN, I think we were fair.

And I think we offer the same coverage of, you know, other news organizations. When NBC News hired Ron and McDaniel, there was, you know, no one, I think, as, as, you know, as tough as we were. And so it wasn't that we were picking on CNN. We were just actually just trying to be even-handed as possible while covering this complex industry. Status hits my inbox every night around 8, 9, 10 Eastern Time. What's your daily schedule like? It varies day to day. So in the mornings, I usually try doing meetings and catching up on things. And I've been, you know, as now a business owner, there's a lot of other things outside the editorial that I have had to focus on. But, you know, I'm I'm working, I think, around the clock

to get this into inboxes at hopefully more than the 8 o'clock hour, but sometimes it goes into 9 or 10 o'clock. And so, you know, it's a mix every day of meetings, source calls, just reading the Internet and trying to keep up on the Fourth Estate and Hollywood and Silicon Valley. There's a lot of things going on all these industries. And then writing. You know, there's about two or three thousand words in every newsletter. So it does take some time to assemble. New York Times and their profile of you asked an interesting question, which is just how big is the market for news about the news? How would you answer that? I guess I view it a little bit differently. I think that media is really the epicenter of truth in this country and at the

epicenter of a lot of critical conversations. And so I think there's a really large market of people who are concerned about the state of the country. They're concerned about what AI is going to do to different industries. They're interested in how Hollywood shapes culture and how all these different facets of the industry intersect. And so that's what I'm, that's what the product I'm delivering. It's not only for people in the news business. It's actually for people in entertainment and tech business as well, but it's even bigger than that. It's about, it's about some of the big topics that I think are dominating this course. And so if you do care about how AI might reshape news or Hollywood or just every industry, or if you do care about

how news organizations are covering an anti-democratic candidate. If you do care about the changes in Hollywood and how that might affect even news organizations, you have to be in mind that like CNN and NBC are actually owned by much larger companies that are being affected by the Netflix revolution. If you care about any of this stuff, that's what I'm focused on writing about every day and holding all these key players accountable. If you care of Mark Zuckerberg, you know, I mean, that's, I don't know. I guess I think this market for people who are interested in these topics is a lot bigger than just those in the news industry.

I totally agree. I had this conversation with a few reporters in Chicago at the Democratic Convention because they say, wait a second, regular non-journalistic humans listen and read what you put out. I'm like the vast majority of people. Yeah, I get so many emails from people across the country who are not in the news business or in the media business. tech business at all. And they're actually sometimes most interested in this stuff. I mean, they're very fascinated by what's going on. And I think it's because this industry, you know, what happens here ripples throughout all the other industries. So it's an important topic. And if you lose a sense of truth, then you lose a sense of society. And so media reporters are really kind of at the center of all of us, right? last one for you Oliver and I've asked this of a few of our media reporting colleagues

what's it like for you to cover this beat at a moment of maximum turmoil and fear and wreckage within the media itself well I mean it can be depressing at times I'd say because you know you're covering layoffs and people losing their jobs quite a bit and so that's a very sad human story and that's not something that's that's fun to cover and I think it's also frightening for a lot of people because they've worked in these jobs for decades and now they're shrinking up and you have AI on the horizon threatening to swallow even more jobs. And so that's, that's all quite depressing. At the same time, you know, there's some excitement, I think, in terms of like, it's an exciting time to be covering this because you don't know what's going to happen next,

right? You know, there's a lot of change in industry and that leads to a lot of interesting development's happening. And so my job is never boring because there's a thousand different things happening at any given time. And so that can be fun to cover, but at the same time, depressing. I don't know if that makes any, it's a, it's a, I guess it's a bittersweet sort of feeling when you're covering the industry today. Yeah, a depressing sense of exhilaration maybe is a way to put it. I mean, there's, you know, journalists like to be, around when things happen, right? Like, no news is the worst time to be around. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. It's, it's, it's, it's everybody. Exactly. But they are noteworthy and, and worthy of coverage and worthy of examination. So I know I feel that.

Oliver Darcy, his newsletter is called status. Follow me over there where he's giving you an essential read on the media beat every day. Oliver, thanks for coming on the press box. Thank you, Brian. All right. It's time for the second. edition of David Shoemaker guest is the strained upon headline. Yeah. Monday's headline about Anita Dunn's departure from the White House was

take the done, right? Take the done, leave the canoli. I get that right? Yeah. Today's headline comes to us from Knox Harrington. It is from the Economist podcast. We've had this on before and it's about

Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris, a lot of Republicans are saying, hey, we don't know what she thinks about these issues. We think she might have changed her opinion on these issues since her short presidential run back in 2019. Okay. I'm going to leave you with that. Somebody we don't know. Somebody might have changed their positions. You're going to go with the name Kamala.

What was the economist strained pun headline? Kamala Kamilian. And we're done. I think it's comma chameleon. Yeah, comma chameleon. Okay. A. M. Kama, comma, comma, comma,

right? This is the song. Don't make me sing again. No, no, the song is karma chameleon. Yes, I know that. I know what the song is. But I'm saying, yes, the headline is comma chameleon. It seems.

Okay. Kind of works. All right. That is the press box. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic. By Brian Waters. Got two announcements for you before we go here on Labor Day weekend.

Number one, we've had a number of people qualify for the coveted press box 2024 campaign button. You get one of these if you make what I judge to be a meaningful contribution to this podcast. A bunch of them have gone out in the mail. More are going out this week. Thank you, Blake and Seth, in particular for your contributions. Hit me up at the Pressbox pod with pun headlines, with Twitter jokes, with deep thoughts about the media. with pieces we should read or topics you think we should cover. You too might just receive a button in the mail.

All right, announcement number two, we have a September press box guest host schedule for you. I just posted this over at our Twitter account. I'll give it to you right here. September 5th, next Thursday, the day the NFL season kicks off, Pablo Torre is going to be back on this podcast. I cannot wait to talk football election and everything else with him.

then Wednesday, September 11th, a day early, we are going to react to the first Kamala Harris, Donald Trump debate, if it indeed happens, with our official politics reactor, Benji Sarlane of Semaphore. Awesome show. September 19th, this is going to be a really fun one. My boss, my pal, Sean Fennacy is going to be back on this podcast, and we're going to do a little something special. We're going to do best campaign movies. I have spent my week watching The Ides of March, Bullworth, the candidate with many, many more to come.

Hit me up at the Pressbox pot if you have suggestions and nominees for us. Sean Fennessee, Best Campaign Movies on September 19th. And then September 26th, Ryan Mack and Kate Conger of the New York Times are going to be on to talk about their new book about Elon Musk. It has a wonderful title, Character Limit. It's not a pun, but it's really, really good. You're going to want to listen to all of those shows. They are all going to be fantastic.

And then reminder, Shoemaker and I are off Monday for Labor Day, but we are back Tuesday. We're going to have a huge NFL TV preview. We're going to talk about Kamala Harris's first interview. It's football. It's a presidential campaign. It's a press box. See you Tuesday.