The Press Box - Dolan Out Access | The Press Box

Episode Date: June 25, 2019

A new accusation of rape against the president (03:00), the “Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week” (15:00), Tucker Carlson may have saved us from a war with Iran (17:00), the difficulties in covering sports in NY (30:45), the reviews for David Mamet’s new play, 'Bitter Wheat' (44:00), and more. Host: Bryan Curtis  Guest: Justin Verrier Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. It's Liz Kelly, the co-host of Tea Time. Your favorite celebrity and pop culture podcasts have moved out of Channel 33 and into their very own feed called Ringer Dish. On Ringer Dish, you can still listen to Jam Session on Wednesdays and Tea Time on Fridays and will be launching a brand new show that will publish every Monday. Episodes so far have included a heated debate on which celebrity Chris reign Supreme and a social media deep dive on the Big Little Lies cast. So to hear more about the royal family and our current celebrity. Obsessions, subscribe to Ring Your Dish on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to the press box. Brian Curtis of the Ringer here. Our pal David Shoemaker is on assignment today.

Actually, he's not really on assignment, but that feels like the right thing to say on a media podcast. Sure. It's on the front lines. Makes him sound official. It does. Capably filling his shoes is Justin Varyer, Ringer, editor, writer, podcaster. What else do you do? You know, I do dishes sometimes when necessary.

What an honor, Brian, to be on this podcast. First time, long time. Well, I was so excited because when I look around the ringer newsroom and I look for someone who is as jaded about the media as I am, if not more. One name comes to mind. Yeah. And it is veryer. That's what I'm known for.

If I'm nothing else, I am a cynic. You'll feel right at home here on the press box. Lots of stuff to get to on today's show. We're going to talk about how we may have been saying. from war with Iran by Tucker Carlson. We're going to talk about the hellscape of covering sports in New York. We will read the withering reviews of the new David Mamet play, plus the overworked Twitter joke of the week and much more.

But Justin, I think we need to start with the new accusation of rape against the president, Donald Trump. It was made in a forthcoming book called What Do We Need Men For by journalist E. Jean Carroll, which was excerpted in the new issue of New York Magazine. What happened was this, in the fall of 95. or the spring of 96, E. Jean Carroll was at Bergdorf Goodman's department store in New York. When she ran into Donald Trump, he recognized her from television and asked her to help him buy a present for someone he described as a girl. Carol and Trump eventually wound up in the Bergdorf-Gudman lingerie department.

He picked up a see-through body suit and asked Carol to try it on. She refused. They walked to the changing room with Carol thinking it was a joke and that she was going to have Trump try it on. There, Carol writes, Trump attacked her. and raped her. Here's Carol on MSNBC with Lawrence O'Donnell, describing what she was feeling in the moment. It became a fight. And it was, it hurt.

And it was against my will. And it, I don't know where I got the strength, because he was big, but I think I was stomping my foot. I have my handbag in this, I never put it down. I just, I'm holding it. I have no idea. The only reason I know I'm holding it is because when I got out in the street, I still had it in my hand. So somehow I got my knee up and pushed him back. And the minute he backed up, I was out the door.

Carol told two journalist friends at the time of the attack what happened, both of whom were able to corroborate that to New York Magazine. I think we maybe stop right here and just say, after reading that piece, which is about far more than Donald Trump, what were your first impression? What did you make of it? Yeah, I was struck by just the framing of the entire piece. I thought that was, that really kind of drove home the message there. Just it opens basically suggesting that like this is a rich boy problem, that she had a lot of these throughout her life. And I think it spoke to a position of power and just like kind of that whole issue in in the country right now. But I think I was most struck by coming out of this just the fact that I didn't get to it right away.

the fact that it seems like there are so many of these happening. And specifically about Trump, there's a point in the story where it suggests that 15 other women, I believe, came forward with allegations about Trump. And then she goes on later in the piece to name them. And I guess it's on me as a reader, but I guess that there are just so many of these happening now. It just seems like it's become too routine. Yeah. and almost numbing in a way, it's like everything else with Trump.

It's like how could we collectively as a society, as a media, not take an allegation of sexual assault against the president of the United States, an extremely credible allegation by someone who is well known in this case and sort of just let it pass over us or let it be something other than a screaming

front page news headline, as we're about to find out, it was not reliably over the weekend. But this is where we are. I want to take the first part of what you said first, which is the framing of the piece. So she, Carol, sort of sets this in a number of times that she was assaulted,

sexually assaulted over the course of her life. Some of these go back to when she was a Girl Scout with older men, in college, in Indiana. And it does have the effect of making this seem like not a Donald Trump particular problem of society. but of something that is just endemic in society and that Donald Trump is one of many,

many alleged perpetrator, does it not? Yeah, and she is one of many women, perhaps, who just didn't feel comfortable coming forward, that she had built up this long history of these occurrences and just through the way these things are handled and the way people suggest to her to handle them, perhaps, she just didn't feel comfortable coming forward until this moment. Yeah, and it's a couple of reasons for that.

She kind of rhetorically asked, why didn't she speak up before now? And Carol writes, well, receiving death threats being driven from my home, being dismissed, being dragged through the mud, and joining the 15 women who've come forward with credible stories about how the man, that is Trump, grabbed, badgered, belittled, mauled, molested, and assaulted them only to see the man turn around and deny, threaten, and attack them never sounded like much fun. Speaking of which, speaking of denying and attacking them, here is Donald Trump's reaction to Carol's allegation. I have no idea who this woman is. This is a woman who's also accused other men of things, as you know. It is a totally false accusation. I think she was married, as I read, I have no idea who she is, but she was married to a actually nice guy, Johnson, a newscaster. Standing with my coat on in a line. Give me a break.

With my back to the camera. Justice, we're saying that is exactly what Carol wrote. That's exactly what she thought he would do. Trump said in his initial statement that he'd never met Carol, and what you hear there is him reacting to a reporter asking about a photo of them together that ran with the New York magazine excerpt. I mean, that's so striking to me because, with so many of these men who've been accused of various Me Too crimes, there is this, they've developed this kind of sneaky, smarmy response, which is when they say, I do not remember the specific incident, but I believe all, but all women should be believed. I'm so glad it came forward, which is a way of sort of not admitting anything, but, you know, kind of carefully, but saying what you think society demands that you say right now.

Trump actually did not do any of that. In fact, in his statement, you know, blame the Democrats, you know, asks her why there's no pictures or surveillance or video, encourages people to come forward if she's collaborating with the Democrats. So basically, he is working from the pre-Me to playbook of how to respond to something like this. And Carol suggests something like that in the piece as well, saying that this sort of situation only seems to, you know, further help Trump with his base, the people that support him for perhaps this is the type of thing that they can, they can kind of rally against. And I thought that was, that was pretty smart of her to kind of get ahead of these things. And as we're seeing, they're kind of playing out exactly as she perhaps predicted. And to her credit, like, this has happened so many times

before. So we have seen this pattern. It's just, it really underlines the fact that this has happened so many times that we're now, we're seeing the pattern. And at the same time, it's just, it doesn't seem like much is happening as a result. No, no, it doesn't. And also, I think part of the power of the piece is what she's accusing Trump of doing is exactly what he told Billy Bush way back when that he likes to do. Yeah. I mean, it's, we have the president on tape saying that he does this to people. And it's exactly what, uh, what he said to you. I think it's, um, It's funny. So you talk about a little bit of her discussion about why she didn't come back for it. There is that quote I just read about the way she feared she was going to be treated. She also talks about it being in a kind of generational thing. And it's interesting to me because this is one of the more, I think, subtle and complicated discussions about why somebody wouldn't come forward. And she talks about, one, the harassment and she's going to receive from people that support the president. She talks about generationally. She also on with Lawrence O'Donnell, she said something. something like, you know, there's all the, there are all these women like at the border and

immigrants who are being subjected to this all these awful sexual crimes. I'm okay. I'm a fortunate person. I can get through this in my life. And I don't, you know, those are the people that need help in this world, not me. You know, I can, I can buck up and get through it. And it's just, it's just such a fascinating discussion because it's so complicated. And it's, you know, the way people actually think, you know, as opposed to, you know, what those of us who have no idea what this is like try to figure out from the outside or try to speculate about, right? It's just how a person really goes through these things. Yeah, and I can't help wonder about the timing of it all and just, you know, just how it will ripple into some of the debates that are going to happen this week.

I think, like, the Democrats have kind of positioned themselves as being above this. And so in light of what's happened with Joe Biden in his recent comments and the fact that he played such a role, like prominent role in the need a Hill case. case. I do wonder how much this kind of colors our perception of that entire thing. I wonder if this idea of like good old Joe ultimately gets turned around on him. And I do wonder like if that is just really interesting to me. Yeah. Because it is, you know, he's obviously, it just, it just feels like there's a generational backdrop to this. Yeah. Men of a certain generation. Joe Biden's certainly not charged with anything like this. But yeah, I do hear that. Can we circle back to the idea of why this didn't really make a ripple.

Haley Miller over in Huffpo writes that the Sunday morning shows on there. The allegation went largely undiscussed on Sunday, clearing the path for getting another sexual assault allegation against the president to slip into the void of the major newspapers. Only the Washington Post put it on the front page. New York Times got a lot of flack for covering it essentially as a book's piece. Do you have a sense of why the media, collectively speaking, has been slow to cover the story?

That was perplexing. Perhaps it was just a matter of everything else going on in the country. There's the Iran thing going on right now. Yeah. There's a lot of news. Democrats are about to debate, but it just doesn't feel, I guess what Haley Miller's point in Huffpo was, you've got all these politicians on the Sunday shows. Yeah. The easiest thing to do when asking them about climate change, et cetera, et cetera, is to turn around and say, and by the way, this incredibly serious allegations made about the president of the United States.

What do you think? What do you say to this? Yeah, because somehow that just wasn't really done. Yeah, I even, it didn't really register for me until later in the week. I knew it existed, but it did take me to like time to sit down and read it. I don't know if that's just like a problem with my silo, my personal silo. I'd probably hear more about like Zion Williamson and like whether or not Cam Johnson was a good pick at number 11. But it does seem perplexing because there is so much specificity to her account.

and you would think given the timing of just all the election coverage or the you know the election coming up and all this other stuff that this would be play a more prominent role in everything cover of new york magazine specificity of the account corroboration of the account a well-known you know person in journalism who was on television she was on basically the precursor to msnbc when the alleged assault took place i don't have a great theory for it and it's funny because to me, Trump's Billy Bush comments, again, everybody gets skittish when these things happen. And everybody proceeds cautiously. And that's understandable, I guess, to an extent. But, you know, the president is on tape talking about this. This is not some, you know, this is not something that

we don't have experience with. And it just feels like, I don't know. I don't, I can't understand, you know, from the New York Times perspective. And I think we often overrate front page in this day and age, like who is reading the, you know, physical newspaper and people get their notes. But it really wasn't on the homepage New York Times for a long time. And he was even buried, uh, I read one to saying in the book section on digitally. And so you just sort of wonder, it's like, why isn't this a bigger deal? And I don't, I don't actually have a, I wish I had a great take on this, but I actually don't. No, I do think there is a sense that we're all numb to it, but that doesn't really alleviate the times is, uh, you know, they have to put this in a prominent position.

because this story matters. I'll leave us with this, uh, this, uh, appropriately, uh, somber note from Melissa Rosenberg in the Washington Post. Nothing will happen to hold Trump accountable for this, for his alleged treatment of women, not during his presidency and not after the reality distortion field that Trump admits and that his most ardent supporters have embraced provides him with a grant of immunity so powerful that it has come to seem irrevocable and impenetrable. Of course, I haven't wanted to say this out loud.

The only possible response is despair. And I think that captures it pretty well. All right, let us awkwardly transition to the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that is so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. I asked listeners to send nominee to at the press box pod, where they will be gratefully received.

Justin, as you well know, Thursday was the annual NBA draft. I always tell David, do we cover that here at the ringer? I don't really know. Just a little bit. Just minutes before the draft began, it was an overwork Twitter joke to write breaking sources tell me, that Zion Williamson will be selected by the Pelicans with the number one pick. Thanks to The Chet Lemon and Bill Simmons.

I love the sports dad joke because it's good every year. If the Pelicans start off 1 and 0, it'll see if the pelicans are on pace to go 82 and 0. 50 people will slide right into that. Yeah. It's just kind of like, I want to be talking about a sporting event. And I have like, it's like a look at my 1001 joke book jokes joke books. I used to have when I was like, what can I get out of here? Here we go.

Yeah. Well, you have to have something to say. You have to have something. Even if it is really boring. Elsewhere in the world of sports, an amazing report last week from ESPN's Jeff Bassan. The Tampa Bay Rays, he writes, received permission from Major League Baseball to explore a plan in which they would play home games in Tampa Bay and Montreal. First part of the season in Tampa, second half in Montreal. It was the initial overworked Twitter joke to write.

When they leave Tampa, they're going to call them the X-rays. Okay. I just had to get that out of our system. I like that one. It was a far superior, though. Justin overworked Twitter joke to write. The Chicago Bulls have received NBA's permission to explore becoming a two-league team, the NBA and the G-League. Thanks to DeWill, Kyle Madsen and Ken Barrett for that one.

And finally, from the Supreme Court this morning, just as we were coming to air, this is according to NBC, the streetware brand, fucked. That's F-U-C-T. Right. Having a little trouble with their trademark. They can now get a federal trademark protection as a result of a Supreme court ruling this morning. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write. Fucked. Yeah. Thanks to Kyle Polata for that one. All right, Dustin, over in the notebook

dump section of the podcast. I have a note here, Tucker Carlson may have saved us for more with Iran. This goes back to when an Iranian, the Iranian military shot down an American surveillance drone last week. Donald Trump was ready to retaliate. We were cocked and loaded, Trump tweeted, with jets reportedly in the air and on the way to Iran and then Trump suddenly and surprisingly told the military to stand down. Let's listen to the president and explain his thinking to NBC's Chuck Todd.

So they came and they said, sir, we're ready to go. We'd like a decision. I said, I want to know something before you go. How many people will be killed? In this case, Iranians. I said, how many people are going to be killed? Sir, I'd like to get back to you on that.

Great people, these generals. They said, came back, said, Sir, approximately 150. And I thought about it for a second. I said, you know what? They shot down an unmanned drone, plane, whatever you want to call it. And here we are sitting with 150 dead people that would have taken place probably within a half an hour after I said, go ahead.

And I didn't like it. I didn't think it was proportionate. The President of the United States saying drone, plane, or whatever you call it. Really gives me confidence. This is being handled with proper alacrity. Also, Trump's so obviously in that clip excited about being called sir by generals. Yeah. Can we argue that maybe that is the thing he loves most about the presidency?

Is it somebody in uniform walks up to him and calls him sir all the time? Yeah, that seems like the only reason why he's doing this job. Top top five. Anyway, that was Trump's explanation, but there's more to the story. A New York Times report by Peter Baker, Maggie Haberman, and Thomas Givens Nep says this, Tucker Carlson in recent days, that is Fox News, Tucker Carlson, had told Mr. Trump that responding to Tehran's provocations with force was crazy. The Hawks did not have the president's best interests at heart, Carlson said. And if Mr. Trump got into a war with Iran, he could kiss his chances of re-election goodbye.

So noted foreign policy advisor Tucker Carlson in Trump's ear, waving him off a possible retaliation, a retaliatory strike against Iran. Are you just incapable of feeling gratitude toward Tucker Carlson? I'm seeing heavy Linda Rambis vibes from Tucker Carlson right now. You may need to explain that reference. I'm laughing. So Jeannie Bus is now the principal owner of the Los Angeles Lakers. And according to multiple reports, it seems that Linda Rambus, the wife of Kurt Rambis, is a good friend of Jeannie Bus and she constantly gives her advice to the point where it almost seems like she,

she, Jeannie goes to Linda for some of her key decisions. She is the backseat owner, essentially. Right. Of the Los Angeles Lakers and the way that Tucker is with the presidency. So I don't know if that's a compliment to Tucker's advice or not, but I think the end of this comment from the Times is what struck me the most that he could kiss his chances of re-election goodbye. Uh-huh.

So on the one hand, Carlson clearly knows Trump and is appealing to his ego, which is what you want to do in these sort of situations if you want to get your advice across. on the other hand, isn't this just a way for Carlson to secure his own job? Because if he has the president's ear, then it's better if he gets reelected. Now, that's true, right? So I don't know if I necessarily can get past the fact that this just seems like an ego play from Carlson, let alone just everything else that's going on. Yeah. And if Trump's defeated next year, you know, Trump could take Carlson's time slot. That's probably on Fox News, right? That's probably another worry. But no, I think that's right. I mean,

It is interesting just how this is, this is an old news with Trump, but how messy he made Republican Party dogma. You know, Trump essentially ran for president by saying no more Middle East wars like the ones that George W. Bush did. And now he's, you know, he is in, though, a Republican party and in even a White House when it comes to people like John Bolton that still feels those good old fashioned neocon vibes. Yeah. still feels like, you know, we must be tough. And in fact, if you read that Times piece, like every other voice in his ear from Bolton to Mike Pompeo was saying, you've got to do this. You've got to look tough.

And then when he backed off, he was criticized by people like Liz Cheney and other people in the party for being just like Obama, you know, for standing down when you're when you're pushed by Iran. And even it's like that sort of variance of policy positions even extends to Fox News. So the Times continues after Mr. Trump called off the strike, he made. have turned to Fox News and seen Carlson saying that the president should be rewarded for his skepticism. But at 9 p.m. that night, Sean Hannity was saying Trump may have, quote, no choice but to, quote, bomb the hell out of them, the Iranian. So I guess before we get too excited about Tucker Carlson steering the president away from a confrontation with Iran, we should wonder what happens when the president starts listening to a different Fox host?

What if Sean Hannity happened to call that night? Yeah, or when he tunes into a different hour of Fox News, than he normally does. Yeah. What if Judge Janine got through to the White House that night? Were we have a problem there? Well, I thought it was interesting that I believe this was in the Times report that it wasn't even a general who ultimately suggested that the 150 or came up with the estimate of 150. It was just a lawyer within the room. So it does seem like he was just looking for anybody

to tell him what he perhaps wanted to hear. It was a lawyer, I believe, at the Defense Department who may have worked around the Secretary of Defense Mike Pompeo. It was also unclear if that. 150 person dead estimate was hitting that the facilities that were going to hit in daylight hours or at the middle of the night before dawn when they were actually striking it. I mean, this is like, that story was just like, if you just want to say, you know, dad, what is the fog of war? Hand him that piece.

Yeah. And the chaos involved in that decision making also said that, you know, Trump was relying on the advice of Lindsey Graham, who was, of course, pro retaliatory strike. and Lindsey Graham happened to be on an airplane and unreachable when the mission was actually go. Right. So that's what this came down to. Like we couldn't get through to Lindsey Graham.

He just was on a, I'm sorry, I was on a flight. That's like the excuse I get my editor. I'm going to be on a plane all day. Sorry, just seeing this. Can't get Wi-Fi on this plane. Yeah. That's what protected us in this situation. Just seeing your email.

But that is literally the level of foreign policy decision making. That is terrifying. in NBA Free Agency news, which Justin has been up to his eyeballs in, Free agency officially begins in basketball 6 p.m. on June 30th, but of course, in order to begin, it would have to actually end ever at some point, and it never ends anymore.

Nope. What I wanted this one, I would talk to you about, you cover the New Orleans Pelicans for ESPN. You were a beat writer, beat man in the trenches. Yeah. We live in a world where 99% of these scoops now,

both in free agency and I think just day-to-day stuff. too are broken by national insiders like Adrian Morrowski over at ESPN and Sham Shorani at the Athletic and various lesser lights, shall we say. I was wondering this. What is it like to be a beat writer trying

to break news, trying to stay on top of your team when all these scoops are coming from the national level? It's a lot of waiting. You're waiting just like everybody else in order. You're waiting on Woj just like basketball fans are? Yeah, I think a lot of beatwriters, if they're

worth their weight and salt, they'll know what is happening, but they won't be able to get it across the goal line for it to rise to the level of a newser. Because there is a lot that goes into being able to say something definitively to write, this is happening at this time. And it does seem like a lot of these newsbreakers, their world revolves around making sure that they're the one to be first. So I would say a lot of reporters know what team's free agent plans look like, perhaps even know the players that they're targeting. But when it comes down to we have signed this agreement, they might not be the first person to get that text. Or you might, if you were the writer, you might have to follow up once the Woj tweet has been out. And then

your source will tell you, yes. Oh, that's what we're doing. But it's like that has to happen first. Yeah. And then everybody else can pile on. Yeah. Now that we've gone through the formality of the National Insider breaking it, then now everyone is free to confirm. firm or report on the news. Right, which is why you perhaps see a lot of local sports coverage leaning more toward explaining the team's thinking, because if they're not going to be first, if you're not going to break the news, the only real advantage you have and the only thing you could offer to the world at large, let alone perhaps the local fans is what the team was thinking. And so it leads to perhaps a little more team-centric homerism if you want to

really be pessimistic about it. But that's really the only advantage you have. And I think there is something to that to know that when the team was going out there to sign this specific player because we think they'll do X. But again, it's just, it becomes a little dice here. You really are only left with a few things to go with. Sure. I mean, there's two things there. One is it, you know, as insiders evolve toward like pure information instead of like become kind of post text. They evolve toward like one sentence.

So there's a lot of explanatory journalism there that's left to do. you know, that just beyond sources blank, this is about to happen. There is a how did this happen? How did this come to the fore kind of thing? And perhaps that's why podcasts in sports are such a big deal? Because I can go on a podcast and explain around what teams are thinking, but I don't necessarily have to say this is happening at this time. Yeah, that makes sense.

I guess, and the other thing is funny, when you talk about explaining what the team is doing, because whenever I have my, you know, four or five beat writers in Dallas, the ones I get mad at are the ones that. that evolve into, let me tell you what the general manager was thinking. And the general manager could have screwed up like nine times in a row. But they seem to then exist on like explanatory island. And I'm like, but you can also say this sucks. Like you can also say the general manager is just fucking up over and over again.

Yeah. But it does get into, let me tell you what he was thinking. It's inevitably a heat, right? Let me tell you what he was thinking here. Yeah. And you don't have the advantage of a national guy being able to pop in and out of a situation. They really don't feel the repercussions. Let's say if you are a national reporter doing kind of expose writing, enterprise writing,

and you wanted to uncover something about it. Well, the beat writer is more of a long-term situation. You got to take the broad view. It's the long play. If you piss Kyrie Irving off on day one, then you're not getting anything from Kyrie Irving, perhaps the entire season. It's just as weird as it is to say, it is kind of a dance. It's more of a political situation than I think people realize.

Schumerick and I were talking about this last week, but do you have thoughts on the now they tell us piece? This is what happens when you have a free agent. He leaves a team like the Pelicans. And all of a sudden, the Pelicans writer, and I'm just saying this. I'm not talking about any Pelicans writer. But then the Pelicans writer just unloads all the bad things about that person in a piece the moment that guy is no longer in his locker room. I have sympathy for that writer. I like you, I'm a little frustrated, especially now that I'm not in the trenches.

When those come out, it does seem like these things are out there, but it takes someone to step forward and say them. On the other hand, so let's gameplay out kind of the Kyrie Irving situation. This is the one that we're kind of waiting for now, right? Kyrie Irving, inevitably, we think, leaving the Boston Celtics. Yeah, and that, like, he was just kind of a jerk or just didn't get along with certain people would say weird things. And we heard dribbles of information and things suggesting that. And he outright would often tell the media. I was going to say.

Impressers. He is telling us this. Yeah, right. But so if a beat writer was going to write that during the season, like, what's the headline on that story? Kyrie Irving, colon, jerk? It's just a little bit tougher to write it then when there's not something, perhaps, to, like, to get into, like a takeaway from Kyrie Irving's behavior, which in this case, if he leaves, is that he didn't get along with him, and thus he is leaving.

Yeah. I mean, couldn't you write there in the middle of the season, this is how much of a disruptive force Kyrie Irving is in the Celtics locker room. Yeah. That seems like a legit piece in, you know, March. Yes. But then again, like, how much do you need Kyrie Irving in your life as a reporter? Yeah.

It's true. I mean, and that's, that is, I mean, at some level, that is the base calculation for a lot of these pieces, right? I mean, I was, I was talking to Dave and I said, I think the one thing, those of us who don't have to make these kind of decisions on a daily basis, underrate is that a lot of this stuff comes out when the person leaves. because the GM or the assistant GM or the assistant coach might get a little more chatty. So now that we don't have to worry about this, I can tell you this. Because if I told you this three weeks ago, he would know exactly where this came from. He could get mad at front office or the coaching staff, which would be a bad thing to happen during the season. But now that he's gone, stuff does shake loose a little bit.

It's not all profiles and courage, you know. Right, right. It's like some of its information too. Well, Danny Aynage today had a press conference kind of introducing their rookies. And he said something to this effect that it's just better sometimes to have a happy work environment. And he made it very clear that that was a reference to Kyrie Irving. Yeah, of Kyrie Irving. I got more sports writing news that I want to lay on you.

This is from the department of, so you want to be a sports writer kid? First, last week, the New York Knicks, whose owner James Dolan is seemingly just getting acquainted with how New York tabloids work, didn't invite the daily news to the press conference introducing the next first round pick R.J. Barrett, sports writer Adam Zagoria tweets, every other NYC outlet covering the team was invited. Dot, dot, dot. Dolan doesn't like the coverage of the Daily News and has effectively banned them from covering the team. First of all, is there any ritual in the NBA less dangerous than bringing a reporter to your number one draft picks introductory news conference? Right. Oh, we don't let those troublemakers in here where the draft pick's going to sit up there and say, I'm just,

just happy to join the team, just want to meet my teammates. So excited about learning. I just want to learn. Yeah, the Knicks have a real skill at throwing away any potential goodwill that they can foster. I mean, just, yeah, it just seems like, it just seems like that is like the baseline. And again, if you're trying to make a statement to the daily news, I guess statement delivered. But just the baseline harmless media availability is a draft picks opening press conference. There's nothing of good news coming out of this.

The daily news might not even get a question in. They could just not call them. Right. Right. And even if they did, what are they going to ask? Right. Are you concerned about playing for James Dolan? Right.

No one's going to ask that. It's just such a small thing that could have been avoided. And yet here we are talking about it. I talk about this with Shoemaker all the time. And this is kind of, after being in England, this is kind of my nightmare scenario. But it's like, what happens if the Knicks just start being like this with everybody. Or what if other teams say, it's not just the daily news, you know what? We just don't really care about newspapers at all. And we're just going to be dicks about this to everybody.

And we're not going to help you in any way. We'll do whatever minimum, you know, requirement we have with the, you know, the NBA requires us to do. But even then the next time we make these rules or negotiate a labor contract, we may even restrict access more because it just doesn't matter. Yeah, and as a consumer, I'm not out there looking for those banal quotes from R.J. Barrett about how much he loves Madison Square Garden and how he just loves the bright lights and the big stage and all this other stuff. I think for these days, we turn to beat reporters and insiders to tell us kind of the behind the scene stuff, the stuff outside of the press conferences, because we could just get that from the team's live stream. Sure. But it takes a beat reporter time an entire season in order to get those news dribbles that we so crave. And so there's this weird dance where we don't really need the first part, but it's necessary for the second part. Absolutely.

And showing up, you know, and asking RJA questions that you can talk to them in the locker room later that year, right? This is how you build relationships and get information and be around, you know, team officials. and so you can call them a player when you're, you know, out of the glare. I just like what happened with this with the daily news is a bunch of sports writers got mad on Twitter. Howard Beck tweeted about it. Josh Robbins sent a sternly worded letter from the pro basketball writers association. But all that is worthy and I'm and I'm happy, you know, as a media person that that happens. But at the same time when I see that, I'm like, oh, we're totally powerless. You know, when, let's not even say if, when this continued

used to happen, we're just going to send a sternly worded email to Adam Silver or to Dolan or to the Knicks and say, as sports writers, this will not stand. We demand this access for all of all reporters. Well, who cares? What's that going to do? Right. Yeah. What is that going to do? Who is going to be convinced by that? Yeah. If I was, if I was still a beat writer, I would probably be up in arms just like the rest of them. But to a certain extent, you really can't stop. I don't want to say progress because this doesn't feel like progress to me, but you just can't stop momentum when it comes to like, there's

so many other mediums for these guys to get their message out that they could just circumvent the entire thing. And so we're left in a situation where these sternly rewarded things are great to see and it's good to see reporters sticking together. But I just I'm not sure what will

end up happening here in order to make a difference. Elsewhere in media hell, let me take you to yesterday's Matt's Cubs game. at Wrigley Field. After the Mets lost, manager Mickey Calloway got a bunch of questions about his bullpen usage. And according to Newsday reporter Tim Healy, who was there, Mickey came out of the office dressed and I thought he was leaving for the day. So I said, see you tomorrow, Mickey, Healy said. And then Calloway responds, don't be a smart ass. So right off the bat, if you're a

manager that's threatened by a reporter saying, I'll see you tomorrow, you're probably worried about being around tomorrow. Tomorrow is probably a dangerous, concept for you. Mickey Calloway could be fired at any point. So I'm sure this is Ed. Calloway later, uh, then curses out Healy,

uh, mocked his see you tomorrow bit, uh, and says, get this motherfucker out of here. He'll be there tomorrow, uh, to the team's PR staff.

Then Metz pitcher Jason Vargas got involved, according to the daily news. He tells Healy, I'll knock you the fuck out, bro. Oh. Yeah. So, uh,

so that was amazing. Uh, Dave Lozo, uh, tweeted, I'm surprised by the anger. You think the Mets would be used to not being able to get people out. I enjoyed that. In the Wall Street Journal's Jared Diamond just tweeted, I missed the Mets beat. Yeah. That kind of thing is not totally uncommon in a locker room. No. I think it's always magnified, though, when you have a struggling team and a manager who nobody thinks should be the

manager. It's just dead to rights, right? Because then it becomes something bigger than just you're mad at the reporter. It becomes this is like your death. rattle. This is you saying, oh my God, I'm, I'm, uh, and maybe it is even an excuse to fire. It really can be. Yeah. Or just a moment, right? Like, we're going to fire this guy anyway, so why don't we just do it now? Yeah, it seems like he was just venting a little bit, but it also, like, I mean, this is now the story, not necessarily, like, his job status or something like that. Yeah. So we're all talking about this rather than like his, his, his ex, ecumen at his job. I don't know. It's just interesting how this has become more of a story. On the one hand, it's great to see, like, how poorly beat writers are treated at a certain point. But, like, I just think back to Russell Westbrook and how this becomes kind of a circus unto itself. I don't know how I feel about that.

Yes. And I also think they're mistreated at a lot of different places. And when we have easy punching bags like the Knicks and the Mets, it really becomes more, it somehow is more of the story there. Like, what if we went and talked to people who cover the Patriots? You know, are they on balance? They're probably on balance treated better than people to cover the Knicks. But, you know, the team's winning. Right. And it's a beat people actually want to be on. Right. And it's a team that, you know, people who like NFL team building actually respect.

So is it a smaller thing or, you know, even when the thunder were going well, right? It was kind of a smallish story because the thunder were good. Oh, well, you know, just he's going to yell each other. Russell will yell and then we'll just move on. So I think that probably has something to do with it. We probably pile on the bad team. when they mistreat the reporters? Yeah, and I also wonder if this is just a product of like how often there are cameras and

and people in locker rooms and all that stuff. Like the podium is really where this kind of started because we were kind of shown how sometimes the athletes would just bark back at the reporters. And it almost became almost like watching a dunk video where the where the athlete would just be dunking on the reporters and everyone would be like, oh, this is great, you know. I hated that period of media life. And this just seems like a continuation of it. And it didn't matter what the reporter said.

Yeah, no. It didn't matter if the reporter asked them the most banal question. Everybody, that was when the media weirdly became too pro player. If you ask me, like, as a sports writer, are you interested in players are you interested in owners? Well, of course, I'm going to pick players. But it was almost like the media became pro player at the expense of being pro media. And it didn't matter what you asked. It was just like, ha, ha, look at the reporter getting clowned by popular.

basketball player. And I was like, no, no, my sympathy is most of the time, I would say, with the reporter. Right. Because that's actually really embarrassing. And the power dynamic there is so tilted against the reporter to begin with the moment he walks into the locker room that, you know, that just, that was weird. Yeah. And I circle back to the next discussion because even though this is, it's sad to see that

what they're doing in the daily news, like is Kevin Durant, a potential free agent who might join them this summer going to care about that? Yeah. And ultimately that's all the media, Kevin Durant. Exactly. He spent what weeks not talking to the media and kind of barked back at, I believe, Ethan Strauss at a certain point. Yes. So I don't know. If their only concern is to get superstars into their doors and to show them like, you know, you come play with us, does this really matter to them? And if fans are going to flock to the Knicks regardless, as they have over the past couple seasons. Absolutely.

Absolutely. How much is that ultimately going to matter? Obviously, they don't care. Nope. I mean, obviously they don't care. I mean, anybody who's dealt with that organization on the media level knows they don't care. Yeah. At a certain level, right? It's just like, I'm sure there's a minimum amount of level they care, I should say.

But, you know, when you're banning a large publication essentially, effectively banning them from covering the team, you know, you're sending a message right there. Just I'm going to steal this bit from Politico's Jack Schaefer. But I am internally entertained by the misuse of the. word exclusive when it comes to interviews. Yes. An exclusive interview. So follow along with me. An example from this week.

Chuck Todd interviewed Trump for a Meet the Press interview that ran on Sunday. The Meet the Press Twitter account said it was an exclusive interview, okay, an exclusive with the president. Would you believe that three days before his exclusive Meet the press interview aired, the network Telemundo aired an interview with Donald Trump? And would you believe that Telemundo also build their interview as an exclusive? It was an exclusive? Exclusivo.

So Trump was exclusively on Meet the Press Sunday before he was exclusively on Telemundo on Thursday. Okay. The day before that, Trump talked to Sean Hannity exclusively as Fox News play. We got three. Two days before the Hannity interviewed Trump sat in the Oval Office and talked to a group of journalists from Time magazine. Time billed the various comments as exclusives. A day before Time talked to the president, ABC aired with it. described as an exclusive interview with Trump that had been conducted the previous week by

George Stephanopoulos. And, and when the ABC clips started circulating that week, you know, now we sort of dribble out clips of the presidential interview. Trump went on Fox and Friends kind of as an effort on pre-clean up before the ABC interviewed air. And Fox and Friends, at least the Fox News website, also build that interview as an exclusive. So Trump was responding to an interview. Yeah. It was an exclusive by exclusively appearing somewhere else. Right. Now, so the president has talked six times in the last two weeks. And if you talk, if somebody gives six interviews, the leader of the free world gives six interviews in two weeks, how can any of those interviews be called exclusives? Yeah. Yeah. This reminds me, so as an editor, you see a lot of told me, which is kind of like the

high-minded sources say. Yeah. And a lot of times it comes in as a profile where you clearly, like, have a one-on-one situation with the person. And my note is always, well, who else would they be telling? It's so obvious that you don't need to say it. And this seems like a pretty similar situation where it's a way to signal that you have someone one-on-one.

Yes. But nothing else. Told ESPN. Yeah. Was the ESPN version, I remember for years. I guess they still do that probably. It's trickling down to sometimes when it's used improperly when you have one person in a locker room. Perhaps there just aren't other reporters talking to him at that time and you go with the told me.

It's going a little too far. Whenever I see the E word, I just immediately assume that the journalist doesn't have shit. Because if your material was so good, why would you care? You wouldn't be flaunting, you know, the fact that in his first interview in months, if the material great, you'd probably just let the material speak for itself. But when I see that word, and by the way, Trump has an interview with Tucker Carlson, our friend Tucker Carlson, noted Dove scheduled ahead of the G20. Yeah. So we are now yet another exclusive inevitably on the horizon.

Justin, this comes from the Department of Bad Reviews. When you see a truly bad book or movie or play, a total stinker, do you ever take perverse pleasure in just reading the bad reviews? Always. You do. Only read the bad ones. And not because you're rooting against it, right? There's just something kind of wonderful about seeing everybody struggle to say something is terrible in a different way. As we covered at the top, I do love human sadness.

You do love human sadness. Well, this is the department for you because I want to direct you to the reviews of the new David Mamet play Bitter Wheat. It just opened in London. It stars John Malkovich. It's about me too. We're already an extremely problematic territory here. David Mamet plus me too plus John Malcovic. Probably not going to turn out great.

I read the bad reviews and harvested some quotes that will not be appearing on the poster. These are anti-blurbs. Okay. Just a collection of anti-blurbs. These are all real, by the way. David Mamet has written some of the best and most provocative plays of the 20th century. And then he's written bitter wheat. That's from what's on stage.

Here's another one. After the intermission, the play loses what scant energy had had, the New York Times. another one lurches from set piece to set piece it feels like a first draft London times another one at least puts it at least put a teeny bit of effort into any of the characters the stage another one an evening is too precious to give up watching this the guardian this is one of my favorites from timeout really what is the point why stage this to the point and finally as flaccid as a deflated balloon a half-assed amalgamation of attempted sexual assault regurgitated from reports and rumors served up as a sloppy second-rate farce,

altogether unconscionable. Whoa. Variety. It's like an old woge column. It really is. Like when LeBron did something? Yeah. No, totally.

It's always bad when you have a couple of reviews that use a word flaccid. Like one flaccid is bad enough. Yeah, unless it's like a teen comedy, like that's not what you want to see in your review. Now, does it perversely, when you have 100% negative reviews does it perversely want to make you see the thing more? Oh yeah. You kind of want to hop on a plane right now, the two of us, and go see bitter wheat. Sure. I mean, it's the backlash to the backlash, right?

Someone's going to find the beauty in this play and write about how great it is. Yeah, because if it had like 65% on rotten tomatoes, you'd be like, hey, probably a waste of my time. Not good enough or bad enough. But if it's like 12% on rotten tomatoes, you sort of get a little bit interested, don't you? It's like the NBA situation. It's like you don't want to be caught in the middle. If you're going to be bad, be really bad. I remember going with a friend of the Boy George's taboo.

I don't know if you remember that Broadway show. I do not. Stard Boy George, but not as Boy George. Someone else played Boy George. And Boy George was another role, which I forget. I just remember sitting in the balcony for that. And it was a glorious one of my favorite moments. I got some Australian audio for you.

Oh, yeah. I love the Australian media. You might say that some of my best friends are Australian media members. Okay. They really are. And one of them, Russell Jackson forwarded this bit of audio. it is a Channel 7 sports personality named Brian Taylor. He's a former Australian rules football player who does this bit called Roaming

Brian where he goes into a locker room after game and ambushes. He's the Tony Sergusa of Australia. In this clip, this is after game. He runs into Vince Regari of the Sydney Morning Herald and does not realize that Regari is a journalist. He's just going around just trying to ambush people. he just walks up to a reporter. Let's listen. You're trying to avoid me. What are you doing here, sir?

Just my job, mate. Do you work for Sydney? No, no. What do you do? Oh, you're a journo. Oh, what's your name? Vince Rigari. What are you going to write about, Vince? What's the story out of this game? Lange Franklin, I would have thought.

Yeah, absolutely. Second hamstring. Gee, that'd be another four or five weeks, wouldn't I? I'm not a doctor, mate, but you're probably right. I'm very keeping it to himself. He's story. So he's asking for an injury update, and Rigari says, I'm not a doctor, mate. one of the players. What a great moment. Imagine if a TV crew was just barging around in your locker room when you were a B-writer.

And just like, who are you? What are you doing here? I'm like, well, covering the game. Yeah. Maybe it would have made things a little bit better, actually. You may need to bring that to America. Then this one, Jordan Koster, who's a TV journalist in Queensland, Australia, tweeted this. A police press conference was cut short on the Sunshine Coast when a senior detective

have tackled a man who allegedly made inappropriate comments to a teenage girl and was running away from her angry father. Okay, it's a lot to digest it. I just want to set this up. The police are giving a press conference about something else. In a separate incident that happens to be behind them, a man has allegedly made inappropriate comments. Uh-huh. The man is running away from an angry father. And the police turn around and see this happening and say, let's hold the news conference here.

And let's go do some police work. Just listen to the sound. It'll be kind of baffling, but we'll put it on the press box Twitter. I'm not 100% on that. You're going to get murdered. Run, right? Run! He's been inappropriate to my daughter just up here.

Yes, you were, mate. You're going to get you. Why? I mean, nothing. You didn't suck. I'm, mate. Coppers are coming. Coppers are coming.

Come back. I said nothing to her. I said nothing to her. Nothing. No. I just came out from the court. Happy, Catherine. I just, I said the girl.

Ah. Help me. Help me. Help me. It's hurting me. All right. That was the alleged perp crying out in agony. there. It's like you were being inappropriate

with my daughter. No, I wasn't. Yes, you were, mate. I also enjoyed the phrase copper which we often don't hear. What great sound that is for like the local broadcast that night. It was just amazing. You're like interviewing the police about an alleged crime and then an alleged crime happens in the background. I guess it's for tutus. You don't have to go far to do your job.

Two pieces and one. Yeah, absolutely. Can you file a sidebar to the boring police press conference? Right. All right. Time for a very special part of the press And this is actually one of the reasons you wanted to be on. Yeah. Let's be honest.

It is Justin Varyer guesses the strain pun headline. And Justin, we've got a headline from the Wall Street Journal via listener Jeremy Rapunich. The story is about the New York City Council deciding whether or not to ban foie gras, okay? Flawgraw, of course, is made from duck or goose liver, usually through a pretty gruesome process called force feeding, which I read about last night on the PETA website. I didn't eat foie gras before, and I'm not going to.

to now. Yeah. Pretty yucky. But what, uh, what is the Wall Street Journal's strain pun headline? Let me give you a little bit of the headline style here. The New York City Council is considering banning foie gras.

They are taking a look at banning foie gras. Hmm. So does it have something to do with force feeding? It does not. It does not. Uh, you're going to want to go into the, uh,

bird pun category here. Flew the coop on foie gras. Yeah, but just again, just stick with the style I'm giving you. They are taking a look. They are considering banning foie gras. They are seeking to duck. Oh, okay. No, we're moving generally in the right direction here.

Oh, man, I was so excited for this, but I'm really hunting. Yeah, I know it's tough. David, it's tough. David would be the first to tell you. New appreciation for Dave. Let me give you a kind of a mad lips version here. New York has a blank at banning foie gras. Sounds like the old match game.

New York City has a blank at banning foie gras. I'm trying. When we look at something, I am. I'm looking it over there. I'm looking at it in a kind of duck word kind of way. Having a gu. I'm sorry. New York City has a gander.

and banning foie gras. I should have gotten that. Oh, man. Suggesting you're O for one. Here's the good news. You're tied with David Shoemaker. Now, he's 48 ahead of you in the lost column. Yeah.

Which you have to see. You're tied for first place or last place. And they strain pan hell. I know, it's tough. It doesn't seem tough. I get him next time. He is Justin Verger. I'm Brian Curtis.

Producer is Jim Cunningham. Research from Chris Almeda. David and I are back for a very special press box Wednesday night after the Democratic debate. Then again on Thursday after the second half of the double header, more lukewarm media takes then. Aloha. David Shoemaker is on assignment. David, don't be a smartass.

I'll knock you the fuck out, bro. Oh. Get this motherfucker out of here. Whoa. So, David Shoemaker is on assignment today. I guess it's for two days. Fucked, yeah. Do you have a sense of why David Shoemaker is on assignment today? What's that going to do? Really, what is the point? Why stage this?

I do love human sadness. This is the department for you. Pretty yucky. And, and, breaking David Shoemaker doesn't have shit. That, that was weird.