The Press Box - ESPN’s Big Gamble With James Andrew Miller, Plus a Raid in Kansas, and a New ‘Countdown’ Cast

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

Bryan and David hit on the newly announced NBA ‘Countdown’ lineup and discuss its new potential format, before author James Andrew Miller joins the show to unpack the state of ESPN and how things could unfold after the Penn Entertainment deal (9:45). Later, they discuss the Hollywood Reporter’s recent incident involving an awards pundit asking for special privileges (27:07), then touch on a Kansas newsroom being raided by the police (35:27). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Guest: James Andrew Miller Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Football is around the corner and we are ramping it up over here on the Ringer NFL feed in the month of August. Every week, Ben Solac and I will be bringing you not one but two extra point takens. That's right, double the trouble as we predict, debate and analyze our way through camp and the preseason every Monday and Friday. But that is not all. Stephen Ruiz and I will be coming to you every Wednesday. We'll talk about everything in the world of the NFL. And who knows, maybe Stephen will even have something nice to say about your favorite squad. Though frankly, I wouldn't count on it.

Subscribe to the Ringer NFL show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. And be sure to follow the Ringer NFL on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter at Ringer NFL. David? Yes. Are you sitting down? Yeah, always, almost, yeah. Okay, good, because I want to make sure you're sitting down for some news from the sports media world. Ooh.

There is a new cast of NBA countdown. Oh. Oh. Oh, yeah. Like the first Robin of spring, only it's in the late summer. ESPN is once again changing the cast of its embattled NBA pregame show. Embattled, all right. Do you know what the mandatory word is you use in a press release when you change the cast of a pregame show?

Like the positive spin? Yeah. What was it? Like new look? fresh voices, a new excitement, bringing new levels of excitement to the product, fan engagement. I don't know. What is it?

All that is correct. But in this case, ESPN is reimagining. Oh, how did I miss that? It's not like we got rid of some people and we brought some other people on. We're reimagining the whole thing. So change number one, there is no more Greenie. ESPN has decided there's a new rule that you can only be on the air 23 hours a day. Greenie needed a blow, so he's being replaced by Malika Andrews.

Okay. And here's a stat I got from Sports Media Watch. Malika Andrews is the sixth host that NBA countdown has had in the last eight years. Oh, wow. If you need to know what kind of changes have been wrought on that program. Just the host. I mean, we're not talking about all the other chairs. No, just the center square here.

The point guard, yes, the center square, the John Davidson character, if we're doing Hollywood squares here. Six different hosts in eight years. The show is also adding Bob Myers, former Warriors president and GM. Mm-hmm. And Stephen A and Michael Wilbon will be returning. Okay. So just for a little side by side here, ESPN has changed the cast of NBA countdown 9,000 times. And in that same span, Turner's inside the NBA has added Shaquilin.

One of those shows is a wild success. It's called the best studio show in television and the other is NBA countdown. Yeah. I was thinking about this today as they rejigger yet another time. Reimagined. right reimagined, excuse me,

got the verb there wrong. What do you need in this day and age for a studio show to be, I don't even good's the right word,

watchable, something you want to have on? Yeah. You need somebody with authority, I think, somebody whose opinion you care about

20% more than you care about people talking on Twitter. Yes. You can get a million of chance. Ideally, yes. Go on. And then I think there's some element of just surprise.

Like, I'm going to turn this on. It's going to be something other than a former NFL player staring into the camera and delivering rehearsed talking points. Do you mean the pick is a surprise or the takes are a surprise? Just saying something that's a surprise or like busting of chops with somebody else on the set that's a surprise and that's funny. Mm-hmm. You know, I don't think danger might be.

be the wrong word for sports studio show, but just something that feels like this wasn't scripted. Yeah. And this has some feeling of real life. Well, you know, for better or worse, that's what we, we talked about that a lot. We were talking about Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy in the booth. And obviously, you know, they've just announced that they're, that JJ Redick and Richard Jefferson are going to both going to be sharing booth space as a lead announced team on, on, on ESPN, which I think there will be some,

some, uh, some level of chop busting going on, uh, in that booth. And that was, I'm sure, part of the allure. Um, yeah, no, I, I, danger is not the right word, but it is. It's the sort of electricity that is adjacent to danger, you know, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, the, that, the, that, the, that, this lineup. And again, we're, you know, very inside here. But is, you know, I mean, I'm sure everybody or most people listening to this, listen to Stephen A. Smith on on our boss Bill Simmons

podcast. And he was echoing the thing that you hear from Bill and from a million other people who are involved as watchers of the show, which is they don't have enough time to talk, right? And that, and who knows if they'll be reimagining the runtime of the show or the, you know, the amount of time they have to talk about. I have, I can't imagine that's in the cards or that wouldn't have, or that would have been the top line above all the, the new reimagined talent. So, you know, that's, that to me is, is sort of shocking. But what else do you think they need besides just the, the informed opinions and the, and the electricity, the dangerous electricity?

So we got, no, but we got three things there. We got authority. We've got uncertainty, suspense, something, something sort of you're not expecting to see. And then the third thing, which you put your finger on, which is something that approximates normal human conversation. Yeah. Rather than the talking point layup line. Yeah. That characterizes show.

Remember, last year's version of Countdown for those scoring at home was much better in the actual conversation doing part than the previous version, where people were talking for like 4.9 seconds and then would stop and the next person would talk. and then they just go to a commercial. Right. It would never have any kind of conversation. So I think if you get those three elements, you've got something, but it's hard. I think, you know, unstructured conversation is hard because one, you're relying on your talent to make that happen

and make that compelling. Two, you're probably sacrificing ad time. That's why ESPNs is so, you know, been so bad is because they just don't, they're not willing to say, hey, here's some runway. They're like, say something and we got to get to a commercial. Yeah. Right. We're selling ads here.

We need to make our, we need to make our money here rather than let you guys have some runway. Mm-hmm. I think the other part of this is the Stephen A part coming back, because I think I used this metaphor I knew before. With Stephen A last year, the show was better. It was way better than the year, the previous year. But it really was James Hardin and the Rockets. Stephen A's like got the ball and then everybody else is doing the TV equivalent

of waiting in the corner to see if they can shoot a three you could just see it on the set everybody's looking over there and it's like do I should I talk now should I jump in here or are we just letting him go and to me you can replace all the other cast members and you basically still have the same format which is that Stephen A's show and everybody's looking over there going what do I do here?

Yeah. Am I going to get in an argument with him like on first take? Or am I just going to be like, okay, I'm going to let him do his thing and then I'll jump in here for a few seconds after he's done. Yeah, I mean, it's a dicey your proposition on this show that is on first take because there's not the built-in response, right? I mean, you can go at Stephen A. Smith and kind of say, well, I'm just playing the game on first take, you know, and because they'll have time to make his, to defend himself. but not potentially on this show. I don't know, man. It'll be interesting.

I mean, I like everybody they have lined up. I mean, Bob Myers is a little bit of a question mark, but people seem to think he's going to do fine. I don't know. I don't know. What is, I mean, talking about the runway, I mean, is there any reason to think that they're going to get any? Well, you know what they say in television,

the 94th time is the charm. nervous laughter from David coming up on today's pod bestselling author james andrew miller joins us to discuss ESPN's big gambling deal why did they do it now and what does it tell us about the state of the company plus the Hollywood reporter incident cops versus a free press in kansas the old golfers still got it the gentle art of obit sweetening and some news from denmark all of that and much more on the press box of the Ringer podcast network. Hello, media consumers. Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker and producer Erica Servantas here.

David will be back in one sec. But first, let's bring on James Andrew Miller. Jim is the guy who wrote the book on ESPN and CAA and HBO. He has great perspective on ESPN past and present. He's the guy I always look forward to talking about this stuff with. And this time, there's a lot of stuff. Jim, welcome to the press box. Thanks for having me.

All right. So last week, ESPN announced a 10-year, $2 billion deal with Penn Entertainment. Penn is going to rebrand their betting app as ESPN bet. What was your reaction when you saw that news? I thought immediately back to 2019 when Bob Eiger said they really weren't interested in gambling. That's an easy place to go to because it seemed so certain. and it just shows how quickly this ESPN story is moving. It's moving very quickly. It's not moving toward definitive answers, mind you, but the marketplace is changing, the numbers are changing,

and I think the Disney desire to do something with ESPN is changing fast. And look, it's great if you're, if you're Dave Portnoy. But obviously people, even inside ESPN, were somewhat surprised by it. So let's go back to Iger for a second. His message all along has been, we're in no rush to sign a deal like this. No rush to sign a deal like this. And then all of a sudden, they do. Why now? Well, it was even more. It was beyond we're in no rush. It's something that I think he was very clear about that they weren't sure that they wanted to connect to the Disney brand. then they had obviously some interaction with draft kings and whatever. Now, they have to give up some of that or all of it to do this current deal,

which is going to cost them opportunities on the upside. Personally, I don't think it's that great a deal for them. It's not going to wind up being that much money, and they're cutting themselves off from other opportunities. But the point is that they had a 180-degree turn, change of opinion. And I think that just shows the lack. I don't want to use the word desperation, but I think that clearly everything is on the table now.

And money is important because of the big deals they've signed, the NBA deal coming up, that kind of stuff, even if, as you say, it's not that much money? Well, yeah, but I mean, look, the big story is the big story we've been talking about for years, right? Used to be 100 million homes paying eight bucks a month. month and now they're down to maybe 72 or 73, that's a lot of money. And the erosion is happening quicker than people thought. So the collapse of the TV bundle, which everybody used to

complain about, it turns out that it was the golden goose that everybody wishes never went away. And that we have found no way to replace as if yet. So part of this question is why now. The second part is why with Penn Entertainment in particular? Pucks, Matt Bellany, who does a podcast with us called Penn and also ran downmarket operations at Disney really shouldn't be in business with a company like Penn, especially on this scale. What do you make of VSPN doing it with them rather than Fandul, Disclosure, Ringer Partner, or Draft Kings, or a bigger company? Well, I think that was part of the surprise for people because, you know, they did have connections to those companies. And quite frankly, their pedigrees are a little bit stronger. For a company like Disney that pays attention to that, you probably couldn't have gotten a lot of people to guess that this would have happened, even six months ago.

So I think that what's going on right now, I mean, $2 billion is a nice number to throw out there. But it's spread out over 10 years, and they're going to have to do some dividing of that. they also cut off their other relationships. So I'm just, I'm with the people who are very surprised. And I think it sounded, I don't want to say it sounds like a fire sale going on, but this doesn't, this doesn't wreak of a element that's part of a grander strategic plan. It seems like a one-off, almost done in haste, and with a partner, that you would never have expected them to be in business with.

As you've listened to Bob Eiger talk about ESPN over the last few months, talked about wanting a strategic partner to buy in, talked about linear television and Disney's linear assets generally. Do you detect a grand strategic vision for the network? Well, I don't. And I think Bob is looking for one. But the interesting thing is, look, if Bob Eiger had never come back, if, like, Bob Chepic had been a tremendous success story or what,

or just managed to stay on the job, we'd all be saying, look at the mess that ESPN is in. If only Bob Iger was still in charge, he would have figured all this out. He would have had a plan. He would have done this and he would have done that. It turns out this conundrum that ESPN is facing is actually really, really difficult to navigate. It's financial. It's cultural. It involves the behavior of consumers.

and it involves a lot of their competitors too, who have recently been able to do certain things that they weren't able to do years ago. And I believe that the fact that Iger is in charge and he's having an interview like he did on CNBC where he's looking for his strategic partner but doesn't quite know who that is or what value proposition that strategic partner needs to bring to ESPN,

it's difficult. It's really difficult. Matt, Bellany, you know, reported that Tom and Kevin are coming back and maybe they'll give him some help. But look, this is stuff that Jimmy Pottaro spends 80% of his time trying to figure out, including the ultimate question, which is whether or not ESPN is eventually going to just go straight D-DIC, which is something that you would have never thought about, but is clearly not only if, but when. ESPN itself, content-wise, has never been averse to talking a little gambling, whether

it's Chris Berman in the Swami outfit or Chris Felica later on game day. And then, of course, lately they've had gambling-specific shows in various guys. Did you ever get a feeling about how people inside that network felt about gambling or felt about a partnership like this one? Yeah, I think that they, look, it used to be a very risque, kind of big to do when Berman would mention those things. You know, it was kind of like the little subtle jokes that Al Michaels were doing Sunday Night Football sometimes about the spread,

which were just delicious and artfully done. But I think that, look, you've had a sliding scale. It moves slow at the beginning. Then there were some partnerships, and then things became legal, and there was some movement. But now, instead of going 20 or 30 miles an hour, are, now they're going 60. Now they, now they're all in. And so I think the hope is that this is going to somehow be another revenue stream that's going to make up for some of the revenue streams

that they're lost. I don't think there's enough money in it, but we'll see. People are shocked, I think people are shocked, particularly people who have been there for, you know, 10 years and longer that they never thought this day would come. To make a deal like this. Yeah. You and I, I've been covering ESPN for a long time. Even I am shocked by the news vortex that has been ESPN over the last two or three months. We mentioned a couple of stories. There have been the layoffs, strategic partner talk. You mentioned the countdown for direct to consumer, the NBA deal coming up, the Penn Deal now.

You could throw Jimmy Petaro having been mentioned from time to time as a possible succession to Iger into that mix. For people whose minds have been blown by that sheer amount of news, how should we think? of the state of ESPN as a company right now? I think that it's fair to say, look, I don't want to over-dramatize this, but think of the cable bundle as like a cancer inside the ESPN organization. And what's going on right now with this gambling deal, the layoffs and other things, it's almost like ESPN is receiving a stem cell transplant, just to push the metaphor a little bit more as we watch because it is it is needing to change in certain ways. I mean, they're still

spending money. They've been very aggressive and they'll be aggressive about the NBA deal. But the old days are clearly gone. And I think more than anything, when Jeff Van Gundy got voted off the island, I don't know about you, Brian, but everybody I talked to inside ESPN, that was like, I mean, there are layoffs and there have been three other significant layoffs in ESPN. history over the past decade. But somehow, losing Jeff Van Gundy was a gut punch to a lot of ESPNers. And that more than anything made them sit up and say, okay, wait a second. It's not the ESPN that we grew up with. And things are really changing. And as a result, we're not sure what this place is going to look like, you know, three years out, five years out. And, and, and, and,

And that's a lot to handle for people inside the company. It's also a lot to handle for Wall Street as they're trying to figure out what is going on because ESPN for so many years made so much money. I mean, Marvel and Pixar, they were bought with ESPN money, right? I mean, if you look at 2012 to 2018, that is, I mean, they were pulling in profits that were the billions of dollars. and it was just extraordinary, even before that. So I think we're really looking at a company,

at a network specifically, ESPN, where we don't really know what the future is. You put your finger on it there so nicely, because you and I have seen a lot of layoffs at ESPN before. You and I've seen this anxiety of, I'm going to lose my job if I work there, or a friend of mine, a person I really respect is going to lose their job. I don't know if I've ever seen the specific anxiety

at least as acutely that I don't know what ESPN is going to be in two or three years time. I just don't know what this company is going to look like. And that to me has a real big effect on morale inside the building that's very, very different than just mere layoffs. Well, not only that, but when you think about the geography of it all, for many, many years, right? almost since 1979, but certainly since, let's say, the mid-80s, the late 80s, people were willing to move to Bristol, Connecticut, in the middle of nowhere, raise their kids there because it was a secure place. In fact, not only was a secure place, it was a rocket ship.

And so you had this feeling of being part of something that is going to just continue to build and build, and you're making a commitment. It's not like you're living in Manhattan. and he could switch from, you know, Rockefeller Center to West 57th Street or something, you know, NBC to CBS or whatever. This was more than that. ESPN has always been, you know,

that bigger commitment because of where it is. And now you have people who, you know, got laid off. They have kids in school. They're in the middle of nowhere. It's tough to get a job. And it's fundamentally a different place. I was on campus.

some are doing some podcast interviews. And just looking around, I'm like, God, this place looks so big, given the way the company's changed, given how many fewer studio shows they're doing and studio shows specifically out of Bristol that they're doing. Do you ever think that could be in the card someday that they just reevaluate the whole idea

of having a giant campus in Bristol, Connecticut? I don't know because the truth is to replace that infrastructure. I mean, the satellite farm alone, I mean, I guess there's all sorts of new technologies that are emerging. But the infrastructure, I mean, look, the radio, radio's almost been, you know, basically farmed out. There used to be, I mean, you used to walk

through the halls of ESPN and I mean, every booth was crowded, everybody was bustling, you go to the cafeteria and the lines were long. And I mean, you know, the place had 6,000 employees. That is not the case now, 7,000 at one point, I believe. And that is not the case. I got the same feeling last time I was there that you had. It's just, look, I mean, it's still impressive as hell.

And if you think about the money that they spent to get this new NFL deal, which is the best schedule and the best deal they've ever had, and the money they spent on college football, the money that they're about to spend on the NBA, it's not like there's a, you know, going out of business sign on the door. But it is an incredible. incredible disparity between what it was just a couple of years ago and what it is now. So the case for ESPN would be starting, we would start with some of those rights deals.

Got a good NFL deal, got a couple of Super Bowls on the way, the first in network's history, got all of SEC football starting next year, big rights packages, things like that. And then the case against ESPN would be they haven't solved the unsolvable problem with a cable bundle that you mentioned earlier. replacing the cable bundle and somehow finding that secure revenue stream that they used to have. That's a problem. I mean, look, they're very good at spending money recently. I think they need to figure out, and that's what Bob and Kevin and Tom and Jimmy are doing, is how to get a dedicated, reliable, significant source of revenue to replace that cable bundle.

And that's going to be far trickier than anyone imagined. All right, James Andrew Miller, those guys have all the fun of still the best book written about ESPN. Check out his other books, Tinderbox, I can say that. And Powerhouse, too. Jim, thanks for coming on the press box. Thank you, Brian. Coming up in 30 seconds, Hollywood Writers Demands. Should this have been an email?

But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the Pressbox Pod, where they are always, always gratefully received. Today's runner-up, David, comes to us from Mitchell Tyler. Did you happen to see the video of Vivek Ramaswamy performing M&Ms, lose yourself at the Iowa State Fair over the weekend?

I've been a little bit offline, largely offline, but I saw enough to know that it happened. I have not watched it now. First of all, lucky you. for being offline for any Iowa State Fair content, particularly this. But you need to know this. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write well. Hip Hop had a great first 50 years.

Thanks to Mitchell for that one. This week's winner comes from our friend Chris Sullenrop. There was a proposed cage fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Topic we have studiously not covered here at the press box. The cage fight was apparently put on hold when And Musk stunningly tweeted that he was getting an MRI of his neck and upper back and may need surgery. Some of the jokes that came out of that announcement. My girlfriend is 100% real.

She just lives in Canada. You'll appreciate this one, David. Elon just started watching WWE and is using the classic heel trope of faking a neck injury to avoid a match. Yes. I don't know if anyone made this, but I think the right joke is this one. Elon Musk is out six to eight weeks, but we'll be back for the layoffs. See, there you go.

That's good. If you don't mind us returning to our studious non-coverage of the story, thank you. And congrats. You made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. All right, in the notebook, dumb. Did you see this Hollywood reporter story that people on Twitter were buzzing about?

Wait, which one? Well, it's an interesting. story because it unerced this whole subculture of Hollywood reporting that you and I are perhaps not intimately familiar with. Charlotte Klein wrote about it in Vanity Fair. Always like reading her stuff. Scott Feinberg writes for the Hollywood Reporter. He has a podcast.

His job is that he is an awards pundit. So there's this whole subculture, whole tier of journalism devoted to awards punditry. Sure. Which is interesting, right? in a way it resembles the whole change that was visited upon sports writing. You know, when we were kids, somebody says, I'm an NFL draft analyst. You're like, wow, what a weird nerd you are. Now everybody's an NFL draft analyst.

Same thing with awards punditry. But the funny thing about that is every time we see those television ratings, seems like people are less and less interested in the Oscars, in the Emmys. in the Emmys. But there's this whole robust awards media complex that's still going strong.

Yeah. It's a little bit like when the ratings for cable news were falling, but Gabe Sherman had a cover story in New York magazine every other week

on what was going on at Fox or MSNBC. Yeah. You're like, wow, something is flourishing here. Yes. I mean,

there are so, you know, there are fewer and fewer people watching TV, but the people watching TV are a very discernible group for, you know, the ad buyers

of the world. Yeah, and I think that especially applies to movies. So Feinberg sent a note to the studios and some PR people saying he wants to see the big movies first. He writes in this email that is quoted by Charlotte Klein, as you plan the rollout

of your films, I would like to respectfully ask that you not show films to any of my fellow awards pundits before you show them to me. Even if that person represents himself or herself to you as, A, a potential reviewer of it, B, needing to see the film in order to be part of decisions about covers, or see really anything else.

In the email, Charlotte Clyde writes, Feinberg went on to imply that there would be repercussions for studios that continued to widely distribute invitations to screenings and that, quote, moving forward, the Hollywood reporter may take that into consideration during the booking of Roundtables, podcasts, and other coverage. Roundtables being those things they do at award season where it's like Brad Pitt and Liam Neeson

and Pedro Pasquale sitting there just talking movies. One of those things I never actually watched, but I'm just amused and delighted by the presence of. Yes. Just an award season kind of thing. Everybody just getting together talking movies. The Avengers of Reassembled. Just chopping it up.

Yeah. Just chopping it up. So there's a couple of interesting things here. What he's talking about as you see is that there's some different types of movie covering people that are given different priority. It sounds like to me anyway, for screenings. There's the awards pundits. And then there's people that are reviewing a movie. or seeing a movie way in advance to make a decision about a magazine cover to the extent that that is still a thing.

And he's saying, if any, I think, if any of these people who are actually awards pundits are representing themselves as a critic or a magazine cover decider, that's no good. They should not be seeing the movie before me. Now this got some tittering, this whole story and the email that he sent out, which somebody from Penske Media, which runs a Hollywood reporter, admitted was inartfully worded. And you know I love media apologies that sound like the people you cover. But as I was reading this story today, I'm like, didn't this happen probably all the time with journalists in its story? entertainment. Aren't you always jockeying to see the thing first? Aren't you always jockeying to get the exclusive, the first interview, the magazine cover? How many, how many interviews do we see build exclusive that aren't even exclusives with an actor or a director? I mean, isn't this

just a version, I guess minus the implied threat about the roundtables and stuff, but isn't this just the kind of jockeying that goes on all the time? Yeah, I mean, I guess, that's what I was thinking the whole time, is that this is an incredible, this is a ridiculous and problematic and, and, you know, sort of low-key offensive letter to send out,

and I can understand the response it gets. Because I think when you hear about it in a vacuum, it does feel like this guy's trying to wield power in a way, well, in a vacuum that no one else is, right? But it also seems like so ridiculous that he would be asking for this, that you wonder,

like, not, isn't, but couldn't every other person that he's implicitly naming in that letter, write the same letter? You know, just say, like,

I humbly request that I get to see everything first, actually, and not these other people. And if, and if you, if you think about it, like,

you just, you know, like the question you just pose, like, doesn't this happen all the time? It could be that everybody's sending this letter. But it just seems like, I mean,

I don't really know what the benefit is from this unless the power that you, there's a roundtable power that you wield is so significant that you can ice everybody else out. But it's also, I mean, is what he's asking that he be invited, that he be invited to the first viewing, that if anybody gets a super advanced screener, he might get that as well. But he's not asking to have a unique, like, private viewing of every single thing that comes out, right? No, I think, I think in the ideal thing that he's asking for is it's like a 30-way top. between him and all these other people.

Right. That other people are figuring out ways to see this early. By making magazine cover decisions or I need to see this early for X, Y, and Z. Yeah. And I think, and again, this is not my world, but if I'm reading this correctly, he's saying, I just don't want them to be before me. Yeah. Really.

I just hate to find out, I just hate to find out, you know, secondhand that I was not, that I missed the screening. Right. Yeah. But I think you're right. Like the competitors in that world, not just the awards pundit competitors, but all the competitors who are jockeing for position, they're not being like, you know what? If you just show it to Scott Feinberg first, that's fine. Yeah.

We're happy to wait our turn and see it up and see it a couple of weeks later. I don't think they're thinking that. Just I think they're, I think they're probably exactly in the same boat. It's where you get into that, we may take that into consideration part. Yeah. For booking these things. But again, like Bellany was was on press box. the other day talking about this and talking about all the negotiations with the stars that he was doing.

And, you know, there's there's a lot of things. If they're not spelled out there implied, you know, we're going to take these beautiful pictures of you for the cover of the magazine. And you are going to put those beautiful pictures on social media and link to the story. Right? And all these other things. And this is, you know, again, it feels like it's one of those stories where it's something that everybody is uncomfortable with.

Yeah. Suddenly bursts into the public eye for just a second in some form. So what people are recoiling at is this actual thing, but also everything else. Yeah. Right. That's a journalist you're really good at. They love to recoil when they see just a little bit of themselves. Yep.

In a story. Anyway, I thought that was interesting. We've got news from Kansas. This is a story that has gotten a lot of attention. I want to take you to Marion County, Kansas, David. my Googling skills are up to par. Marion County is Central East Kansas, I think you'd call it. One of the finer counties.

One of the finer counties. One of the official Kansas County of the press box, as it were, that we may need to reconsider that by the end of this story. There's a paper in Marion County, Kansas, called The Record. It's got a circulation of 4,000. Last Friday, according to a New York Times story by Stephen Lee Myers and Ben Mullen, police raided the office of the paper and took computer, servers, and cell phones. They searched the owner's home.

Myers and Mullen would write that the searches appeared to be linked to an investigation into how a document containing information about a local restaurateur found its way to the local newspaper and whether the restaurant owner's privacy was violated in the process. So Eric Meyer is the editor of the paper. His dad was the editor of the paper previously. He went off and had a journalism career elsewhere, was into teaching, and then came back home. His family bought the paper. And now he edits it. And this is what led to this whole kerfuffle, to use an only in journalism word. There was a meet and greet according to the times at a local restaurant with a congressman.

the restaurateur threw out Eric Meyer and one of his reporters from the event. The Marion County record published a story about being thrown out of the event. And then the paper got a Facebook message that contained a letter from the Kansas Department of Revenue about the restaurant owner. Follow all that? Somehow, and this is the part the article. The letter was unrelated, or like disconnected? Yes, it was about other things. Okay.

But it was a letter from the Department of Revenue. The restaurant owner then went to a city council meeting, and this is where I lose the plot slightly. And she says at the city council meeting, hey, the paper got this letter about me and claims they gave it to a city council member. The paper denies that they gave it to a city council member. Anyway, the paper never published anything about this. But local law enforcement took that as impetus to raid the paper. paper's office. And just about every news organization you've ever heard of has condemned it. As I was reading the story, I was smiled at the mention, well, not smile. My eyebrows went up at

the mention of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, the KBI, which I only know from in cold blood. They're involved in this story. Then the story took another turn. The owner's mom, so remember, this is the editor. His family owns the paper. His mom, who's one of the co-owners of the paper, died. The owner-editor blamed the stress of the raid and ran this headline, according to the Times in the Marion County record. The illegal raids contribute to death of newspaper co-owner. So this is where we are. I don't have a ton to add to that, but I thought we should put on this podcast somewhere. That is a wild story. And then comes one final twist.

This is from Marissa Cabus in her substack the handbasket. She reports that what has remained unreported until now is that prior to the raids, the newspaper had been actively investigating Gideon Cody, chief of police, for the city of Marion. They received multiple tips, alleging he'd retired from his previous job to avoid demotion and punishment over-alleged sexual misconduct charges. The Times, by the way, called up an expert and asked about raiding newspaper offices. This is something we hear about from time to time.

Law enforcement doesn't just say, hey, we don't like the local paper, but we're going to actually intervene in this particular way. And this is a standard, the Times, the expert the Times called, spelled out. Federal law allowed the police to search journalists when the authorities have probable cause to believe that journalists had committed a crime unrelated to their journalism. That exception does not apply, however, in a case where the alleged crime is gathering the news, when journalists are suspected of committing crimes as part of news gathering, the government's option is to serve a subpoena, which can be challenged in court before it is enforced.

So I learned something there. Can we talk about the practice of obit sweetening? Oh, please. I was reading some stories about the PAC-12, too. the conference formerly known as the pack 12. Oh my gosh. People were listing off great pack 12 athletes of yore. The conference, David, of Reggie Bush.

The conference of Matt Liner, the conference of Jackie Robinson. I was at the beach this past week and pulled up to a restaurant bar just to grab some food to take to walk out to the beach. There was no audio on in there, but Drew Bledsoe. was giving what looked to be a tearful obituary. The conference of Drew Bledsoe. Yeah, and on one of the channels. Yeah, yeah, that's what we're talking about here. The conference of Gardner Minshu.

It was funny because those obits reminded me of the ones in the New York Times Sports section. The section of Dave Anderson. Yes. The section of Robert Libbsight, the section David of Red Smith. And the practice we do when something ends like this. is we go back and we find the most golden version of the thing.

Yeah. The thing that was at its height. And we said, can you believe that the section of Red Smith is no long? Yeah. Can you believe the conference of Reggie Bush is no longer a thing? And it's funny because if you say, hey, the conference that had already lost the school Reggie Bush played at plus UCLA, which had not. figured at all in the national title picture anytime recently. In fact,

it's very, very far gone from the days when Reggie Bush and Matt Liner were running things in college football in this country. It died. Okay. Yeah. That's not as big a surprise. Yeah. But we love to sweeten the obit by giving the best version

of the thing. Sure. It's a great idea to make the obituary sound good. sound significant. But honestly, in a lot of those, every obituary for an institution is sweetened in that sort of way. And a lot of times it's that sweetener

that's the reason why the thing is dying, right? I mean, if a long-running TV show, if SNL had a, you know, a decade of bad cast and bad sketches, they'd say the show that brought us, well, Farrell and Steve Martin and Chevy Chase. John Belichie. Yeah, there's so many great names.

And you'd say, yeah, but they're not on. Right. That's the point. So. Right. John Belushi wasn't in a sketch. Martin wasn't actually a cast member, right? I got that wrong. Multi-time host.

But yeah, it was a, but yeah, exactly. It brought us all these great moments and then then it stopped bringing us great moments. That's why it's gone. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you wouldn't write struggling late-night sketch show finally bites the dust. Yeah.

You'd write greatest sketch show of all time. And again, it's not wrong to say, that. Mm-hmm. Not wrong. I mean, those people did play in the PAC 12. Those people were on Saturday Night Live. It's just a funny thing we do to make the moment seem more impactful.

It is. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure it's always been done, but it does feel like a very modern, very social media thing to do, right? Just like the, you know, the PAC 12 was a problem, Twitter video or whatever, you know. Back 12 was a problem. Washington State quarterbacks were a problem. It wasn't Drew Blood, so it was Ryan Leaf, Gardner Minchew. They were a problem.

In golf news, David, 43-year-old Lucas Glover, his career I know you've been following with some interest, won the FedEx St. Jude Championship over the weekend. And Lucas Glover won. the week before. 43-year-old golfer wins two tournaments in a row. Take it away. Jim Nance.

Glover goes back to back, including the opening leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs. One for the old guys. The old golfer still got it. Yeah. Golf feels like an old guy still got it. It's a little guy still got it.

Sport. You know, in our lifetime, it was a sport you picked up, like, in retirement, you know? Yeah. And guys like Jack Nicholas, you know, played until, you know, they just sort of retired onto the, the seniors door or whatever, but. Well, he won the Masters of 48. That was like an all-time old guy still got him. Was he that young? Was he only 48? I think so. And in my memory, he was like 65 when he finally said, oh, you know, I'll play with the seniors when I'm 100 or whatever. But yeah, I think he was still, I think he was still going out there for the Masters. But I think he was,

won the masters of 48. Oh, okay, yeah. So that was, that was an old guy still got a moment. Here we have a 43-year-old. So you can win, you can win a golf later in life.

Yeah. So that makes it, that makes it very, a very old guy's happy sport. Well, for the sake of the old guy still got a bit. Breaking news, Jack,

Jack Nicholas was 46. Sheesh. Thanks to our pal, Stephen Shepard, for sending that along. You want some travel notes from Scandinavia. Always, yeah.

So I'm coming to you from Copenhagen today. I was Copenhagen. I'm just kidding. Now you tell me on my way to corporate activities in Spotify. First of all, I thought you were going to be here. I had this whole week laid out for us here. Bookshops of Copenhagen-Hagen. I had meatballs stands lined up.

I have hot dogs. This country loves hot dogs, by the way. which is why I am all in on Denmark. Let me tell you something, baby. I have eaten a ton of hot dogs this week. But I keep writing down things I wanted to tell you in lieu of actually pointing across the picturesque town square to show you in person.

Appreciate it. Thank you. One is that find yourself someone who loves you like Copenhagen loves Hans Christian Anderson, the beloved writer of fairy tales. I have counted no less than three giant statues of Hans Christian Anderson as I walked around the city. I took a tour, a walking tour of Copenhagen the other day with this man named Richard Carpin,

a lovely tour guide who was recommended in my Rick Steve's guide, and he arrived, dressed completely head to toe as Hans Christian Anderson. How does one dress as Hans Christian Anderson? Well, there's a stovepipe hat, and then there's kind of a dark suit, but with a long coat on top. But is there anything specific to Hans about it? Did he have any particular flourish of his own?

You're saying, have I dipped into the Hans Christian Anderson biography since I've been here so I can identify some ticks? No, just like the Ben Franklin impersonator has that distinctive bald head with the long hair? Like, is there a way that you would pick him out from other, I guess if he's the only guy with statues and there's no need. Well, just judging by the statues, he looked pretty, he looked pretty close, I guess.

He was also portraying Hans Christian Anderson. So he was talking in the first person about like, my fairy tales or this, my fairy tales of that. It was fascinating to her. I absolutely loved it. Note number two for you. I've spent some time, and I know this will come as a surprise, in bookstores here in Copenhagen.

It is so funny to walk into a bookstore, go to the table where they have everything laid out and see that it's Jennifer Egan, Sally Rooney, Stella Maris by Cormick McCarthy. It's all the books that are laid out at the table in the American bookstore. There is this universal language of the bookstore table. Yes. I've never felt more at home. You know, like, oh, okay, here we are. all the bookstores here in the new bookstores have incredibly large English language sections which are themselves probably better than a great number of American bookstores just again

just the non-Danish part of the Danish bookstore is unbelievably good I also would love to call on your connections in the book world to get something going here which is every time I go to bookstore in England and since I've been here they have hardbacked books and then the paperback comes out and the paperback book is almost the exact dimensions of the hardback. Oh, okay, yeah. Almost like a galley copy would be in the United States. Can we get American publishers to start making paperbacks that have the same size and heft of the hardback? You prefer like a six by nine trim size on your paperbacks?

I think it's cool. I would prefer a smaller book in hardcover. But it's, yeah, I mean, it's a, there's a, there's a long consumer history aspect of that whole thing. I don't know why they're bigger in the UK, although. And here. Huh? And Denmark.

I mean, it's all right. I don't know why they're bigger all over Europe, although in some instances, it's because they just cut the hard covers off and stick paperback covers on them when they haven't sold very well. I mean, that's how it works in the, in the US too. But who knows? Otherwise, that's all I got. Eating some amazing open-faced sandwiches.

Aet herring, ate more herring than I ever have in my entire life. I texted Alan Siegel was on his way here and I said, get ready for the herring, buddy. I hope you know what you're getting into. Speaking of delicacies, it's time for David Shoemaker, guess is the strained pun headline. Yeah. Last Monday's headline about a nacho cheese spill in Arkansas was

worst caseo scenario. So good. Today's headline comes from Eric Raskin. It's from the Hill. Adam Schiff, David, the Democratic representative from California, is pushing for a new postage stamp. He wants a stamp of

Leonard Nimoy, the legendary actor who played Mr. Spock on Star Trek, and even better directed three men and a baby. Now, Adam Schiff is running for Senate. So I don't

know any cheaper pop than asking for a stamp of Leonard Nimoy. What a way to get everybody to like you. But Leonard Nimoy, the stamp. I think that's all you need. What was the Hill's strain pun headline? Post. I mean, it's live long and prosper. Postage, live long and,

uh, uh, live long and prosper. Oh. It's ship long. a ship gives this is a postage stamp

a lick long and prosper yeah that's terrible that's kind of disgusting but go over that's great and we don't lick stamps anymore no but even so

lick long and prosper he is David Shoemaker I'm Brian Curtis production magic by Erica Servantes Shoemaker and I return next Monday with more lukewarm takes

about the media see you then David see you later Brian Thank you.