The Press Box - Fox News vs. Dominion. Plus, the Oscars and the Media and Ron DeSantis's Opt-Out.

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Bryan and David break down the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News and discuss what we’ve learned (2:55). Later, they preview the Oscars and refer to past campaigns with the help of Michael Schulman's new book, 'Oscar Wars,' (25:03) before weighing in on Ron DeSantis’s media strategy that doesn't involve mainstream media (40:18). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're lost in the darkness, look for the pod. Specifically, the Prestige TV podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network, where we're breaking down every new episode of HBO's The Last of Us. On Sunday nights, grab your battery and join Van Lathen and Charles Holmes for an instant reaction to the latest episode. Then head back to the QZ on Tuesdays for a deep dive with Joanna Robinson and Mallory Rubin. From character arcs to video game adaptation choices, story themes to needle drops, we'll parse every inch of this cordyceps-coded universe.

Watch out for mouth tendrils and follow along on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. David? Yes. I know this is going to shock you, but various people are reporting that Twitter is not working quite so smoothly today. That seems like every day or every couple of days. Hmm.

It does, doesn't it? Yeah. Remember when all those people were leaving Twitter? Remember that movement? Of course. It was a good time. But not that many people left, did they? all those journalists that were

there was, I'm out of here, that's it. There seems to be a much, much, you know, greater number of people with like other links in their bios or whatever, but yes. Does, uh, did Elon Musk make any kind of statement today about Twitter that we might refer to in this opening segment? He says, uh, in response to an article about the lack of trust in the mainstream media, um,

he tweeted, new Twitter is the source of truth. I don't know if new Twitter is the, New Twitter is trending. I don't know if new Twitter is like New Coke. Like this is where officially we're calling it New Twitter now. Are we allowing New Coke references in the media anymore? Oh man.

That was a terrible. I shouldn't have said that. But it is, it's so old. But it is the point of reference for everything new, I guess. It is. And it feels like we have like a shrinking number of people who actually remember what the new Coke experience was like. I cannot claim to remember what New Coke tasted like. but I remember the jokes people would make about it at the time.

That's basically our whole childhood. I don't remember doing or experiencing so much as I remember like overhearing adults making jokes about it. So this is our takeaway from today. Twitter's a little wonky. New Coke jokes. Maybe think twice about that. What a way to start the show.

Coming up on the press box, David, let us jump into this Dominion voting systems lawsuit against Fogg. or what happens when you read the missives of all those people you see on television? Plus, the Oscars and the media, Ronda Santis and not the media, plenty of other stuff. All that more on the press box. A part of the ringer. Podcast Network. Hello, media consumers.

Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, producer Erica Servantis here. David, we got to talk about this Fox lawsuit. Oh, yeah. which blew up or at least blew up even more right after we got off the air last Monday. This is the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion voting systems. You remember all the very strange conspiracy mongering going on about Dominion during the 2020 election, including the connection with Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, truly one of the stranger conspiracies we've ever had.

we've talked about on this pod before defamation lawsuits against media outlets are very hard to win because dominion has to show that fox news didn't just put false information out there but that they knew it was false and then put it out there anyway but however this one winds up media lawsuits are very very interesting to people like us you remember new york times and sarah palin from a while back because all these internal documents come out. People are deposed or get on the stand and we find out lots and lots about how media organizations, in this case, Fox News actually work. So let us begin on election night. 2020, you will remember that Fox News that night called Arizona for Joe Biden. A huge moment

because everybody's sitting at home on pins and needles like, oh, wait a second, Fox News has now said that Joe Biden wins Arizona, which means Joe Biden is almost certainly going to become the next president? Well, there's a story in the New York Times by Peter Baker, who got his hands on a Zoom meeting between Suzanne Scott, Fox News chief executive and Jay Wallace, Fox News president. They were having a couple of weeks later. And it turns out, David, what should have been a triumph, Fox being the first network to call Arizona was greeted with some embarrassment later or some sheepishness. according to Baker because that really pissed off Donald Trump. Yeah. Here is from Baker's story and then we'll dive into this. Maybe Fox executives mused, this is on the Zoom call,

they should abandon the sophisticated new election projecting system in which Fox had invested millions of dollars and revert to the slower, less accurate model. Or maybe they should base their calls not solely on numbers but on how viewers might react. or maybe they should delay calls, even if they were right, to keep the audience in suspense and boost viewership. Sure. Listen, it's one of the sad realities.

If we hadn't called Arizona, those three or four days following election day, our ratings would have been bigger, Miss Scott said. The mystery would have still been hanging out there. Brett Bear and Martha McCallum, the two main anchor, suggested it was not enough to call a state based on numerical calculations, dot, dot, dot, dot, but that viewer reaction. but that viewer reaction should be considered. In a Trump environment, Ms. McCallum said the game is just very, very different. Yeah. Well, okay. To give that the best possible reading,

you could, it could be the case that her point of view is basically we will not be trusted if we're calling something that is immediately debunked by the most powerful man in the world. right if president if if then president trump calls this this this untrue then all the algorithms in the world won't win that argument um especially to the viewership and frankly i mean all of these all all of these all the stuff that's come out um in the you know surrounding the dominion case all these leaked depositions everything um i don't think anything is

shocking. It's one of those, you know, things that everyone believes to be true that you, but you never, the shocking part is that you actually see it. You know, you actually have the proof right in front of you, that being that Fox is not really a news network on any real functional level, that it's just a sort of platform for entertainment and agreement and whatever else. That it's an entertainment platform focused targeted at an audience, right? I think just from a practical point of view, it's kind of shocking they didn't have these conversations before election night, right? Like, what happens if we have the data to call the election for Biden and before everybody else? Like, that seems like a conversation somebody might have had if it's going to be that big of an issue.

But I guess, you know, it's hard to predict the future. I love that phrase that Scott used. The mystery would have been still hanging out there. It's true. Of course, as it happened, the mystery, quote unquote, hanging out there led to some bad things happening on, say, January 6th. I mean, I think of all this, it's hard. I mean, I'll say this and set it aside, but it's just impossible to fathom how much

worse January 6th than the entire period between the election and the inauguration could have been had Fox not called, you know, had Fox done what they were talking about doing in some of these depositions. So that's November 3rd, election night. We know right afterwards Donald Trump starts claiming that he won the election, the election was stolen from him. we also know that there are many people at Fox who knew that Donald Trump's claims were ridiculous. Here is an exchange between Tucker Carlson and Laura Engram on November 18th.

This is again via the New York Times. And this goes right to your point of, here's something we kind of thought might have been true, but what a stark rendering of it. Tucker Carlson writes in a text message, Sidney Powell, that is the pro-Trump lawyer, is lying, by the way. I caught her. It's insane. Laura Engram responds, Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy, meaning Giuliani, of course.

Carlson responds, Our viewers are good people and they believe it. Rupert Murdoch would say in messages about the voter fraud allegations, he would call them, quote, really crazy stuff. When he sees Powell and Giuliani on the air, he notes terrible stuff,

damaging everybody, I fear. So that's what they really think. But then when they have to actually program their news network, Rupert Murdoch, again, according to all the filings in this deposition, said he wanted Michael Flynn. Yeah, the former national security advisor, pardoned by Donald Trump to be on the air. He wanted to get rid of Bill Salmon,

who was involved in the decision desk, part of which really pissed the Trump people off. I know you saw this nugget. Jackie Heinrich, White House correspondent for Fox News, fact-checked a Trump tweet. Please get her fired, Tucker Carlson remarked, again, according to this deposition. He added, it needs to stop immediately like tonight. It's measurably hurting the company. The stock prices down.

Not a joke. So there's a, here's what we know and here's what we think. versus here's what we're doing on the air because we're scared that if we're too anti-Trump or not slavishly pro-Trump that people will leave Fox News and go to a different network. Well, you know, they go out of their way. I mean, Rupert Murdoch makes the distinction in his deposition. But, you know, over and over again, we hear, oh, there's a distinction between the news

anchors and the commentators, right? they don't usually go so far as to say that they're entertainers, but some of those lawsuits have said as much. If there is such a distinction, and I would argue that there's not, but if there is, you could, you know, it makes sense that the commentators would not want their gig messed with, right? That they, you know, quit, stop the reporting the news, and if it's ruining my show, I mean, that's like a human response, I guess.

But, you know, all it really is. is just evidence that there's no. I mean, the commentators of the people with all the power, right? Tucker Carlson could presumably get somebody fired or Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham or whoever. And, you know, that says kind of all you need to know. Like I said, in the best possible reading of this, it's just a mess. I don't even know what the best possible reading of any of that is. Yeah.

because as you say, you are just doing something that you have revealed that you do not think is what's going on. You know, you're putting something on television that is not real. Yeah. That's not truthful in any possible way. I'm fascinated by what you said about deferring to the primetime hosts. Mm-hmm. That they have all the power. Because isn't the thing we learned about Fox News through years and years that the host keep changing, but Fox News is still number one?

Yeah. Like Bill O'Reilly gone, Megan Kelly, gone, Greta Van Custrin, gone. New people in. Still number one. So it's funny that those hosts are just somehow not controllable by Rupert Murdoch, or not especially controllable. But I guess the threat at this moment that a bunch of Pro Fox viewers were just going to walk away to a different network. was maybe different than something the networks dealt with in the past.

I don't know. Well, I think it's probably more accurate to say Rupert Murdoch doesn't care enough about the news side to come down on their side in any dispute with the talent, right? With the primetime host talent. So I think there's just such a disparity in the significance of those two pieces. You know, the news operation is just a, is, you know, just cover for the entertainment operation.

And that's probably why something like calling that, you know, Arizona for Biden happens. That's because nobody's actually paying attention to what's going on on the new side, right? No one actually cares enough to vet it or not to vet it. Like, it was correct, you know, but to, like, consider that when you're talking about your programming. They'll do their thing, and then we'll do the important stuff, the piece of that people really care about. But yeah, I mean, it is interesting to think that these hosts seem to be replaceable, although, you know, with the peak of whoever's powers, it does feel like they're sort of, they are irreplaceable, right? I mean, there's any number of magazine profiles and Times articles or whatever that'll speak to the, you know, absolute power of Tucker Carlson, just like there were of Bill O'Reilly in his time and whatever else. but I do think it's I do think they they get a lot of leeway because they're rich and powerful and they

have those spots you know it's never comfortable to to show somebody the door and then you have to try to replace them but I'm even if Rupert Murdoch feels and I'm sure that he does that Fox is the star Fox News is the star he still gives him a lot of room to operate I was reminded when Joe Biden was saying no to Foxx about a Super Bowl interview during the pregame show that Barack Obama gave two Super Bowl

pregame interviews to Bill O'Reilly. Yeah. That seemed like another time in American life. Wow. That happened.

Fast forward to January 5th, David, the day before the storming of the U.S. Capitol. Murdoch and again, Suzanne Scott, Fox News, CEO,

are talking about their primetime stars putting out a statement that Trump has lost the election. Now, you know, we've had now almost two months have gone by since election night. It's very clear Trump did not win. It's very clear his conspiracy theories are baseless. And this is a message from Suzanne Scott to Murdoch.

Privately they, meaning those primetime Fox News stars, are all there. But she added, we need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off viewers. Mm-hmm. So again, The stars she is implying know that Joe Biden has won the presidency. But we got to be careful about this. Because if we make them say this on the air, if they all come out and say, we have a special message tonight to ignore what you've been hearing the last two months,

that again, those viewers are going to go to Newsmax or whatever mythical, conservative media outlet they could go to. Very interesting. Then there's January 6th. Uh-oh. Hmm. Some very bad things have happened. Rupert Burdock writing in an email to Paul Ryan.

This is that Paul Ryan because he's on the board of the Fox Corporation. Wake up call for Hannity. Dot, dot, dot, dot. Privately disgusted by Trump for weeks, but was scared to lose viewers. Murdoch would later say his, in her indifferent instance, say his network is, quote, pivoting as fast as possible. and also says we have to lead our viewers, which is not as easy as it might seem.

So now Fox is trying to pivot away from Trump, which it turns out is very, very difficult to do. As we've seen time and time again, I mean, it's also sort of philosophical question, right? I mean, it is hard to pivot away from Trump because they walk this really fine line, right? I mean, they're making up news, right? I mean, the entire substance of the Dominion lawsuit

is that they were just made into this boogeyman based entirely on fiction, right? I mean, they just sort of latched onto one conspiracy theory and everybody jumped aboard. But at the same time, they're not untethered from reality in the sense that, like, they could be telling stories of Donald Trump going back in time and killing the dinosaurs or something. You know, I mean, they could be saying literally anything on TV and presenting it as news. So they do have a relatively narrow space in which to operate, given the constraints they set upon themselves. I think it's how you end up with a situation like Dominion.

We can't really say this. We can't really say that. But what if we just hypothesize about? What can we hypothesize about? And this, by the way, is their defense in this defamation lawsuit. our hosts were not putting forth these theories or putting forth this material about Dominion. We were reporting on theories or guests were talking about theories that they had. They were trying to draw this line.

We weren't saying this. We were reporting on a thing that was out there. Part of the Lawson. Of course, they've also said, well, you know, what you're reading in this deposition is cherry-picked. I think I saw that word in a couple of the statements. from Fox from all these communications right that have been

involved in this lawsuit once you see the full communications you will understand what we were really doing other takeaway from this is a Jack Schaefer my old boss wrote this in a column the other day is that we often think of

Murdoch as the conservative kingmaker really has not been that since 2015 when Donald Trump announced he was running for president yeah he didn't want Donald Trump to be president Trump won the nomination anyway.

Then the network has to realign itself around Donald Trump. And then when he wants to pivot away from Trump at any point after the 2020 election, he can't pivot away from Trump. So in fact, it's a little oversimplified to say, Murdoch, he is the one pulling all the strings here when it's clearly Donald Trump is pulling Fox News's strings. Yeah. I mean, once you, we've seen it over and over again. We don't know necessarily the surefire way to beat Trump in an election or just in the court of public opinion or anything else.

But certainly like half measures are not going to get you there, right? The sort of like conservative, lower case C conservative approach to dealing with the Trump problem. Well, we'll let this one slide. But then, you know, we'll use the goodwill that we get from that to make a steady turn. And that's never going to work. No. And I think at the end of the, I mean, at sort of the most basic level, Rupert Murdoch's power came from being

an entertainment operation posing as news and they ran into somebody who could do entertainment better than they could right? They had all these people who wanted to make news by going on Fox News, right?

But they wanted to be there because of the audience they got and everything else. And they found somebody that didn't need them, you know? It's such a great point. Such a great way to put it. And it was amazing, right?

In those early days of the Trump campaign, where he kind of made himself the third host of Fox and Friends, calling it all the time, talking forever. Yeah. And it's brilliant. It's the Stephen A. Smith model, too, right? It's just like, they will, you know, there's no counter programming at 7 a.m. or

whatever I'm doing this, right? You call in the morning to someone you know will say yes. I talk for an hour. And then that's, and then whether or not, no matter what Fox News wants to have to do with me for the rest of the day, they have to report on what I just said. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. It becomes a segment in everything.

And the show becomes dependent on me calling it. And that show's number one anyway with the three hosts. But if I call in, then it's all of a sudden it being number one depends on me being around. And then all of a sudden it's not this conservative network that is deciding what it wants, how it feels about me or how it's proprietor feels about me. But I am the network. I'm it. And, you know, all of those viewers that you had built up. over the years, they're going to walk with me, or at least you're afraid they're going to walk with me.

If I start telling people to go watch other things, it's really, really fascinating. One more nugget from the New York Times from this deposition. Dominion, quoting here, also describes how Mr. Murdoch provided Mr. Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, with confidential information about ads, the Biden campaign would be running on Fox. Mm-hmm. Which is, I mean, that's just an allegation, I think, from Dominion. I didn't see any actual documentation to back that up. Presumably, they would have it or they wouldn't have put it in there.

But that's, I mean, that's just illegal, right? I mean, that's like a material contribution to a campaign. And, you know, that could get them in a lot of hot water. Yeah, certainly, it certainly could be. I read in semaphore, and I think other places have had some reporting on this, that Fox News right now has a soft ban, quote unquote, not a phrase I was familiar with in this context on Donald Trump appearing on Fox? Yeah, soft ban. What do you mean? Does that mean like if Fox is doing a man on the street, one of those Brian Killed Me going around the diner things that Trump could just be sitting there?

Yeah, they would just go to blah. role of a of an event or something. Oh, what are you doing here? But is it just, and is it just personal appearances? Like, now welcome former President Trump or is it, or does that include like, like positive coverage in general? Can we go to a Trump speech if he's making news? I think, I think it's Donald Trump appearances. I'm not sure the speech, everybody seems to not really be covering the speeches anymore. There haven't really been that many speeches. Yeah. At the beginning of his presidential campaign. Well, there was a CPAC speech the other day. It was CPAC speech.

Yeah, that's right. Did you hear the quotes from that? Yeah, I was going to say Fox News would probably be wise to stay away from that because they're just, I mean, that's, wow. I mean, that's that he's reiterating the case against himself. It's very bizarre. Coming up in 30 seconds, David. The award for most interesting crossover between the Oscars and the media goes to, but first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrated gag that was so obvious

that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always gratefully received. There was an odd story I saw the other day from reporter Charlie Gasparino. You may have seen this too. Among the

people who could replace Disney CEO Bob Eiger is Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner. I did not see that. almost reminded me of when we're floating out who could be president or who could be vice president. We're just considering all names at this point.

It was a very overworked Twitter joke to write. I guess the families at Disneyland will have to be okay with their kids not seeing Mickey due to load management. We would have also accepted any reference to the MCU in load management. If you could also load manage away any further Indiana Jones movies, congrats. You made the overwork Twitter joke.

of the week. Speaking of movies, David, the notebook dump. Let's talk about the Oscars. They are a week from yesterday. Yeah, that was, see, that's the reaction when you tell people that the Oscars are on at six days. Okay. I'm going to be totally honest with you.

I woke up today. The first thing I saw on Twitter were a couple of Oscars tweets and I thought I had missed it. I thought it had happened the night before. This is not good news for the Oscars. No. Speaking of tweets, have you noticed the sponsored tweets for All Quiet on the Western Front,

which is nominated for Best Picture. No. This phrase kind of tripped me up. One of the tweets said, based on the literary masterpiece. So that's not necessarily wrong, but why am I kind of fish-tailing with my back tires there

over the phrase of literary masterpiece? Are you calling into question its place in the canon? No, I'm really not, but literary did we need it? The book. I guess it sounds fancier than based on the book. Based on the book, your 10th grade teacher made you read.

Hmm. Literary masterpiece. Yeah. I think most people probably, I mean, yeah, I think most people probably have a negative opinion, have a negative reaction to books like all choir on the Western Front.

Because unless you've reread it, unless you were a literature major or a writer or something to that effect, you probably, the last in encounter with it was being forced to read it, you know, when you were too young to get it. So, you know,

maybe not the best place to start in that. Finally, they made a movie out of this book. Yes, exactly. They do better off just being like, your 10th grade teacher demands you see this movie.

They probably have a better turn. She's going to make you watch it right after you watch the line in winter in her classroom. Speaking of, In the books, I've been reading this book, Oscar Wars by Michael Schulman. Oh, yeah. He's a writer at The New Yorker. He wrote that Jeremy Strong profile that was read by everybody you know.

He has some bits in his book, which is really, really good if you like movies and the Oscars in particular, but just fun and strange bits of Hollywood history, highly recommend. but I got three bits for you on the sultry tango between the Academy Awards and the media. All right. Let's start with the 1989 Academy Awards. Have you been down this YouTube rabbit hole? You'll know immediately when I start describing what the opening number of that Oscars was.

Uh-huh. It involved a woman dressed as Snow White and Rob Lowe. Yes. And them singing Proud Mary. Mm-hmm. which had tricked up lyrics to talk about movie making together. Yeah, I remember that vaguely. I mean,

truly one of the weirdest ways the Oscars has ever opened and also had like all these Golden Age Hollywood stars just sitting on stage and watching the festivities. It's a weird one. Also, I learned from Oscar Wars that there was a tap dancing number that was supposed to involve Miami Biolic and the Nicholas brothers that got cut. what anyway ceremony was produced by a guy named alan car and what's interesting about alan car is that he kind of wojified the Oscars that year he was trying to get people to come on to the show this is

always a negotiation can we get the big stars of hollywood who aren't nominated past and present to come on the show maybe give out an award maybe just be there like jack nicholson was all those years what he would do is whenever he would get an answer of any kind Alan car would just go to the media and talk about it. So, for instance, Lana Turner did not want to come on to his Oscars. And Shulman notes that Alan Carr goes to the press and says,

for some reason, Lana doesn't want to take part in our program. I don't know what her problem is, but I'm working on it. Just these constant updates to the media about getting presenters onto the Oscars. Yeah. Which Shulman says

is really about just getting Alan Carr's name, constantly in the press. I mean, how many Oscar producers could you and I name together, maybe one or two that would just randomly come to our mind? But he wanted people to know I am producing this show, baby.

Well, then the funny thing is that opening number happens with Snow White and Rob Blow, and it's not good at all. So he's stuck with this crazy turkey and his name is definitely on it. But the funniest nugget from that chapter

is about the best picture winner, which is Rain Man that year. Yeah. If you know if you remember Rain Man, but Dustin Hoffman's character would keep mentioning the people's court with Judge Joseph Wapner in the movie. He was a fan of it.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the real Judge Wapner asked for tickets to the Academy Awards. I guess he said, well, you know, I'm sort of a part of this thing. I would like to just attend the ceremony. Well, Schollman says, says that Alan Carr might have planted a story in the Los Angeles Times saying that Judge

Wobner did not just want to attend the Oscars. He wanted to present an award on stage, which would have been very strange, even at a ceremony where Snow White and Roblo were singing together. Oh, my God, Judge Woffner. I went back and looked. This article is in the LA Times. They did report... That is unbelievable. I'm looking at it now. That feels so planted. The headline the LA Times was Judge Awaits verdict on Oscar tickets. So strange. Fast forward a little bit, David.

The 1999 Academy Awards. This is, I'm going to guess, the first time you and I were aware, not just of an Oscar race, but an Oscar campaign. Because it's the year that saving Private Ryan faced off for Best Picture with Shakespeare in love. Yeah, I remember this. we know that former Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein, who was of course now in prison because he is a convicted rapist, was the guy who invented the modern Oscar campaign during this year. But what Shulman talks about is he was also this just unbelievable and strange manipulator or would-be manipulator of the press.

For instance, Weinstein, a couple years before this, had a movie called The Piano. Remember the piano? Yeah, of course. going up against Schindler's List, another Stephen Spielberg movie that was a heavy favorite to win everything. Well, the New York and L.A. film critics gave their best picture award to Schindler's List. Weinstein pays for this giant ad where it says the piano and then it says best picture below it. And you have to read tiny type that says runner up because it was not actually the best picture in these film critics awards categories. It lost to Schindler's list.

Oscar campaigns in this time were pulling out ads, both in the mainstream press and in the trade publications. But this one really got me. Lynn Hershberg, who wrote for the New York Times, says in the book, again, according to Shulman, that Harvey Weinstein had tried to get her to write that saving Private Ryan really was only great for its first 20, 25 minutes, whatever the length of that storming the beach at Normandy scene is. Oh, I definitely saw that opinion out there. Okay. So when I read that, I'm like, wait a second.

A lot of people were saying that back in 1999. How much of that is traceable to that idea being whispered in the ear of journalists? Yep. Shulman has this great line. He says, by casting Ryan's Brewera D-Day sequence as a liability, Weinstein had channeled one of Carl Rove's rules of the political dark arts, attack your opponent's strength, not its weakness. So think about that.

This is moviemaking like we've never seen before in a war movie. And he's like, I know, I'm going to tell people that that scene is so good that the rest of the movie that follows it doesn't match up. Therefore, you should vote for Shakespeare in love to win best picture. Spoiler alert, guess what happened, David? Yeah, I remember. one of the stranger Oscar stories ever and by the way all cast is this whole

well Stephen Spielberg that's a big Hollywood movie this is a small plucky little art film I mean it was a big deal at the time the inevitability of Private Ryan was sort of like written in stone and yeah I mean the Shakespeare in love thing was was a moment

I mean listen it felt like an uplifting underdog story at the time I'm glad that just like everything else, our memories are shattered by the grimness of reality years later. Right. I remember rooting for it, just being like, yeah, this is amazing. And I love Steven Spielberg. Now I look back on and go, what the hell was that?

I'm trying to remember if I've seen one second of Shakespeare in love since I saw it that first time. I definitely have not. I was also interested in that story because Spielberg has now. come around to being an old guy who still got it candidate for the fablemans? Yeah. And people are now like, instead of, you know, Stephen Spielberg, man,

that's big Hollywood. He wins everything. What can we do to deny Spielberg? It's not like, can we get him one more award? Yeah. Can we get him just one more directing Oscar? Is it going to be the fablemen's? Folks, it's not the fablements. But you don't want to have to give it to him

for a worse movie out of some feeling of obligation later on. Right? It's just like, you know. But that's the old guy still got it. You always do give it to him for the worst thing. No, I'm saying that people are considering it now because there's a, there's a possibility, right? You don't want to be like looking at your roster and being like, well, there's some truly great movies out this year. But Spielberg, you know, has retired and his last movie was AI2 or something, you know. So you're saying this is like the departed for Spielberg.

Exactly. It's like, can this be the departed? That's the question. Can we shoehorn one in for lack of something better? I love Stephen Spielberg, man. My favorite director ever, this ain't it, folks. Part of loving somebody is just admitting that every movie is not a great movie. True. It can be a good movie. It can be merely a good movie.

That's okay. That's okay. Just my little message. 2017, David, one more note for you. This is the year that Moonlight won the Best Picture Oscar, but only won it after La La Land had been announced. on stage as the best picture winner. Craziest Oscar moment of our lifetimes

until Will Smith decided to go on to the stage and slap Chris Rock in the face. What was interesting from Oscar Wars about this was that L.A. Times film critic, Justin Chang, who's been on this podcast before, wrote a piece in that newspaper, February 17, excuse me, 2017, called Why Moonlight Deserves to Win the Best Picture Oscar.

I went back and read it. It's a really good, very skillful, very even-handed story that doesn't take cheap shots at the other movies. And it's like, no, no, this is the best picture Oscar. I want somebody to do a list, a list of cool, an article that has the most influential columns and stories in the history of the Academy Awards. Because I bet you could find five to ten of those that were written in just the right way. and at just the right moment and probably had some effect, I don't know if that one Moonlight, the Best Picture Academy Award, it certainly was deserving,

but that helped people lead people in one direction or another. I bet that's an interesting list. I bet so. Yeah, that's a really interesting question. Especially, and we could find, like, by the way, the opposite ones, right? I bet if we went back and looked at some of the La La Land stories, Remember that second wave of La La Land consideration? They were kind of like, yeah.

We sure this is the best picture? Are we really going to do this? Reminds me of the NBA MVP voting when you hear Bill talk about it at various points during the season. Yeah. Then it gets closer and it's like, okay, we're not really doing this, are we? Yeah. I bet that exists for the Oscars. Oh, for sure.

For sure. And especially as there's big, like you said, more and more reporting on. that race, right? On it as on the horse race aspect of it, then you're reading stuff about the comparisons. You're reading stuff about what your role in history is going to be, you know, if you're a voter. So, yeah, I think that there's probably, you know,

there's pretty recent history that you were just talking about and covering, you know, in terms of Shakespeare and love and all that stuff. But I guarantee that the voting process has changed in more subtle ways more since then than it did when that sort of media campaigns began. Yeah, and look, there's the media campaign, you know, taking the directors around doing interviews and, you know, trying to get whip up momentum, but there's also just somebody stepping forward and writing something.

Yeah. That is, you know, probably exist alongside of all that, but it is different than all that. Oh, sure. I mean, incredibly different. There's one from 2018. This belongs in the list. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Remember when he was writing those stories for the Hollywood reporter about culture. Of course, yeah. He wrote a defense of three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. Wow. Another movie that was getting a lot of, you know, kind of cross wins, shall we say, from critics. Francis McDormon and Sam Rockwell both wound up winning awards.

Yeah. But Kareem on the list. Well, yeah. I mean, what was the phrase that we used Dostrad a lot during, during Trump's campaign before he was elected, that sort of permission structure that allowed people to accept him and vote for him. That's kind of what Kriam was doing, right? I mean, listen, there's a reason why the Oscar has sort of mirrored the Golden Globes for so long, you know, there's a reason why one thing led to another over and over again. People are informed by what else is, you know, by what people

do before them. Totally. Totally. And I think a lot of people, even people in the academy who are movie people don't have like especially solidly formed opinions about a lot of this stuff. They're swayable. It's like unless there's something like Titanic, you know, something that's just so overwhelming, like that's it. That's the best picture. Yeah.

They can be moved. Sure. It's interesting. All right. One more news story for you. It's about Ron DeSantis. Oh. The man Donald Trump calls Ron DeSanctimonious. or Meatball Ron more recently. I thought he said he wasn't going to do Meatball Ron anymore. Did he forswore Meatball Ron? I saw a headline.

I don't really know. Well, Ron DeSantis, we'll call him by his real name. He's ignoring us, David. Not just you and me and our colleagues at the ringer. Oh, good. I thought it was a press box issue. No, no. Well, he's also ignoring the press box.

But all of what we would call the mainstream media, the MSM. He's got a bookout. and according to the New York Times, here are some of the recent interviews he's done. Laura Angram, Jesse Waters, those lovable cut-ups at Fox and Friends, Selena Zito of the New York Post,

and the Times, except it's the Times of London, which is also owned by Rupert Murdoch. Here are the interviews DeSantis has not been so keen on doing interviews with mainstream non-Murdock reporters. And that's not all.

Times notes that DeSantis is not even talking to the Brett Bear tier of personalities at Fox either. So here's my question to you. Can you completely ignore the mainstream media, completely ignore it, and still get elected president of the United States? Well, I'm tempted to say no, but you mentioned the book. I mean, can you ignore the mainstream media and have a bestselling book? Like, you know, just target your media appearances and really go after the audience that's eager to buy it. Yeah, you can do that. So does that correlate to the presidency? I mean, I think, listen, at some point, you're going to have to deal with the mainstream media, right? You're going to be on debate stages being questioned by members of the mainstream media,

you know? Well, hold that thought, but okay, but continue. But, I mean, at some point, your profile gets so high, the stakes gets so high that that's a part of your life, right? I guess you could decline to have a Times importer embedded with your campaign or whatever, but, you know, you're going to be covered and it will probably end up having some sort of back and forth, some sort of functional relationship with whoever's covering you. But, and I mean, I think it's, I think it's probably reckless to say that you could, that anything you did would do, you know, be doing right now would sour a relationship with any member of the mainstream media. so I don't really think that's an issue. But it just seems like, how don't know, it seems like you're leaving something on the table. You know, I mean, it's almost worth more to DeSantis

to have the, for people to talk about the fact that he's not doing mainstream media than it would be for him to engage with the mainstream media. I mean, he's an incredibly problematic politician, incredibly problematic person. I think that, you know, I think that he could be a really, really, just historically terrible president.

But he's not he's not viewed as wholly problematic by a lot of the mainstream media. I think he would actually get a lot of relatively positive press if he were doing mainstream media appearances. So it's almost counterproductive unless you're just going for the appearance of being you know, a rebel, which I think is sort of the point.

So you're saying he's going to get the two for out of here, which we've seen from a lot of Republicans over the years, which is bash the media, avoid the media, at least early on, but then give interviews to NBC a couple of times, maybe to the major newspapers, so that you get that, what do you call it, you know, that pulpit, you get that attention, but then you maintain your anti-media bona fides, which we know in conservative land are very powerful. And you definitely have a more control over the shape of those, whether or not you sit down for an interview or you let somebody follow you for a day or whether you, you know, however that comes down, you probably have a lot more control if you're if you're kind of limiting it so much on the front end, right? Then it's not, there's no expect, you know, the beat reporters don't have any expectations of things or they don't feel like you owe them anything. You're starting off in the other direction. But I think that's probably what will happen. I find it pretty impossible. to imagine he would, you know, actually find a way to boycott. But is there a talk that he'd be boycotting, he'd be boycotting debates too as part of this

campaign? Well, the GOP pulled out of this commission on presidential debates, which is, you know, this just group that essentially negotiates between the Republicans and Democrats. How many debates are we going to have? Who's going to moderate them? All that stuff. That functionally doesn't really matter right now because we're still a year plus away from presidential debates.

Yeah. But they pulled out on them. So, I mean, is there a reality that's somewhere down the line where somebody like a candidate DeSantis nominee DeSantis could be like, and also, by the way, I'm not going to be in a debate against Joe Biden because the kind of people you want to moderate the debate, I don't accept. Yeah. If Biden doesn't want to talk to Fox News, I don't want to talk to anybody else, then I guess

we're not having a debate. Yeah, or just like, I don't even accept Brett Baer as a moderator. So we're done. So I'm just not going to do that. Conceivably that could happen. I think, you know, what you're talking about is there is a, it seems like there's a downside to this, not necessarily that the public's going to be like, why aren't you talking to the mainstream media?

Because we know the mainstream media is like a very unsympathetic figure to most of the public. But a sort of platform, a sort of attention that you get by doing that, even if it's a tough interview, hostile interview, whatever it is. It's interesting. I mean, I do think the way politics has changed over the last couple of years when you see reporters barred from attending like maybe not a rally or an election night event, something like that. Like you're just not allowed to come in here. The rhetoric on the right about the media.

You could eventually find that candidate, right, who was big enough to win the nomination and also be like, I'm not playing. Yeah. I'm not going to play at all. It doesn't mean New York Times can't come to my rally and write down. what I say on the stump. That's like the, you know, you can do off TV too. But I am just not granting you any interviews

at all. Sure. Yeah, I mean, I guess we'd be remiss to not also mention this this law he's trying to pass that would require journalists in Florida to register if they're going to be cover bloggers to register they're going to be covering him.

Obviously, he wouldn't if he were doing quote unquote mainstream media right now, that would probably be the beginning and the end of every interview that he did. So maybe this is just an artful way to dodge that. Or maybe it's all part of the same, you know, performance art that he's doing to try to rally the base. It will be interesting to watch.

But if you're not doing mainstream media, you know, if you're only popping up occasionally to do, you know, on whatever primetime Fox show or newsmax or whatever else, if that's all you do. He's on Fox a lot. Yeah. Yeah. But if that's it, but if you're limiting your,

I mean, this is a great example. You're limiting yourself and John Oliver is like going after you on the same day, right? I mean, is it, is it at some point you're going to have to, I mean, you very well may say I'm limited myself too much to fight back. Right. Or to, and maybe not. I mean, maybe you can just win. Maybe you can win the election by never, by just sticking with the, I just stand on Fox prime time and newsmax. I mean, maybe it's possible. But I mean, clearly he's not going to take a pledge to never talk to anybody. in the mainstream media, but that said, I mean, he's, I think, I think what we were saying at the beginning is the truth. So he'll, this will be the, this will be the, the official stance until it's inconvenient. And then he'll make it look like he's doing somebody a favor or he's, you know, acting presidential or, or whatever. Do you think he's afraid of John Oliver doing something devastating, like calling him drump on the air? Yeah, maybe not. The thing about Ron DeSantis, and you and I've mentioned this enough that it should probably be called the press box rule of presidential elections, but are we sure that most of America has heard Ron DeSantis speak ever?

No. They've seen stills of him, you know, next to stories about him and news on TV, the print, whatever. I don't know if this is a press box rule. I think there's a lot of conventional wisdom rules about voice. Of course, height is the historical one. Yeah. And just in general, I think that it'll be a different story. I mean, I think that he's, I think that stuff will matter when he gets up on a stage next to Trump or next to whoever else. Oh, yeah. It's definitely going to matter.

I'm always asking Tara Palmerie about this last week. But it always is funny to me when you have somebody like DeSantis who was like such a known commodity among political reporters, such an avatar of either love or hate or something. in the middle on political Twitter. But a lot of people have just not seen him on a stage when he is being challenged or is having to think on his feet. And remember Rick Perry when he first got up there that one year? It was like, yeah, Rick Perry makes a lot of sense. And then that first debate was like, ooh, yeah, that's not going to do.

Yeah. Well, that's not going anywhere. I just think there's the whole, you know, seeing them operate in that, in that world. it's like it is it is often an eye-opener it is it is indeed you know there's i think that just like with trump he will be benefited by a larger field at the beginning of the process or like trump you know was when he ran i don't know if that's going to be good for trump now if he but but i think yeah i think i think against a lot of opponents one-on-one he'll have some difficulty and that's to say nothing of his record which is repor heads falls so

Yeah. So, Paul Mary's thing was that when other Republicans get in the race, they're going to attack DeSantis. Because there's two frontrunners, right? DeSantis and Trump. And if you attack Trump, you just have hell unleashed on you. Yeah, you can attack DeSantis and seem feisty and independent and whatever. What if he's a more choice target for you to go after? if you're Mike Pompeo. Sorry to imagine like a Mike Pompeo attack inspiring anybody, but Mike Pence, Chris Christie, all these people that could jump into the race

over the next couple of months. That might be interesting. Chris Christie being people talking about Chris Christi. Yeah. Yeah, there's Chris Christie thinks that there's a path for Chris Christie, allegedly. All right. Just remember, this is the time where everybody can talk themselves into,

I can win this thing. Well, there's always someone to talk you into it, right? There's someone in your ear who's like, I mean, nobody, everybody wants to hear, though, you get, you know, believe when somebody tells you, you could be president. It's, it's a possibility. You could be president. If you pay me to advise you, I will tell you how. Yeah. Put me on retainer.

I'll tell you how you can become president, Mr. Governor, sir. Let's do this thing. Speaking of, let's do it, it's time for David Schumaker guess is the strained pun headline. Yeah. Last Monday's headline, David, about new laws regulating ride share programs was The Gig is Up. Today's headline comes to us from Nicole Hay. It's from The Guardian. I regret to inform you, David, that a new track from Donald Trump has just dropped. I'm not kidding.

Go on. I'm not kidding. I'm going to read from CNN here. A new single released by a choir of men who are in prison for their participation in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021, features a recording by former President Donald Trump as a backtrack. CNN reports. The song, Justice for All features the incarcerated men referred to as the J6 prison choir, singing the star-spangled banner from a jail in Washington, D.C., mixed with Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Are they together?

Or is it like they each got one phone call and called in and they, like, edited them together? I didn't totally get that, but I'm thinking they're not all in the same choir, in the same prison choir in order to be able to record the track together. This is unbelievable. I want to Google this so bad, but I'm waiting now to get the pun. The song is kind of a letdown because it really just is the Star-Spangled banner with Donald Trump doing the backtrack. So it might be one of those that sounds a little more intriguing. but we are looking for a headline about a single

on behalf of January 6th participants and David I want you to think about what January 6th is often referred to as what was the Guardian's strain pun headline it's just talking about the existence of this song is it like an insurrection keep going different word the coup okay okay there we go

Um, Ku, uh, God. Everybody's getting together to, to sing. Um, they are,

they are a choir, uh, singing. Singing. Oh my gosh. Why can't I think of this? You're right there. Singing a coo, singing.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. Uh, huh. Yeah. Yeah. And you just said it. Terrible.

Singing coo? Sing in a coo? Singing the coos. Huh? What did you say? Singing the coos. Oh. They're singing the coos.

Oh, man. That's rough. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Servantes back later this week with a very special Oscar-related press box. And then back Monday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David.

See you later, Ryan.