The Press Box - Impeachment Begins, Student Newspapers, and “Increasingly Blurry Lines” | The Press Box

Episode Date: November 15, 2019

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker look at Wednesday’s impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump (02:00), the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (20:00), Northwestern’s student newspaper controversy (22:15), a journalist's favorite go-to phrase (32:30), listener mail (35:00), and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's a little more downbeat than you usually react. I was not expecting that. It's a Deval world after all. Does that count? How about a piece that testifies to his honesty called Deval Don't Lie? Deval, oh, God, Deval bark and no bite. Does that work? Yeah.

Can we, if he were to, in a very unlikely turn of circumstances, take the lead, can we say that the Democratic nominations become Deval dominant? Oh, my God. I'm trying to work in the NBA zone here for the ringer. You know, I think that might be the winner. We are the decline and deval of media podcast. This is the Press Box, a part of the Ringer podcast network. Hello Media Consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here.

We've got lots and lots of stuff to get to today. We'll talk about the controversy at Northwestern's student newspaper, a journalist's favorite go-to phrase, plus your listener mail in the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, let us begin with the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Trump, which began on Wednesday. Here is Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters on Thursday morning, and David, I want you to listen to the newish word she uses.

It's not quid pro quo the Democrats are trying to reveal. It's... The devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry and that the president abused power and violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid and a White House meeting in exchange for an investigation into his political rival, a clear attempt to the president to give himself the advantage in the 2020 election. So not quid pro quo bribery. And I thought Jeffrey Toobin had a good line on CNN this morning.

He said, this is a smart tactical move for Democrats because guess what? The American voter does not speak Latin by and large. So moving from quid pro quo to bribery. feels like something that's going to be much more sellable to the American public. And bribery, I believe one of the technical distinctions is that it's actually mentioned by name and the Constitution. Is that right, Chris? Am I saying that? I think so.

And they're actually like, this isn't some like hypothetical act of dereliction of duty or vaguely treasonous act. This is something that it's actually mentioned by name. And so the accusation, especially coming from, I think Pelosi is pretty. significant, right? I mean, that she would, after, you know, a much seeming deliberation, be fully sort of leading the charge on this. Yeah, this is the same person who didn't really want to start an impeachment inquiry at all at one point, right? Now she's sort of leaning into the framing of the charges, which was interesting. The first day of hearings, David, on Wednesday, featured William Taylor, diplomat, and George Kent from the State Department, who

was notable for wearing a bow tie. I read some of the bow tie coverage. It should no longer be allowed in a news article to use as a data point that George Kent's bow tie got its own Twitter account. Like that's like an eight years ago data point. Yeah. Like everything got its own Twitter account. Like it didn't.

It's like when the college football writers for 10 years would use, hey, there's a website that exists that wants to fire this coach, you know, that's like we're saying we should fire the coach. Okay, that's for every coach. We got it. You know, it's not not notable anymore. I really like Mark Leibovich's piece in New York Times. The way he kind of summed up the first day, let me quote from it. He says, this collision was probably inevitable from the second. The 45th president took his hand off the Bible in January 2017. It was a clash between Trump, Washington and old Washington. The disruptor and the disrupted, the bull and the China shop. The city is filled with Bill Taylor types. They are steady.

and unsung and proud to order their service by the number of administrations of both parties they served in. What he's talking about is Trump's whole administration has been essentially him, you know, sort of doing everything he can, not to actually drain the

swamp, but to sort of change... Despite the swamp. Yeah, right? Right. Exactly. Rub the swamp's nose in, you know, in everything he can. And when you see those guys, come up yesterday, how sort of dorky they look, how official they look, how, you know, very

important it is to somebody like Taylor to say, I am not here as the Democrat star witness to take down Trump. I am merely here to say everything that I know. That is, in a nutshell, is it not one story of the Trump administration? Yeah, absolutely. Although I think that That's the question that's kind of strangely at the crux of the whole investigation, the whole impeachment investigation that's going on right now, which is to say that, like, I think Trump would be happy for us all to believe that this confrontation was inevitable, right? I mean, that's, his defense is almost that, I mean, at least the way that he puts it forward on Twitter is that, is that this is the swamp coming to get him. Yep. after he's tried to drain it. And I don't think that I don't think that those things are mutually exclusive,

but I do think that it's worth, you know, clarifying repeatedly as someone like Leovic makes, you know, a smart point such as that, that like there are other trumps in the world that would not have put themselves in the position of getting impeached, right? I mean, if you, there's a lot of, there's a lot of loud, I mean,

if we're dealing with like president, I mean, I can't even think of someone who's, I mean, Mike Bloomberg, I was going to say, but he was obviously, he obviously has worked in public office before. But if you put like, if president, you know, Carl Eichan was sitting there, I'm not sure that he would have been like trying to bribe the president elect of Ukraine. And I mean, these things are not necessarily dependent on one another. But yeah, okay. I mean, in some ways, I see the inevitability. Like I said, Trump's happy for us to see that. Well, and it's, you know, we've sort of resisted.

You know, you only want to use the terms like deep state and swamp with giant air quotes around them. And, you know, and obviously not buy into Trump's ludicrous idea that these people are trying to take him down. But the frame, the frame slightly altered is correct. The longtime, very official denizens of Washington were trying to stop Donald Trump. That is what they were doing. We're trying to stop Donald Trump from going to the president of Ukraine and saying, please investigate my political opponents. That alarmed them.

They intervened. Many of them intervened or tried to intervene. And now they are going out in public and testifying against the president of the United States. That is what's happening. That frame is correct. So that, you know, that it's funny because sometimes I think Trump skunks up something like that. We go, oh, we just don't want to even go near there. We don't don't indulge the president by using his frame.

But actually that framing is pretty right. and that's what these people were doing on Wednesday. I agree, but at the same time, this is like saying, you know, there are certainly examples of overzealous referees and pro sports, but not every game should be framed as the players versus the refs just because the refs are calling penalties on them. Right, but this started because a whistleblower filed a report, right? This is why we are here.

You know, this particular right, you shouldn't turning it to are the referees crooked or not or good or not. Again, it seems like it benefits Trump, but this is, this is why we're here. Yeah, it's true. Is it the whistleblower intervene? This has kind of been the control plus V think piece over the last couple of weeks about impeachment hearings, but, but I think we should sort of indulge this a little bit, which is, is the American, does the American public in the age of streaming, in the age of the Mandalorian and everything else, how many people are really going to pay attention to this, or probably a better question is, as I rewrite myself here, in what way are they going to consume the impeachment hearings?

It's a good question. I mean, I'm sure I'd be interested to see the ratings because I'm sure a lot of people are going to be watching them via the live broadcasts on any of the major news networks or also like the New York Times homepage, which was streaming it yesterday. and today, I believe, but the, but yeah, I mean, I think that some people will watch, but this is certainly not going to get the attention that, you know, it would have gotten a previous generation. Is that, I mean, is that the question? Yeah, so I think we can, we can scrub away that it's not going to be like watching the gavel-to-gavel coverage on PBS like it was for Nixon. It's not even, I don't think, going to be like, I'm watching court TV all day like we did during the OJ trial, something.

like that. Certainly not. But it is, we're going to consume it in a way just as much, but we're going to consume it through Twitter clips. You know, as you say, maybe like you're at the gym and you watch a few minutes of it. You consume it through, you know, the BuzzFeed impeachment podcast through the daily. And I just wonder, is there anything that changes about the hearings themselves when they're filtered through like 100 things like that in our new media environment. Well, yes. I mean, absolutely. I mean, there's definitely going to be some distortion.

I mean, when you have like dudes like, and far be it for me to single somebody out, but you have dudes like John Solomon, who's kind of the reason that we're here right now, he's the reporter who sort of fed Trump this weird Ukraine hoax story to begin with. By the way, you were always welcome to single out John Salomon on it.

And wrote about it in the hill. But he's out there like live tweeting like the testimony and just like announcing bomb shes like non-existent bombshells that like support Trump as as people are testimony. I mean, as people are testifying. I mean,

that's just one small example that I was like lingering on the other day of like, like yes, there is like utter disinformation out there in the world. But I think even just the more straightforward stuff like yeah, I think that yes, there are just for every i mean for for all the people that aren't watching you know watching the the testimony live or aren't even watching the nightly news like they would have during the nixen years or during another administration there's a lot of people who are kind of passive

subscribers to the daily and such podcasts that are getting you know now the information on this every single day um if like you said the impeachment podcast is out there rudy juliani is out there threatening to start an impeachment podcast, which the world desperately needs. But yeah, I mean, everybody's coming. I guess there's a point of view on everything, you know, the smart, well-adjusted listeners of the press box are getting some sort of spin fed to them, I'm sure. I think if we went back and looked at those 70s newspapers, totally, you're totally right. We would agree that the kind of analysis you're hearing now, if you're not watching Fox News, or relying solely on John Solomon's Twitter feed, is just on balance way better and way

more sophisticated and just and there's just more of it you know as opposed to again in your local newspaper one or two stories i was love when people talk about everybody sitting down to watch the nixon hearings um people did go to work during the 70s right and it was kind of harder to watch tv on balance during the 70s right because you seemed like a a tv set with with with bunny ears so it's like when everybody remembers us you like oh man remember when we could all watch World Series day games together during the week we could during the 70s that was happening people were just off work

did do other things right two readers David Joaquin Nagel and James direct us to one of the funnier parts of yesterday's testimony which was we all learned that maybe we're pronouncing the city of Kiev incorrectly

yes it is not according to the very straightforward straight arrows we were hearing from Kiev it's Kiev. That was news to me. I think just about, I think all three cable networks at some point had feature people throwing up their hands right after the first batch of testimony. He's saying like, Kiev, oh, I don't know.

I don't know. Just forget it. Yeah, somebody who's like, that's like, I always loved the great, I can't believe we've been pronouncing this wrong our whole lives moment. That's, what's the? This is it. I mean, this is America. We pronounce like every foreign nation wrong. pronounce the names of every nation and certainly most capitals just

utterly incorrectly because we historically don't care what other people say. Yeah, what's the, God, what's the Middle Eastern country? Oh, Cutter, right? Remember when we all learned how to pronounce Cutter or Hata at the same time? Yesterday was kind of one of those moments. Another big issue yesterday for Twitter, what does Bill Taylor's voice sound like? Listener Don Steele writes in, says lots of jokes out there about Taylor's fantastic game show voice easy game show voiceover guy sports announcer pharmaceutical ad reader or what let's listen

david to a little bill taylor and maybe we can narrow it down sir chairman i'm appearing today at the committee's request to provide my perspective on the events that are the subject of the committee's inquiry i want to emphasize at the outset that while i am aware that the committee has requested my testimony as part of impeachment proceedings, I am not here to take one side or the other or to advocate for any particular outcome of these proceedings. My sole purpose is to provide facts as I know them about the incidents in question, as well as my views about the strategic importance of Ukraine to the United States. Let me start the bidding, David, with the stage manager in the play Our Town.

and can we go from there? What did that delivery remind you of? We got to get him in, I mean, the first thing that sprung to my mind was like, was NFL films, I guess. John Fascenda? Yeah, John Fascenda. I would love to get him in the studio. Not John Fascenda, but Bill Taylor, just to have him read funny things.

He should be the guy saying, like, welcome to the Ringer podcast network. But also I would just love to hear him say like... Yeah. Buffalo lost this game in San Diego, but like the setting sun, the bills will rise again. It was right on the line between newscaster who was really big when we were kids and children's Saturday morning, you know, Captain Kangaroo style host who was big when we were kids,

who was maybe right at their end of their run when you and I came of age in like the mid-80s. Absolutely. Because it was something just, just kind of avuncular about the delivery? I don't know. We should introduce him to Ken Burns if he doesn't know him already because he should be put a faint violin behind him and this guy could just tell you about any point in history.

He's doing the Ringer Podcast Network and then makes Ken Burns documentary. That's incredible. One more thing before we go, and I'm spraying this on you, but one of the big surprises or something that was kind of positioned as a surprise yesterday was the appearance on MSNBC of George Conway. Oh, yes. Did you see any of this? Yes.

I flipped over and was not immediately aware that he had never been on the network before or whatever, that this was like such a huge unveiling. We've seen so much of him or heard so much from him. His presence is, yeah, his presence certainly, I mean, has been consistent. Kellyanne Conway was forced to, I mean, came out and I think said it was embarrassing after the fact. I don't know. Do you think this is that to meaningful at all? I mean, George Conway. In what way for our meaningful for our absolute entertainment?

Do you think the, I mean, George Conway is sort of constantly held up in the media as this totem, as this like, if maybe if no one else can convince these people, the wife, the husband of a White House employee will be able to do it. Like, he's the, he's the, you know, he's, he's, he's like an avatar for, uh, disaffected Republicans in a certain way, mostly because of his, obviously because of his marital relationship, but also is, his outspokenness on Twitter. is there anything George Conway could possibly say that could convince anybody at this point, I guess? And also is like, is that his status in the media just totally superficial or is it, or do you think, I mean, if there weren't for George Conway,

there'd be another George Conway, you know, the media would create George Conway, but do you think he's important to any of this? Well, he is the true deep state, is he not? I mean, he's married to Kelly Ann Conway. Right. It's an act of conscience that he comes out on Twitter and everything else.

I, you know, I don't I don't know. It's like I think on this podcast, you'd, I've said it ever at times that never Trumpers have got to be the single most overrated class of pundits. But George Conway may be the exception to the rule. What is George Conway's next act? You know, do we get a George Conway book that's like anti-blurbed by Kellyanne Conway? This is embarrassing. This is embarrassing why did he write this? Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah, I have no idea. I mean, certainly he could, I mean, his, his, you know, he'll probably emerge post-Trump presidency with a relatively, relatively healthy reputation. But I have no idea.

I have no idea that this is going to, if he's going to be like the new James Carville, is that the idea that he and Kelly Ann are going to be out there like doing like the husband and wife, we disagree. Oh, yeah. Opposites a track show like Carville and Mary Matlin? Yes. Yeah, no. No, I almost said I think that's right. I do think that's right. And I did love yesterday when she was on with Wolf Blitzer.

Blitzer played a clip of George Conway. And Kelly Ann said, why are we doing this? And he said, well, he's a legal scholar. He happens to be married to you. Kelly Ann Conway's response was, he happens to be married to me. That's bizarre. I mean, she's now challenging, like, Wolf word for word on how he presents it. He's a legal scholar, David.

All right, time for the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media, Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to add the press box pod where they are always gratefully received. News from the firmament, David, from the heavens. A CNN tweet reads, The Milky Way's black hole kicked a star out of our galaxy. Milky Way's black hole kicked a star out of our galaxy. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write, Cancel culture is out of control. We have one of these every week,

but I keep reading them because they always make me smile. Thanks to Scott Tobias for that. In international news, David, last Friday, a tweet noted that, quote, Japan's Mount Sakurajima volcano shot smoke and ash into the sky in its biggest eruption in more than three years. And there is an accompanying photo

that is a giant pink cloud looming over the country. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write. Japan is having a girl. Thanks to Derek Burke. I include that because Jim Cunningham, our producer is absolutely obsessed with gender reveal stunts. That'll be the death of us all. Death of us all.

Finally, David, get a load of this headline from CNN, which you teased earlier. With public hearings set to begin on impeachment, Rudy Giuliani considers launching an impeachment podcast. Everyone just got into the layup line at that point. Are you ready for some possible titles for Rudy Giuliani's impeachment podcast? Wait, wait, don't jail me. This Ukrainian life.

WTF with Rudy Giuliani. I so love this one. This would be a quote, a hypothetical quote from the Rudy Giuliani podcast. I don't know how Pelosi sleeps at night attacking our president like this. And speaking of sleeping at nice, sleeping a night. sleeping a night if you're not sleeping well, it might be time to try a temperate mattress.

That's great. Thanks to Derek Burke again. Scott Tobias again. Julia Rowe, Don Steele, Jeremiah Ramirez, and Jump 6. If you named Rudy's impeachment podcast but forgot to suggest crooked media, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, David, time

for the notebook dump. And let us begin with the student newspaper kerfuffle that gripped a nation or at least elite journalist Twitter last week. On November 5th, the former Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke at Northwestern University at an event that was protested by students. The university student-run paper, the Northwestern Daily, initially covered the event a fairly standard way, and they were criticized afterward by protesters for posting photographs on social media of the protesters and using the school directory to get phone numbers to attempt to contact them.

On November 10th, the Daily published a column apologizing for its reporting, having deleted the photos and retracting the names of sources. Then came the takes from national reporters, who generally argued the Daily hadn't done its duty when it apologized. Here's Glenn Kessler, writer of the Washington Post Fact Checker newsletter. How is it possible that a newspaper at what is allegedly a top journalism school would apologize for the basis of reporting? This is a travesty and an embarrassment. From Matt Pierce, the L.A. Times, I don't doubt the sincerity of these student journalists. But I worry that if journalists keep seating ground on when it is acceptable to do basic reporting, we eventually play into the hands of powerful interests

who would love to criminalize journalism. And on and on and on until we get to Barry Weiss. Imagine that. Apologizing for the sin of committing journalism, this is chilling and a sign of more to come. But there were also some noteworthy and helpful comments. This is from Wesley Lowery, the Washington Post, talking about Troy Clause and the editor of the Daily,

who is only the third black EIC in 135 years, 135 plus years of the paper's existence. Lowry writes, only one of the black students in history to hold his position, student journalists who make incorrect decision based on sincere desire not to harm marginalized campus group is publicly decried by industry's most powerful, perenn, white journalist. Definitely a lesson to be learned there. What were your initial thoughts on DailyGate or whatever we're calling the Northwestern situation? I was so confused by it I have to say I will

I think that is the proper the proper initial take yes we were discussing it in the in the Brooklyn Ringer office earlier today and our East Coast chief Donny Kwok I think had the best response which is this is a

perfect 2019 kerfuffle everybody comes out looking bad It's a weird situation. I'm not... I kind of understand the pressures that everybody's under, but at the same time, it just seems like, you know, it's okay to... It's okay, I mean, especially from a journalistic outpost,

regardless of, you know, being a college thing or whatever else, it just seems like it's okay to ignore... Maybe if we all just agreed to ignore... to ignore some outrage, at least give a chance to breathe before we reacted really quickly. We wouldn't find ourselves in such situations. Absolutely. I don't know. What was your take?

No, well, that's take number one is you can wait 10 minutes, or you can wait a day to have a take on the Northwestern student newspaper. If you're like a big reporter at the Times of the Post, it's okay just to take a breath. And maybe learn more or think about it a little bit before you go in on the students. I wrote a piece. I looked this up. I think it was in 2005. It was about a slightly similar incident, but it was the same genre, which is something weird or potentially embarrassing happens at a college newspaper. And everyone reads it.

And my take then and now about this is that college journalists should be allowed to fail in private, more or less. like unless it's something that puts somebody in danger or you know commits a crime what you know we could I guess we could imagine some possible exceptions but the whole point of a college newspaper is you succeeding and failing without everybody outside the school reading it right that's the whole point it's a it's a place to learn and it's a training ground so I mean you can't expect to be yeah it's a training ground to make mistake and to experience all these things that you're going to experience as a real journalist, and there are my

air quotes right there, you get to, you get your first pass at them. Guess what? When you become a real journalist and you call people up, they're going to be like, why do you think this is a story? This isn't a story, which is what some of those protesters at Northwestern are doing. That's the exact same thing. You're going to get to deal with that again. You're going to deal, get to deal with people calling you up and saying, that story you wrote was so shitty and you had no right to do that. And that was just in such poor take you're going to get that for the rest of your life you should be able to get it in college without having everyone weigh in on every decision and every word you write yeah i mean as someone who i guess was recently like running a college publication as a recent in the internet

area college journalist in the internet era like i wrote like a lot of stupid stuff i like got a lot of complaints and it stressed me out and I felt like it, you know, the whole world was collapsing and it was very important and I probably made like, you know, editorial decisions that I would not make now. But I understand why the editors of like this Northwestern paper would make this mistake. Like, I get it. Like you're a kid. You're still learning how this is all supposed to go. And I think everyone being like, oh, yeah, this is like a display of our. eroding norms and about the way that journalism is degrading. It's like, yeah, no, sometimes just kids mess up and it's fine that they mess up.

And I, I, it's wild to me how everyone came out of this looking bad except for the dean of the school who was just like, yeah, the kids messed up, but also their kids. That seems like it should be pretty obvious. Yeah, also Charles Whitaker, right, is the dean of the J school there. Go ahead, sorry. He, he released a statement two days after basically being like, hey, protesters, like maybe give the journalists a break. Hey, national media also give the journalists a break.

They tried their best. And some input that I got from another journalist about my age, he was at Syracuse recently. And so the daily, also Northwestern, is financially independent from the university. And I think a lot of the papers that are independent really take a lot of pride in not being attached to the school, not being attached to the administration. you know, not taking their cues from the outside. And this is probably a situation where if you at least talk to your faculty advisor or somebody with a bit like who probably don't see it with as much tunnel vision, they might be able to give you some help.

But in this case, I guess that didn't happen. Yeah. And that, you know, and it's okay, right? Yeah. It's not the end of reporting as we know it. It really won't. And you know what? A lot of these, the, the, these, the kids who are on.

that paper who decide to get into this godforsaken profession, they're going to learn new stuff from day one of their new, of their jobs. That's what happens. They're going to be ready for this next time. Totally. You know, this is good. It's wild. It's wild to me also that just everyone didn't think this immediately, like that all the people

who should have the perspective weren't like reviewing this as the end of the world like I would have when I was in college. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I just, I remember that everything in a college newspaper seemed totally apocalyptic. You know, fraternity hazing seemed apocalyptic. Some, something that the administration did, which I couldn't even, I could, you know, give me two years to try to remember now that I'm sure I wrote some outraged editorial about,

I have no, just no memory of what it was. Parking spaces, you know, just like some protest on, everything was apocalyptic. And by the way, at the Daily Texan, where I served my very, please don't go back and find the the editorial's tenure. We did the staff editorial. And then at the bottom was a reproduction of our signature. Like out of everyone. So I wrote like 400 words.

And then there was my name signed below it. Like I was one of the founding fathers or something. When we talk about pretentious, here's my, it's not just a signed editorial. It is literally a signed editorial. Like here's my autograph. I just, I mean, I'm so glad, and this was back mostly in the newspaper, really the actual analog paper era. I'm so glad that was not being read by national journalists. I can't imagine.

I'm sure that whoever put your signature down there, whoever decided on that was really just like they got the new edition of Adobe Page Maker and they were just really feeling their oats, you know? My favorite part, too, being a college journalist is I'm sure Chris had this experience, too. I heard a quote from Frederick Jackson Turner in class, right? And then I started an editorial in the paper with the quote from Frederick Jackson Turner. And the only question was how many seconds elapsed between me hearing that in like government 102 and me putting it into the paper. I was so excited to show off that I knew something and that I could begin with a little, you know, a little classical quotation there. really because I'm sure, you know, somebody reading it between sophomore year and junior really give a shit about Frederick Jackson Turner thought. I mean, it was just, it was just incredible.

It was just incredible. So to me, this is pretty simple. It's just buzz off. Go away and, and, and let these people sort it out themselves. And they will, by the way, they'll, they'll figure it out. There'll be, there'll be more editions of the daily, right? It's not, it's not, it's not going to be, they can't be canceled. I don't think. Yeah. Don't. Don't worry, Barry Way, so it'll be fine. It'll be okay. Department David of the journalistic go-to phrase of the week. This is one of my favorites of all time, whether in student newspapers or adult newspapers.

Usually it does occur in newspapers. It actually got into the ringer this week in Allison Herman's excellent piece on Disney Plus. She wrote about the increasingly blurry line between children's and adults' entertainment. Increasingly blurry line is one of my all-time favorites. And if you start looking for increasingly blurry line, as you read your favorite website, you will have a feast of fun. David, can I give you some increasingly blurry lines

I found as I was preparing this podcast? Please do. So you'll read a lot these days about the increasingly blurry line that separates TV and movies. If you read a piece about our old pal Darren Ravelle, you might see a reference to the increasingly blurry line between being a journalist and an influencer.

There is an increasingly blurry line between ugly and gorgeous Christmas sweaters. A 2020 go-to, increasingly blurry line, between candidates and super PACs, or as the Washington Post notes, and attacking Donald Trump overseas, Joe Biden crossed an increasingly blurry line. There is also an increasingly blurry line between big data and big brother, between journalism and IP creation, between cities and suburbs, between mixtapes and albums. Sometimes you didn't even know there was an existing line that could be increasingly blurred.

For example, the increasingly blurry line between brew pubs and breweries. Are those different? I didn't know until the line had actually been blurred. Everybody loves the increasingly blurry line between fact and fiction, between news and opinion, between the real and unreal, between authenticity and honesty. I read about the increasingly blurry line between movies and video games regarding something like about the bander snatch. I have no idea what that is. Is that a black mirror thing? I don't know what it is.

This is my favorite, though. a national labor relations board story, right? Literally the most boring possible thing in the world. The increasingly blurry line between protected employee activity lies and disloyalty in statements to third parties. Now, raise your hand if you thought there was a clear line between those categories that had been only increasingly blurred. Increasingly blurry. Look for it as you read. me. Send them to me because we'll read them here on the podcast. Got a little listener mail for you, David.

This is from Jason McGenzie. I love this. I love this tweet. Are you guys doing a bit with the different geo media pronunciations in the deadspin segments? So I think I say geo media and you say go media. I thought it was the other way around. I thought I was saying geo until I heard you say go and I assumed I was wrong. I think it's geo media. To answer Jason, we're not doing a bit. We just get confused. So thank you for that. Our friend Chad Orzel, David, says, I'm really enjoying the new recurring segment on the press box pod.

David Shoemaker tries to find an alternative way to say, I think that's right. I've noticed that myself. You get right up to the finish line. You're like, uh, you're like, I think that's largely correct. There's some things that you realize you say and you can just cut them out of your vocabulary. And there's some things that you realize you would depend on so intrinsically

that you can't eliminate them, so you just have to find other ways to do accomplish the same thing. But yeah, it's a, it's, I'll do better, guys. I think there's an increasingly blurry line between I think that's right and whatever else David says

whenever he gets to that point. That is correct. All right, time for David Shoemaker guess is a strain pun headline. There we go, thank you. Needed David's assent there. Tuesday's headline about the movie The Irishman was

Hoffa, you can't refuse. And I didn't get any better ones than that in our Twitter feed, which shows you how perfect that is. A hafa you can't refuse. Today's pun headline comes from Jim Van Fleet. It's a tragic story from the site, the takeout. It turns out that Chuck E. Cheese, the restaurant chain, is undergoing a massive nationwide overhaul.

And part of that overhaul is getting rid of the beloved anemotronic house band, including lead singer Chuck E. Cheese. himself. Do you know what the E stands for? There we go. See? Charles Entertainment Cheese. By the way, I did not know the name of this. Do you guys know the name of the band? The Showtime. Oh, no. The Rockafire Explosion is the other one. This is, um... That's from Showbiz, yeah. Oh, I know this. What is it? It is the Munches make-believe band.

That's just not true. That's true. Munches make-believe band. Okay. Have you seen the Rock or Fire Explosion, a documentary is really good, by the way. If anybody hasn't seen that. Behind the music and the Rock of Fire Explo. No, I'm serious. There's a good documentary about the Rock of Fire Explo. Some guy trying to recreate it.

I don't even remember. It's fantastic. We go on. Anyway, more important things to discuss. I'm going to give you a hint here. I want you to think of a line that accompanies death in Shakespeare. As you try to guess, what is the takeouts strained pun headline? Chuckie or not Chuckie?

No. Uh. Pretty good. Wait, is that A death, perhaps a death in Hamlet. Yeah. What is it? Parting in Such Sweet sorrow.

Is that it? No. Good night. What is it? Good night. Good. I didn't. I didn't sit in freshman year drama with you to have you forget this, David.

Is it a good night, sweet prince? Is that what it is? Now we got to punt it up, guys. Remember there's a mouse heading up this band. Good night. Maybe a sound a mouse makes. Good night, squeak prince. Good night, squeak prince.

It's absolutely horrific. That's why I wanted to do it. Good night, squeak prince. bidding farewell to Munch's make-believe band What was I already forget it? Was it? Munches make-believe band.

Good night, Squeak Prince. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Research by Chris Love made a production magic by Jim Cunningham. We're back Tuesday, bright and early. With more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.

Good night, Squeak Prince. Who is notable for wearing a bow tie. How many people are really going to pay attention to this, or probably a better question is, as I rewrite myself here, in what way are they going to consume the bowtie? It's a good question. Are those different? I didn't know until I was a...

And sure, I'd be interested to see the ratings, because I'm sure a lot of people are going to be watching them. Absolutely. I don't know. What was your take? It was a clash between ugly and gorgeous. We talk about pretentious. Is that it?

Now, raise your hand if you thought they looked. Dorky. think that's the question that's kind of strangely at the crux of the whole investigation no this is america i don't know do you think this is that's meaningful at all i mean what way for our meaningful for our embarrassing after the fact oh yeah opposite to track show like i mean it was just it was just incredible it was just incredible so to me this is pretty simple it's just buzz off oh you're gonna get that for the rest of your life. Guess what?

We disagree. Go away and fail in private. More or less. I was so confused by it. Buzz off. It's not quid pro quo the Democrats are trying to reveal. It's... Good night, squeak friends.

It's absolutely horrific. Yeah.