The Press Box - Lee Corso’s Legendary 'College GameDay' Run. Plus: The White House's Attack on the Associated Press.

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Hello, media consumers! This Press Box Thursday edition includes a J-School on bylines, steak sauce, and nonprofit media (1:00). Then, Bryan and Joel dig into Lee Corso’s retirement from 'College GameDay' (20:00), Trump’s attempt to prevent the AP from covering the White House (33:00), and Nico Harrison’s bizarre closed-door press conference (40:00). Plus: journalists in space and an update on Journalism, the official race horse of The Press Box. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel D. Anderson Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, humanoids. It's the Masked Man here, David Shoemaker. It's officially a WrestleMania season, and we've got you covered here on the Ringar Wrestling show. Kaz here, every Monday and Thursday hang out with me and my gosh shoes on the Masked Man show. And Ben Cruz here. Come kick it with me, Cal, and Brian on Tuesdays for Ringar Wrestling Worldwide, where we hit on the most interesting headlines and even react to some of Masked mans and even your hottest takes. Don't tap out. Tap in to the Ringer Wrestling Show feed now on spot.

or wherever you get your podcasts. Worldwide. Media consumers, welcome to PressBox. You've got Brian Curtis. You've got Joel Anderson. You've got producer Bobby Wagner. Coming up on today's pod, we say goodbye to Lee Corso, the man who created college game day.

Plus, Trump versus the AP goes into OT, Nico Harrison and the Please Don't Record this interview, an update on a horse named journalism. and should we shoot news anchors into space. But first, we take you to a university that didn't learn how to resist from Harvard. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to J-School. You think all those years sort of close to Berkeley

didn't rub off on me, your J-School president? Come on. We know what's up. We know what's up. Brian, we didn't really get a chance to do this last week. Hello, how are you doing, man? It's good to see you again. It's good to see you again, too.

A peek behind the curtain is that Brian showed up on the Zoom, and I was like, hey, man, hadn't seen you, I hadn't seen you in a while. And I forgot that we had recorded last week because we didn't get to do our normal show. We had on Jamil Bowie. A three-man weave just has a completely different dynamic than this. Absolutely, absolutely. So I'm settling back in. But, you know, as per usual with J-School, you know, a lot of this is responding to things I heard on Monday. And I obviously listened with great interest to your conversation with Dave about how journalism is disappearing from ESPN.com, right?

And this was related to tracking down the story about the nuggets firing both Mike Malone, the head coach and Calvin Booth, general manager. Calvin Booth, former Mavs great, too, by the way. There we go. Yeah. And then finding that the bylines of reporters Ramona Shelburne and Tim McMahon were in the, quote, tiniest type possible, as you called it. Yes. And if you were trying to fool someone with a contract, you could not have created finer print than the bylines of Ramona Shelburne and Tim McMahon. Yeah.

And we've been talking about this about it. It's just very hard to find, like, the pieces of journalism on their website, right? And the caveat here is, again, ESPN.com still has a number of great journalists from our buddy Dave Wilson, Chris Herring, Elizabeth Merrill, so, so many more. And they all produce great journalism. There are people that do that work and they do it as well. as anybody else in this business. But to your point, Brian, do you know what's really frustrating and which should be frustrating to the people who remain employed there? Go try to find the author page for Wright Thompson for Ramona Schober. For like Adam Schaefter,

like anyone. It doesn't exist. There are no author pages in ESPN. And I've asked about this before and never gotten a good or even clear answer about why ESPN hasn't done that. yet. And to me, it's just like one of those little things that shows you sort of the priority of writing a journalism at ESPN. It's a simple thing to do, right? Like, I went and looked at the, I went and looked, you know, back in my career. And, you know, the only places that have preserved my author pages are BuzzFeed and Slate. And I can't, like, I don't even remember all the things I wrote at ESPN.com. So if I do, like, random Googles, I might turn up some stuff, but it is very difficult to remember what I wrote there over those two years. And I'm just like, why can't

they do this? Like, what is the problem here? It's really, really strange. And it, it just makes me think how much it sucks to be a reporter right now. In the world we live in. Did you see this? I saw this this week, you know, I think it was Peter Hamby at Puck was talking about how all these content creators are just going live and being like breaking. And then they take a piece of reporting that they read in a newspaper. Man. And put it on their newscast. or whatever it is, and you're just like, what about the reporter who did that work? Right, right.

What about them? And you only tell you what just makes me go crazy is when I see sides shrinking bylines, people in our business, people like you and me, Joel, when they screenshot a couple of paragraphs from a story. Yep. And then there's just no link on Twitter and you get your little joke out of it.

And people are like, guys, the business is dying. It's so frustrating. It really is. I always try to link up, man. Because, I mean, that's the only way, I mean, first of all, don't you, whenever you see a screenshot, and I don't know, this is just me like, don't you have some curiosity about, you sent me a screenshot today. And I was like, hey, what is that from? What's the link to this? I committed the crime myself. Yeah, but it was in, you know, it was our personal text. So it was fine. But you're like, yeah, I mean, don't, don't people have that sort of curiosity anyway, like you would think, right? Or maybe people moving so fast. Maybe people moving so fast and I don't have time to do it.

But I know. But I said it's like in wrestling, they used to say, protect the business. Protect the business. give people a chance to visit the website, if not subscribe to the website. It only takes a second. It only takes a second, man. And I mean, if you want that, be able to, like, feed off of the journalism, like, remora fish, like, you got to do that. Even if, just being, like, the self-interested part of you should be, like, if I still want to keep stealing work, you know what I mean?

Like, you can do, you can, you know, take your screenshot in the first tweet and then link much later down. But, like, for you to be able to have that information, you've got to give people credit so people know where to go find that information. Yeah, even if you're making fun of it. And again, I know I've screwed up on this before, but I'm going to be a better journalistic citizen going forward. Absolutely.

Well, look, I want to be doing the same. And on my to do list for like the last five years is creating my own website so I can figure out a way to archive my stories. Because it's like a lot of places that I've worked at, you just, you know, gotten rid of my author page or whatever else. And like, I want, I want a story of it. I mean, it's important to do, if not just for like, you know, my own ego or whatever. I remember that. Or, you know, that kind of sucked. But it's also just important

for the historical record, too. Absolutely. And also our egos. Yeah, and of course, our egos, too. I don't say that. That was a nice lead. So also from the last episode, Brian, I want to say something directly to Dave that I know will probably piss off a lot of steak enthusiasts. And he referred to his wanting steak sauce in general, and A1 in particular, as, quote, lowbrow. And that made me sad and sort of frustrated. And it reminded me of a fight that I've been having for the last 20 years of my life. Okay. So I want people to embrace their choices.

And I also want people to leave people the hell alone when they're ordering their food. And I'm going to just start back real quickly in my childhood. When my mom wanted to do something special for me, she'd make me a steak and a loaded baked potato, okay? And my mom cooked this shit out of the steak. Like, we, in fact, the word we used for how I wanted my steak was crispy, okay? Now, I later learned that this is something called Well Done. Sometimes I'd have sauce. Sometimes my mom would add some kind of seasoning.

I loved it. Still do, actually. I don't. I can't eat a steak. I'm 46. Like, to eat a steak right now just would really wear me out, right? Yeah, you're going to sleep for the next three days. Yeah, I don't think I could handle it.

But anyway, this wasn't much of a problem until I was in my 20s, and I went out to dinner with my girlfriend at the time, and her sister and her boyfriend is somewhere in Dallas. Like it's, you know, off mockingbird lane, just to mention something like that. And I ordered my steak the way I always did. And the boyfriend starts talking about how I'm ruining the meat and so on and so forth. And this, I got very defensive. We argued basically the rest of the dinner. And I ate my steak well done. And I still hate that guy now 23 years later. And later, I didn't have the information at the time, but later I learned that there's actually something cultural about well done steak stemming from the fact that many black people didn't and don't have access to the choices, cuts of meat, and cooking get well done is a way of ensuring

that you don't get sick. Okay? So that's what my mom had borrowed from, and this is just like somehow we, I don't think we got back cuts of meat from Randalls, but, you know, whatever. So anyway, fast forward a few months later, and I'm driving from Oklahoma City to Lubbock, Texas to cover the top ranked Sooners against Texas Tech. Details of the game are imported with the Sooners one. Brian, do you know what's along the way on the road to Lubbock?

I'm trying to picture it. Tell me. Okay. Well, I mean, first of all, there's a huge crucifix that we go into Easter weekend. It's like somewhere outside of Pampa. But I'm talking specifically about the big Texan steakhouse in Amarillo right off Interstate 40. Have you ever been there? I have never been inside, but driven by it many times.

And I salivate every single time I do. Okay. So this is one of those times in your life that is really precious. I was like 25 single. had no obligation. So I was early. I stopped because I wanted to go inside and see what it was like. So the big Texan for people that don't know, it's famous because of the legendary steak challenge, which is if you eat a whole 72 ounce steak in an hour, you get it for free. If you fail, you have to pay the whole $72. I wasn't there for that. I just wanted to have steak and some dinner rolls.

So I go inside, give my usual steak order. But now I'm kind of self-conscious, right? Because somebody has pointed out, ordering it well done is weird. You know, you know, that, I'm ruining the meat. And so the very sweet waitress, and I don't remember her name, she says, how about you try it medium? If you don't like it, we'll give you the stake that you want. I tried it. It was pretty good. And now my compromise is medium well.

You know, sometimes I go medium, medium well. I went to Burns and Tampa once, and I felt like I had to order it medium to fit in with the table, right? But the bottom line here is that, and this is to you, Dave, embrace these choices. And if you think somebody, if you're the kind of person that's like going to comment on somebody's steak or whatever, like, please don't. Shut up. Like, don't leave people alone.

Let people eat what they want to eat, okay? I know Shoemaker's smiling right now in Vegas at WrestleMania. And I hope when he goes to a steakhouse tonight, somewhere on the strip, he is feeling free to order it just how he wants it and a steak sauce. Drown that mug and A1, Dave. I hope you, you know, and doing somebody's face. Just so I'm not on the anti-populous side of this argument here, I do want to know, when we got off the air, Bobby Wagner and I were talking,

and he can join it on this if he'd like to. But when you do go to the fancy steakhouse, which I do very, very seldom, you're like, I would like to put a sauce with that, and I'll plave, if you will, and you look down, and it's like $6 or $7 to add the sauce. Really? What? I mean, Wags, that is the true crime here, is it not?

That is the true crime. You're making me the economic populist of the press. box down here I am ready to fill my role you were already there sing my song yeah I thought you were going to expose me for saying that my preferred sauce on a stick is bernets which um yeah it's a little bit petite bourgeoisie but you know we all have our little things that we like we like the finer things in life right joel yeah yeah come in so you look sometimes you have to indulge right and that's totally fine do we ever affect that accent except when we're in a steakhouse right a little bernays a little awol you say that again bobby so i can get it right say it which

Just Bernays, right? That's how it said. I'm not the expert in French. Okay. It's not my language. I'm more of a phonetic language kind of guy. I could get you an Italian, but not French. Maybe I need to start going to more steakhouses.

I always kind of thought that that'd be a point in my life where I'd be going to more steakhouses. And then you just kind of realize like, man, eating a steak, that's a, that's a chore right there, brother, you know? Yeah. You should have gotten into the magazine world a little bit earlier if you wanted to go to more steakhouse. Yeah, my 30s or late 20s.

That would have been, yeah. Yeah, no, well, such as life. And the last thing here for J-School, because we do three things typically. So I'm going to tell a brief story. Last August, I was in Houston helping my father get settled into a nursing home, and I took up an offer from my friend Angel Rodriguez to take a swing through the Houston Landings newsroom. And it's in the beautiful Montrose area, not to cross the street from, like, the University of St. Thomas, which is another small private school in inner city, Houston.

And Angel was the managing editor and had recently come from the LA Times. We talked about working together before. He knew that I loved Houston, that I wanted to see, that I want to see it better than it is. And then my family is still there. And I want my kids to know them. So like, it was like, why not just go take a look at the Houston landing? On that day, I got to meet with the CEO, Peter Badia, and talk with a few folks in the newsroom. My guy Matt Schwartz, who used to be over at The Chronicle.

And then I went to lunch with Megan Fennarty, who's the, Chief of Strategy Engagement and Revenue, and Connor Mackie, who's the Director of Finance. And those two in particular were brilliant. They almost sold me on taking that job right then and there. Really? They presented a vision for me for how I could work, like being a voice for the city, pushing it to do more and be better for residents. It wasn't just writing.

It was almost like community advocacy. And I'm a shy person, but I like the idea of meeting with people in my hometown. and, hey, like, I'm not, you know, I can say it like Jamel. Like, I always kind of thought of myself someday transitioning into politics. That's the sort of crazy because I don't think I've got a political personality, but I'm just being honest here. But I was concerned about their funding model, which was mostly grants from a couple of big local philanthropic organizations. And it didn't seem like they had any guarantees beyond 2025. So anyway, after that visit, I talked several times with the Manny Garcia, who was then the new.

editor-in-chief, and he'd come from the American statesman in Austin. I really liked him, and I thought, man, I might be a fool for not just taking this job. A few days later, I get laid off by slate. My whole life is turned upside down, and I started having a bunch of other conversations I wouldn't necessarily expecting. Tad-da, I'm here at the Ringer. Anyway, earlier this week, we got the news that the Houston Landing is preparing to shut down sometime in May. It's going to lay off all 43 of its employees, and they're hopefully trying to figure some sort of arrangement with the Texas Tribune. sort of the model for nonprofit newsrooms now, or one of them for nonprofit,

local reporting-based newsrooms, right, Brian, I would say. Yeah, sure, absolutely. I think one of the success stories. Absolutely. And so I hope that happens. And look, there's been a lot of talk about how this happened. But in the spirit of the media graveyard, I just want to say it just really pains me to see another missed opportunity in my hometown and another lost opportunity for these

ambitious journalists. And I grew up in Houston when they had the post in The Chronicle, man. And I know that that was a different time, but I still believe that Houston can support another robust news outlet. And I hope it doesn't end with the landing. And look, again, there's a lot of people that have offered critiques about why that place didn't make it. They started out with $20 million.

You know, so like people would write to ask questions about why didn't I work out. But I applaud those folks for trying. I hope they land well. And that whoever or whatever takes their place in. Houston learns from their mistakes and missed opportunities because I'm all four people getting more informed and for journalists having an opportunity to work at a bunch of different places. I had two reactions when I saw that news. One is that we journalists like a character in a video game are out of magic elixirs.

Yeah. Newspaper era, it died. Hey, it's the benevolent billionaire era. Well, how did that work out? And then we had, okay, it's a non-profit newsroom era. Yeah. We're going to do it that way. And again, there have been some great success stories.

You mentioned the Texas Tribune, though they've had their problems too. We can look at the Baltimore Banner, places like that. But that's not going to be an elixir that's going to fix everything either. And part of the reason it's not, and this is my second reaction to this is you and I grew up in the newspaper era. And we would say, okay, there was this parts of the paper that are vital to replicate. Yep. Covering the Board of Education, holding politicians to account. all those city columnists, metro columns like you talk about.

The thing is, is if you read newspapers 20, 30 years ago, that was in there, but the whole rest of the newspaper was a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop. Oh, my God, man, I'm just thinking about it. I learned to read from the comics section. The comics, the one ads, the car ads. Coupons on Sunday. Yeah, tales of Joel Anderson's schoolboy exploits in Houston. I mean, there was so much of it that was just like candy.

Yeah. And what a lot of these sites are trying to do, and I applaud them for trying, but they're trying to take the parts of the paper that are the most important parts, the most necessary parts, but also the parts that are the hardest to fund on their own once you've detached them from the rest of the hot air balloon. To borrow your earlier analogy, instead of candy, they're giving them vegetables. So like, hey, man, you want to pay for these vegetables here? No candy. This is a spinach.

It really is. I mean, you look at the Houston Landing. These are their topic sections. Investigations, education, immigration, communities, public safety, politics and government, environment, and on and on. Again, you and I would argue, what more important reporting could you do in a city like Houston? Right. Than covering those topics. Oh, yeah.

Absolutely. But the question is, how do you do it without peanuts and Marmaduke and the Joel Anderson sports story? and the sports columnist and everything else. Like, it's so difficult. Job listings, like I said, all that kind of stuff, man. It's just the housing ads and all that stuff. Yeah, man, that's the thing. It's like, how can you replicate?

You can't really replicate that anymore, right? And it takes really serious news consumers to want to pay for that stuff. And like right now it doesn't seem like they're interested in that. No, it's like, and if you have like ProPublica and those investigations are going to cut through and really, really pop. I mentioned the Baltimore banner. Think of all the work they've done on Justin Tucker, the Ravens kicker. Like, there are examples of it working, at least working to a point.

But you just think of like, what is the way to preserve the most important reporting in the paper without having the things that a lot of people, maybe most people who are reading the newspaper, were paying for? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Did I tell you when I was coming? back from Houston a couple of weeks ago, that I was flying on the plane with my son and the guy that was on the aisle. I was in the middle seat. My son was on the window. I was an older guy from Baltimore. And he comes up to me. He sees me. And he's like, hey, man, I like that.

You old school. I was reading. I had a paper in my hand. I had the Houston Chronicle. I was reading it on the place. I like, I like that, man, that's that old school stuff. And I was like, my thing. One thing a friend had taught me a long time ago is that like, you know, if you read to a baby or your kids, they don't care what you're reading from, man. You can read the newspaper to them. You can read the newspaper to your baby anytime. You know what I mean? So that's kind of how I got an inhabit of having the newspapers.

So anyway. This will save print is reading to babies. Reading to babies. You don't understand the words. This is our new plan. It's as good as any as we've had before in this business. We should try. We should try a shout out Decker, man.

He gave me that idea. So anyway. A couple of topics for you here. Number one, we got some news this morning via an athletic news alert. This was big, this big in the sports world. Lee Corso is retiring. from college game day. Oh, man.

We knew this day was coming, right? We knew the day was coming. It had become obvious the last couple years where he missed a number of weeks because of illness. Yeah. But let me tell you something, man. Lee Corso is game day.

And I would argue is the creator of game day as we know it. I think that's a, I mean, ESPN had Dick Vatal for college hoops, Chris Berman, our showfriend for NFL, Lee Corso for college football, right? Absolutely. That trio of characters sort of like they represented the fun that people have around those sports, I think.

Oh my God. It's funny. I heard a story a couple years ago from Tim Brando, who was the original host of College Game Day, which is a very funny thing to think about. But 1987, Tim Brando, Beano Cook, and Lee Corso were college game day. And they were not on the road. This was a studio show in Bristol. So this is a totally different time in the ESPN history. But he basically, they'd done a show, maybe he was even their first show,

and they went up to the executive offices there at ESPN, and they're getting a lot of compliments. And Corso comes down, and he goes, you know what I'm going to be? And Brando says what? And Corso says, I'm going to be the Dick Vital of college football. Oh, shit. Are you serious? He knew what he was going to do.

He knew where he was going to get. Mm-hmm. And by fairly similar means, right? Yeah. I mean, it was a smart play, man. I mean, Dick Vatel, I mean, that he represents college basketball to be even today, right? Who's replaced him as the face of that sport? No, nobody.

Nobody on that level anyway. We could put Bill Raftery and other people in that conversation. Yeah. But, you know, in terms of like the face of the sport, the cheerleader of the sport, the, you know, kind of nutty uncle of the sport. Yeah. I mean, there's just nobody. And it's funny, I just thought about this today when I was thinking about the Corson news, 1987, Corso gets hired by ESPN.

That's what, like three or four eras of ESPN ago? And there's no way they hire somebody like that today. I was going to ask you, what is that, what do you mean by that? Is it because he coasted Indiana and Louisville? Yes. Yeah, okay. I mean, look, the business today at ESPN is we want Nick Sabin and Bill Belichick. Yeah, right.

And we're going to start there. And maybe a Dan Orlovsky market. Spears can kind of work their way up into the hierarchy, but, you know, it was a very 1987 ESPN kind of higher. Yeah, man. Winners take all the day, but that's not how it was back then. Absolutely. Yeah.

And what Corso would tell you is like when he was at Indiana, he had to get attention because football at Indiana was not basketball at Indiana. And he had this great moment where he was doing their coaches show. And the coaches show, by the way, the most boring thing on telehealth. that you could possibly imagine in any other hands. And what I love is that Lee's show ran on Sunday mornings on the Indianapolis television station opposite Meet the Press. Wow.

Just a great fact of history. But Indiana had lost six games in a row. They were not good. And Lee Corso is walking around the TV station. He finds a coffin that had been left there from a children's television show. And so at the beginning of his coaches show, he rises up out of the coffin and says, we're not dead yet. And that...

I love that. All the way down to the props, that is college game day. Yeah. That aesthetic, that willingness to be goofy, that idea that we're going to put the entertainment first and the sports second.

Like he had this mantra, then Reese Davis, Herbie, all those guys will quote this to you. Lee always used to say, we're in the entertainment business and college football is our vehicle. Yeah.

And that is a great, insight for a show like that, right? Like, this is not, we're not getting famous here. Rich talking about X's and O's, it's entertainment, and the X's and O's will be contained within that. It's just so funny because everybody is looking for Charles Barkley. Like, everybody wants to be Charles Barkley, but it's really hard. First of all, I don't think people want to laugh at themselves.

Like, it's really hard to laugh at yourself in front of people. But also, like, Lee Corso, I just think he's authentically a fun and funny guy, and it comes across the screen. Like, it's just really hard to find somebody that's willing to do that, but also is, like, a person that's serious. And somebody that, like, does know about the intricacies of the game, right? When the time calls for it. But that it's like, no, like, first and foremost, I'm here to have fun,

and I want you all to have fun with me. Yes, and has those instincts. And if you think about it, like, Indiana football and ESPN in 1987, that's kind of the same thing. Yeah. You have to find a way to get it. attention. Yeah, man.

You have to find a way to break through because that audience was not showing up. ESP in 1987 is Keanu Tom and log rolling competitions, man. Herbie also tells the story of this amazing moment where they were doing a citrus bowl preview. And by this point, Chris Fowler was a host and Herbie was in there as the dream boat quarterback, young guy, nice young man, classic character from television. and Herbie gives this long answer about Michigan and Arkansas and why Michigan's going to win and all this stuff. And Corso, he said, just looked at him like he was completely crazy.

And Corso's answer was he just looks at the screen. He goes, Michigan and Arkansas, it's like pickup trucks against Cadillacs. I'm going with the pickup truck. I love it. And that was it. That's so smart. And Herbie watching that is like, oh, that's how you talk to people on television. Man.

Also, like, that is so illustrative. Like I actually, I can sound like, oh, I know what that means, too, right? You don't have to stick too much more than that. No. No. And that's the thing people will remember about the show. And that's why I say, I think, of course, it was a creator of Game Day as we know it. Because, like, it needed everything, right?

It needed Fowler to come in as being this, like, unbelievably locked in. Polished. Polished, like on it and caring about like every second of the show. It needed him. It needed Herbie to come in as the dream. boat as that guy and that guy who could just like talk about any college game off the top of his head. And we're always like, oh, wow, how's that? But Corso creating the aesthetic that those guys could come into and be a part of and work with, Corso creating the headgear thing, which by

the way was placed conveniently at the end of game day. So you had to watch the entire show for the money shot. The build. Oh my God. Like that's game day, folks. I mean, see, that's kind of like, I mean, I don't know, I don't, you know, there's the FS1 show. And I mean, I've watched it sometimes, but like, who's the fun guy there? Right. I mean, that's the kind of thing. It's hard to break through. It's not, it's not Urban Meyer.

It's not urban Meyer. You're not the wacky coach on. He's not the wacky guy. No, not at all. Who's the guy you want to hear from on there? I mean, I think that's the other thing about Game Day. It's always had a guy, sometimes more than one guy that when they start talking, you go, huh? Yep.

Yep. I need to listen to this. I need to plug into this. Well, I mean, I mean, I guess they figured out a way to move on with, I mean, actually, that's kind of the thing that is shocking about all of this today because, Brian, I don't know if you were as stunned as I was, but Lee Corsesstroke happened 15, more than 15 years ago. I did not realize it had been that long. Totally. And he came right back to television. Yeah, man. Yeah.

It was in springtime and he was ready to do TV in the fall. Yeah, man. I mean, obviously it shows him how much it meant to him and that they cleared out the space for him. But I had not realized it had gone on with him for that long. But I think, and this is sort of the uncomfortable thing because we just said we saw this day coming. It had gotten really, you know, you kind of come to care about this guy. Like, you've been with you every Saturday morning in the fall for, you know, over 30, you know, over 30 years, man. and I had kind of come to feel like, oh man, like this, it made me feel sad.

You know what I mean? But maybe this, I don't have to feel sad and maybe that's condescending or whatever, whatever, but it just seeing Coach Corso in recent years actually made me feel a little bit like, oh, man, this is really kind of, this is painful to watch a little bit. I totally agree. I will say, I think the other thing that was unlocked by the people on that show was a relationship between Herbie and Corso, especially in these recent years. Yeah.

Because if you noticed, they always had them in a two shot. Whenever Lee Corso started talking, it's almost always a two shot with Herbie next to him. Right. Since you understood it. And what, you know, you and I always talk about like shows on television are kind of about sports, but really they're about the relationships between the people, or at least what we perceive sitting on our couch on a Saturday morning drinking coffee,

the relationships to be. And I'm like, here we had this relationship over a period of 20 years, almost, where it's like Herbie comes in and he's the young guy. And Corso pick up trucks versus Cadillax is showing him the ropes. Yeah. And then just like in every one of our lives, the child starts helping the father. Yep. I was going to say.

Mitch you dad, right? Father son, teach a child. Teach us to. And you start to become the one like, let me help you out. Let me do this. And, you know, when he was on the air and he would forget a name, forget a word or something like that and Herbie's right next to him helping, we can say a lot of things about Herbie, including the fact that he blocked you on Twitter.

You remember that? Of course I remember that. We could say a lot of things. Florida State fans might say a lot of things. But the way he and Lee interacted on the air, his relationship with Lee in real life. And on television, that's something, man. That is like, that's one of those things. Again, there's television and there's just a thing we understand from real life.

And that was just so powerful and popped from the screen so much. It was really, really wild to me and really, really amazing. Oh, very humanizing. I mean, I think it helped, you know, because I think in recent years, like, you know, Herbie's become a little bit more prickly and a little bit more of a divisive figure and his care that he exerted publicly and privately with Coach Corso's, spoke well of him, right? And I think it helped to sort of soften some of those rough edges.

I think that maybe people had come to notice in recent years, I think. Yeah. And then just watching the last couple of years where the McAfee, Nick Sabin relationship essentially becomes the dominant relationship on the show. So it was Herbie Corso and then, you know, father's son. And then McAfee, Sabin, which is his own kind of father's son, very different, you know, different texture. to it perhaps, but, you know, McAfee's goose in the crowd and being crazy. By the way,

goose in the crowd, just like Corso did for many, many years. You know, Crosso had that sense of the moment and, you know, saving low over there looking stern and a little disapproving and all that kind of stuff, but that's, that's television. Like, that's what it is. It's not the breakdown of the West Virginia running back. Like, that's not it. It's stuff like that. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, man, I'm going to, I mean, again, he hadn't been on there as much in recent years, but it really does seem to. so to be the end of an error in a lot of ways with that show and in ESPN too. So I'm going to, it's going to feel a little different this fall, man.

It really will. It really will. All right. Let's talk about Donald Trump and the Associated Press. Oh, okay. You remember that Donald Trump's White House banned the AP from covering certain events because the AP wouldn't call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. That's so crazy, man.

Pause for laughter. I'd forgotten about that, sort of. But anyway, oh, God. Anyway, yes, I do remember this. The AP didn't forget. They took Donald Trump to court. Yeah. And they won.

Judge Trevor McFadden wrote, under the First Amendment, if the government opens its doors to some journalists, be it to the Oval Office, the East Room or elsewhere, it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints. And this is one of those, talk about open and shut case, that Trump administration was saying this is why the AP wasn't in. Yeah. I mean, they admitted it. They were straight up about. He admitted it. Yeah, right. He said it. Well, as of yesterday, that is Wednesday, the AP's access had not been restored. So the AP now has to make another filing saying that Trump is not following a judge's ruling, which has been kind of a theme in Washington this week. I mean, you know, I mean, again, it's just like, yeah, with a concept of a ruling, right?

The concept of a ruling. Concept of a ruling. We disagree with the interpretation. So, yeah. Yeah. What the Trump White House did do was change the composition of the White House pool. For those non-journalists listening pool is the tiny group of reporters that basically gets to be very, very close to the president during the day. Politico's Ali Bianco notes that there was a spot in the pool, a permanent spot in the pool for a wire service reporter. And the wires here were Bloomberg, Reuters, and the AP. Right. basically the AP had a one and three chance of being in the pool every day.

Well, the Trump admin says, actually, no more dedicated spot for a wire reporter. We're just going to have an additional print reporter slot that the AP is eligible. But of course, the list of print reporters is much bigger than the list of wires that would be in the pool. So, long story short, the AP now has less access to the president. than it did during the Biden administration. Yeah, I mean, it's the soft launch of open administrative hostility toward journalism, right? And, you know, somebody was pointing out on social media the other day that unless you sort of stay tuned into these White House press briefings, we can't understand how much, as the kids say, glazing is going on in there.

You know, that people asking about the president's fitness routine, about like, why the opposite. Party is supporting terrorists, namely asking, hey, why did you send that guy to El Salvador without due process? Things of that nature. And I guess, Brian, I mean, we've done this a lot. We've talked about this a lot. And I know that I'm probably more extremist on this end. But it's hard to see how continuing down the current path with the AP having to basically go it alone and go to court by themselves, that in hoping that norms will prevail, that that will change anything. right? And so I don't, you know, what's the, if they don't respect the court, if they don't respect the courts, if the administration doesn't respect the courts, if the other news outlets there aren't willing to step in and say, hey, we want to support them in this effort, what should we do collectively? I kind of don't know what, you know, it just seems like the AP is going to be on the outside looking in for the most part. And really, I think it doesn't even have to do with the court because the Trump administration is just trying to change the composition of the people covering it.

Yep. at a more fundamental level. There's a really good piece about this in the Times the other day. I'll give you some bylines here. Ashley Wu, Rebecca Lieberman, Michael M. Grinbaum, and Doug Mills. What they did was track down not only the seating chart, the White House briefing room, but who has been in that special new media seat? And there have been some mainstream reporters of Mike Allen from Axios and, you know,

Shelby Talcott from Semaphore. but then there have been some other reporters. Matt Boyle, Brightbart. We've mentioned Sage Steele on the show a couple of times. The Sage Steel Show. Where is that, where is that? I think that comes on right after game day. Okay.

Saturdays on ESPN. April 15th, so that's this week, Tuesday. The occupant of the seat was one, Matthew Foldy. Matthew Foldy ran for Congress as a Republican in 2020. He was a media guy, ran for Congress's Republican, and now media guy again. He was in the new mediacy. So I totally agree with you. I don't think this gets better at all.

In fact, I think they just create workarounds so that they're getting questions about Donald Trump eating less McDonald's. And are you mad Rosie O'Donnell is moving to Ireland? Yeah. I mean, so there is all of that. But the one thing that I have to say, because this was a great story in the New York Times, this little, it's inside the changing White House briefing room is the headline of it. Did you know that that room looked like that? I don't think I did. This looks like a nightmare.

Like, I encourage people to go read that story and click on that link because it looks awful. Like, that does not look like anything I'd want to be a part of. And also, as a reporter, and I mean, you tell me if this is true for you. I mean, some people look different. we've all been in scrums, right, where you know, or in a press conference where you're having to ask, like the NCAA tournament, men's basketball tournament is a good example of this. Like you're in a conference room, the coaches up there, maybe the players are up on the dais or whatever, and you have to ask them questions. I don't like asking questions under those circumstances, do you? No. Nobody does. Nobody likes that, right? And I don't think you even get the best questions. Maybe the person who asked about Rosie O'Donnell likes that. Fair point. Yeah. Right. Well, hold back. open. Yeah, but I don't, I mean, just this whole setup made me think, I was like, man, obviously it's a chance to hold him to account. It's sort of a performance in and of itself,

but I would never want to be in that room in my life ever. So, no. I mean, that's, and that's journalistic sacred ground, the White House briefing room. And it looks like hell. And many days, it is hell. I'm sure it is. I have a lot more respect for them having to endure that, in a manner of speaking. Like, I mean, obviously people make their choices. in their careers, but that looks terrible. Let me segue by saying, speaking of weird press conferences. Okay. Nico Harrison.

Dallas Mavericks GM. We'll leave the basketball analysis to some of our other ringer friends, but have you ever heard anything like this in your life, Joel? Public figure gives an on-the-record interview, but media members are told beforehand, they cannot record it with audio or video. I have never heard that ever. I'm sure it's happened.

Usually it's like if it's going to be an off-the-record kind of thing or whatever, if nobody's allowed to record. Like it's just informational, right? That happens all the time on beats. Yeah. Background briefing, whatever it is. Yeah. But record and not being able to on the record that you're not able to record, no.

I've not heard that. This is what happened this week before the Mavs play in game against Sacramento. Not shockingly, the beats were not happy to be asked to pull notebooks out of their back pocket like Bob Ryan in 1987. Is it that old to have a notebook? Okay. So Bob Ryan in 2007? When did we start recording everything? It really did.

Because you know what? You did point out when I was walking around Atlanta with my notepad. a couple months ago, you did make note of it. And I was like, is this weird? I didn't even think about. Yes. And I'm notebook. I'm pro notebook myself and have them all over this office behind me here that you can see.

I like writing things down. But I'm trying to remember. Like I definitely started my career with a notebook writing things down. I'm trying to remember when we just started recording everything. I'm thinking it was in the odds. Or yeah. Maybe it was the late odds when you record. But even phone calls.

I feel up until 10 years ago, you know, you had that phone balanced on your shoulder and your typing. All short hand. All short hand. Absolutely. Very, very funny. Anyway, the Mavs beats were able to negotiate and get the Mavericks to agree that the Nico Harrison interview could be recorded, but that the audio and video could never be published

or not be published, at least for the time being. I'm not sure they made that agreement into perpetuity. Oh, man. I mean, what do the, would do the Mavs think they're about? with this approach. Like, it's just really curious. Like, I mean, I think is like, I mean, this is not about journalism, but it's about selling it to the public.

It's about communicating to people. If you believe in the trade, if you believe in the direction of the franchise, what are you afraid of? Well, that's, that's a great point. But he has not, he had not talked to anybody basically since the trade. Again, a sign that maybe you don't believe in the things you told people in February. Yeah, and wouldn't you think like any sports GM being incommunicado for months would be really, really weird, even if you didn't just pull off an incredibly bad NBA trade?

What are you talking about? They just want to play in game the other night. They just want to play in game. The blue skies ahead. That's right. Yeah. Things are looking up. They published the transcript of this press conference.

And if you were a student of journalistic awkwardness, I can encourage you to go back and read the whole thing. because it's unbelievable. This is how it starts. Tim McMahon of ESPN gets the first question. And Tim is kind of the MVP of this press conference because he just keeps going in again and again and again, very, very specifically, a lot of great questions. But this is his first question in Nico Harrison.

You've got an outrage fan base. It's been outraged since the day you made the trade. The overwhelming majority opinion of your fan base is they want you fired. How do you respond to that? And would he believe that Patrick Dumont should not take them up on that advice? I mean, why shouldn't you be fired as a real? Came in.

That's, I mean, he came in with some high heat, you know, upset. He came with some high heat. It's so amazing. And then Nico Harrison,

of course, and this is where I feel the one smidgen of sympathy that I will ever feel for him, which is there's nothing he could say. Mm-hmm. That would placate not only any Mavericks fan, but any Mavericks reporter. Nothing he could say except, you're right.

I was a complete idiot. I messed up. This was the stupidest trade ever. So like, I don't know what, you know, again, I think is Nico Harrison 100% wrong. This is not me defending the most unpopular opinion imaginable. But I'm just like, he's not going to, there's never, it's never going to be a good interview. Right. It's never going to work.

He's never going to be like, this is, these are some, these are some convincing reasons I threw Luca Donchison in the trash can. I mean, it's like you really, it's like he did not prepare. I don't, I, because you got to think that all this stuff was to be expected, right? They have a media relations department there. They have to kind of know, oh, this is my, it's probably going to go, blah, blah, blah, blah. It just, I didn't get the impression that he was prepared for this. You don't think he had anything to say, except defense wins championships? I mean, that's, that's, so this is the other thing I think that just not, but it's, but

It's like, is the job worth this? I'm not sure. For people to think you're an idiot and people chanting to fire you during games. Yeah, I just like, at this point, I'm like, what is you? I mean, at this point, he probably can never recover his reputation. Like, I think it's sort of, it's hardened now. But I don't, that doesn't seem like a good thing. And also, like, to your, we talked about the fact that Nico was pushed out there, right?

But Patrick Dumont, this comes from show. John Shirani on ESPN. Right. Okay. Why didn't Patrick Dumont take his happy ass out there and talk? You know? I mean, I hope that's a question that somebody asked or will eventually ask, but it's just like, okay, like your turn, buddy, you know, you be responsive to the media then, right?

Totally. And again, you guys did the trade. Nobody forced you to make a trade. Right. There was no deadline here. Nothing was happening. I mean, the story that comes out behind why this trade actually happened is going to be amazing. I think it's going to come out one day, I assume.

It has to be something else. I know people are working on it to the extent that they can work on it, but it has to be something else. Well, we had one round of Now They Tell Us Stories. And then hilariously, Tim McMahon, somebody sent me this, teased that he is now going to publish another Now They Tell a Story as soon as the Maverisher eliminated from the playoffs. Wow. These usually are not telegraphed like this in advance. We usually don't get a push alert saying, guys, there's a now they tell a story coming. Usually we just get on ESPN and it has tiny bylines.

Right. Right. I mean, the thing is, I guess maybe somebody else is out there working on that too. Presumably they're competitive with somebody else and you want to let them know, hey, I have this. I have this too, right? I guess. But usually in journalism, you know, you don't want to say, hey, I'm going to publish it on

this day. Why would you wait, by the way, either? I mean, who cares about the play in or if they happen to, you know, getting, you know. We just want to make sure the Mavericks don't win the NBA finals this year with. Right. Well, I mean, defense wins championships and they've doubled down on defense. So they still have pretty impressive last night. I will offer this one bit of pushback because I've heard various media members either say this or walk up to saying this, which is why are these people talking?

Why are these people, you know, either putting out reasons why they made the trade or. or doing stuff like this. I saw something like, why would you create a moment like this right before the Mavericks start the playoffs? I'm like, I want these people to talk even more. I mean,

why would you do public relations for the Mavs? You know what I mean? Like, you don't have to let them decide that, you know? This is where every media member eats, even if you don't get to publish the audio or the video. Like, this was a huge,

we're going to have a bigger moment for the Mavericks to the rest of the playoffs than this? I mean, seriously? Sometimes people talking when they're not supposed to is like the life. blood of journalism. Like, don't discourage them. Don't make, don't make them reconsider. Please. It really is. And if they have crappy answers, then you ask them again and again until you get

the answers that you're talking about. Like, what, let's just keep asking the question until we get the real answer. Right. I mean, I understand it as a human. Like, if you care about Nico and you're like a member of his family or a good friend, it's like, man, this is really tough, buddy. I'm sad that you got to get out of here talking. Maybe you should talk to Patrick about not talking. But if you're a journalists. It's like, please, let's sit down and I will talk to you wherever. I will meet you outside, you know, smoking a cigarette outside the AAC on the corner somewhere, right? Like, 100% off Harry Hans Boulevard. Like, let's go, you know? I have no PR advice for you. My PR advice is talk more. That's all. I hate when people do

PR for the frantic. Everybody just stop talking because people say it's about Jerry Jones, too. And I'm like, hell, Jerry Jones just let him go. We just let him say whatever he wants to say. The Mavs and the Cowboys both spend plenty of money on their public relations efforts. They do not need our help. No, we're all good. All right, headline number four, and this is a question for you, Joel. Should we shoot news anchors into space? Depending on which ones.

You got to ask me, you got to give me names. Let me look at who's in the White House briefing room. Which is in the new media seat today? Yeah, let me go ahead. Yeah, I can do that guy. I'm not going to say it. video, go ahead. On Monday, we shot Gail King of CBS Mornings into space. She was part of what CBS called,

and I'm trying to get this right. The first all-female commercial space mission ever. A lot of competition for that honor, I'm sure. Took a lot of words to get first. Katie Perry was part of the space mission. Okay. Jeff Bezos, his fiance, Lauren Sanchez was part of the mission. CBS just milked the hell out of this.

Yeah, man. I mean, it's funny. I mean, this is Tony Gonzalez's ex-partner, man. You know? I mean, is that how she got on there? No, I'm chuck. I'm chuck. He owns a rocket.

Yeah. He's a wealthy guy. He's no Tony Gonzalez, though. Tony Gonzalez is a good college basketball player, too, man. He had it all. The optics of this, I don't like the word optics, but in this case I'm talking about just what was on screen.

Oprah Winfrey wiping away tears as her friend went into space. Chris Jenner and Chloe Kardashian were there for the launch because sure. Okay. And the critics of this, you know, we could imagine Columbia journalism review press box type blowhards getting mad, but the critics of this included Olivia Munn. You said, I know this is not the cool thing to say, but there are so many other things that are so important in the world right now. What are you guys doing?

What are you guys going to do up in space? Yeah. And also Olivia Wilde, who put on Instagram, billion dollars, bought some good memes, I guess. There's a supermodel to Emily Radajoski. Radajoski.

The first time her name has been mentioned on the press box. It's okay. I believe it's Radikowski, not to be the Gen Zian millennial voice here. No, good. Thank God, we got an ombudsman here. Thank you, Bobby. Thank you for correcting me on that, Radikowski.

So you know what I thought about this, Brian? I was like, oh, they're all in the same group chat. They're all on the same group chat. Because I'm sure there's other critics, but I felt like this was a coordinated group chat effort. It did feel very, there was something about it. Like really everybody was against the Gail King Space Flight. That's what it was on everybody's radar screen today, literally and figuratively. apparently.

I mean, I was trying to run away from that news. I was not trying to learn about it, but people kept talking about it. And so, yeah, it bubbled up. And they did a good job of helping to promote it and me having to learn more about it. King responded to her critics. There was nothing frivolous about what we do. So, you know, I'm very disappointed and very saddened. I also say this, what's it doing?

What's it doing to inspire other women and young girls? Please don't ignore that. I've had so many women and young girls reach out. to me and men too by the way men too that say wow i never thought i could do that but i see you doing it at this stage of your life if you got a 150 000 you can that's a that's a down payment on getting on that on one of those ships so if you if you got that money you can you can potentially get on one of those blue origin shuttles okay so that's that's one way to get on it um also it's kind of like she says that like how stephen a smith says plenty of people democrats and people have come up to be

talked about running for president. And I mean, just play, you know, some Republicans too. I'm like, all right, cool. Like, can you say? I mean, I would actually love to know, like, how those conversations happened. He said his pastor, too, in the last time he gave the last. His pastor was one of those people as well. Yeah, it's like, okay, cool.

I would love to know some of those names. I was actually reminded of Donald Trump saying, you know, the plumber came up to me. He said crying, Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump. All right. Uh, headline number five, we have an update on a horse named journalism. Okay. The official racehorse of the press. Let's get some enthusiasm, Joel.

Not just okay. A horse named journalism. I was, I was building up to it. I'm like, that's our guy. Like, what's up? That's right. You want to make sure journalism has cheered all the way around the track at next month's Kentucky Derby.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm ready to go see him at Pemlico whenever he comes out this way. What's up? Journalism. I learned a couple of things. Journalism is a seven to two favorite. as of this morning at the Derby. He is the odds-on favorite.

One of the guys who does publicity for the Derby tweeted out the beautiful, yellow, satin, journalism banner that he will be wearing as he makes his way around with journalism in all caps. I like that. That's a really cool, man. I mean, you know,

if your name was journalism, you would like to have this on you. So we adopted this horse because God knows journalism needs a W. But Joel, I've done some shoe leather reporting, a.k.a. somebody tweeted at me,

and I have discovered another horse that will likely be running in the derby. An enemy of journalism, this horse's name is publisher. Oh, man. Publishers always win.

Might also be running in the derby against journalism. This is a bad sign. If we get a horse named bias meter, I'm going to be really concerned. Publisher. I mean, that's... Come on now.

Publisher has very long odds, by the way. I will say, though, it is curious that you're, I mean, in terms of quality of name, like if we weren't journalist, it's about as good. You seem disgusted with the name publisher. The concept, I get it. Do you want more creativity here, or are you just against the concept of a publisher versus journalism? I don't know about disgust. I just, you know, I thought we were going to get a clean race.

A clean race. I didn't realize. Anyway, 40 to two odds for publisher. Everybody get behind journalism. If you're not behind, if you're tweeting out screenshots of news articles and not rooting for journalism, you're doing something wrong. I mean, publishers sends out a memo right, the day of the race. You know, journalists are no longer allowed to compete.

And I'll, you know, in sanctioned horse racing events or something like that. That's what would happen. But, you know, we're still rooting for journalism. I've got faith. Those odds are pretty good. didn't, you know, well, I mean, what's the harm in believing in something, this is believing something good is going to happen for journalism, you know? Absolutely.

Noble journalism, we're behind you. We're thinking about you. All right. He is Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Prodice and Magic by Bobby Wagner. Coming up Monday, Shoemaker is in Vegas for WrestleMania. So Chris Ryan is going to be on this podcast talking about the birth, the death, and the

rebirth of blogging. We had Chris dust off his old blog spot accounts. yesterday we taped the pot at the ringer office. It is awesome. I cannot wait for you guys to hear that. Joel, you and I are going to meet up next Thursday, which happens to be the first day of the NFL draft for more lukewarm takes about the media.

Can't wait to talk to you then. Can't wait, buddy.