The Press Box - Listener Mail on LeBron Takes, Biden Books, and Media Tours

Episode Date: June 4, 2021

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker are opening up the mailbag and answering your Listener Mail! They discuss the race to publish a book about President Biden (12:30), weigh in on the discussion over television ratings (25:10), and touch on where the word “embroiled” fits in the dictionary of words used only in journalism (43:21). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What If the Len Bias story hosted by Jordan Ritter-Con is the ringer's latest narrative podcast. Episodes 1 and 2 launch on June 9th, and you can find new episodes every Wednesday on the Book of Basketball 2.0 feed. Here's a quick trailer. You've heard his name, Lynn Bias, 1980s phenom, second pick in the NBA draft. And then, cocaine, tragedy, one of the most shocking deaths in sports history. 35 years later, Bias' legacy is still making an impact. From Spotify and the Ringer Podcast Network,

this is What If, the Lynn Bias story. I'm Jordan Ritter-Con. What's on your mind this morning? I'm glad you asked. Well, first of all, I'm in Vermont. I'm visiting some family up here. And, you know, it's a beautiful place. But even up here, the NBA playoffs are happening.

And I don't know if you, you heard about this, but LeBron James got eliminated from the playoffs last night. Were you paying attention to this? What? LeBron James. It's big news. I was struck. I was struck by the way that I felt like more than when I woke up this morning than when I was,

I watched the press conference last night. And I know you'll probably have some thoughts on the press conference, state of affairs in general. But for as much as we've talked about the Lakers, and LeBron James, they won the championship last year, and I listened to 30 podcasts on any given week that are assessing their potential to win the whole thing. And we publish the statistical probability. Shout out to Zach Cram.

Every single, you know, we update it multiple times a week on the ringer.com. I feel like LeBron, and by extension, Anthony Davis and the rest of the Lakers have been such a big part of my life and such a huge part of our community, communal conversation. The weirdest part about it, though, was that when it was over, it felt like there wasn't enough conversation. Like, it felt like we don't have the ability.

Rona Shelburne wrote a good piece on ESPN.com. ESPN, but it's on ESPN Plus, I guess. It's behind the little mini paywall. But it felt like for all of the brain space and podcast space and just, you know, internet space that has been taken up discussing LeBron. over the past month, I don't know, it kind of felt like

I wondered why there weren't 20 pieces like Ramona wrote. You know what I mean? Does that make sense? Like there wasn't, we don't have the ability to exhale in the way that we have the ability to inhale on the internet right now.

There's just not enough bandwidth for like resolution. It's all set up. So the, in a sense, the LeBron media complex, which we both agree is ginormous, is built to cover LeBron winning,

but it's not built so well to cover LeBron losing suddenly, especially early in the playoffs. Yes, and I think it's not just LeBron. I mean, we've had, I'm sure you've had instances where you feel like you have a lot of runway to write the preview piece to some sporting events. And then when it's over,

we've talked about this before, you have about 12 hours, you know? And more often than not, you kind of throw up your hands, It's not more often than not, but often you find yourself just saying, I can't do it in this moment. I have to take my kid to school. And so I'm just out of this news cycle. You know, it's like you don't, because we just move on so quickly after everything.

And it feels like, it feels sort of deflating when something is, I mean, listen, we talked about, people have joked or hypothesized about the potential of the Lakers losing in the first round or other ways that they could have not repeated as champion. Sure. But it doesn't feel like it was a surprise when it happened. regardless, and it still doesn't even feel like a reality because we haven't, like you said, we don't have the way, we can't cover it in the same way. We only know how to cover potential and then winning at the end. I feel a lot of it is the deadline thing, because if I know Dave McManamanman of ESPN, he is right now putting together the big how it fell apart LeBron piece as he did two years ago. Yes, of course, yeah. But that's going to come out in like a week.

Hey, don't underestimate Dave. It could be like Monday. You know, I mean, it's, I feel like we talked about this last year. Like, I don't want to wait for that. Why do I have to wait? I don't have to wait to wait to talk about LeBron any day. I mean, but that's what's interesting about a first round exit. If, if LeBron had the team, the Lakers had looked rickety through the first round and then the second round and then they lost in the conference finals, they lost in the finals to Philly. I think there'd be more time for that. Sure. It's just a matter like LeBron James got to play six games in the playoffs, which is a tiny number of games for him. Yeah. But I do find I do find this fascinating.

I do think about what's interesting about LeBron is there are often like mini content cycles. You don't get the full blown. Oh my gosh. It's over. Is LeBron going to win for a while? But you did last night. I mean, did you notice all the Twitter shot in Freud from America's leading sports writers? Oh, my gosh.

In the waning minutes of that game. Yes. And I don't want to get into the decision, all that stuff. But I feel like sports writerdom has like a distinct pro or anti-Lebron feel to it every year. And it changes. I'm not saying this is a scandal because I feel absolutely the same way I was enjoying the final moments

of that Lakers game last night but I looked at Twitter I was like oh my gosh everybody's like you know what I don't hate this I'm kind of enjoying this followed by the way immediately by everybody being like you know what I think I'm going to root for the sons

I think I was like oh so now I mean how how bandwagon are your sports writers oh the suns just knocked off the defending champs and now you're a fan of them. Did you enjoy mayor of Easttown too after it ended up there's like five episodes? Okay. Well, no, but it makes sense. You're talking about sports writers. I get from the point of view that presumably they've no, they've paid a lot of attention. They should have paid a good bit of attention to the sons over the course of the season, right? I mean, it's fine for a,

you know, a casual fan or even an Arden fan to sort of have been exposed to the sons over the past week in a way they hadn't been. And then to be like, I like this team. You know, it's our root for them. But you're right. You know, last late, deep, late, late last night. And by the way, the time, time zones and game times matter a lot in this discussion, too, because if LeBron had gone out at, you know, 9 p.m. on the East Coast, I feel like it would have been, it would have had a little bit more, there would have been more room to breathe than to have these kind of conversations. There's a lot competition, even within the NBA. But late last night, Skip Bayless, tweeted, face it, blind witnesses. LeBron James has always, always been overhyped and overrated. Now,

not a surprise coming from Skip. I saw more tweets about, you know, like gifts of people getting excited saying Skip Bayliss right now than I saw tweets about the game in general. But I think that like in the way, is it possible that in the way that we discuss like everything on ESPN is first take, it's, you know, kind of evolved into first take, that Skip Bayliss has changed the way that we discuss LeBron? Because I think that I can easily imagine a world where everybody does. just sort of treated him like a utility.

Like he's a, he's a national treasure, and we all just sort of acknowledge it in real time, but it's not, we don't get our hackles up in either direction about LeBron, but Skip has made it part of the conversation to hate on or defend or just sort of have these big swing emotions about LeBron James. He didn't invent this.

You and I were at a sports bar for the, what was it, the Cleveland, the Cleveland Orlando Eastern Conference Finals way back in the day, and you and I were both, physically like unnerved by the anti-Lebron we weren't there as LeBron fans but we were not expecting there to be anti an anti-lebron cheering section in the bar no no and they came out in force so so skip it and invent this the idea of being anti-lebron but i do feel like he the the way that you see journalists reacting to LeBron online might take a little bit of a cue from him yeah i think it

clarifies, you know, the way everybody comes down, not just for, yeah, for journalists, for fans, for everybody. You know, it probably starts in earnest with the decision and then you sort of get like, there's a pro-Lebron faction or at least a very, you know, neutral LeBron faction. Maybe that counts the same thing now. And so that kind of goes a certain way because other people are acting one way. I mean, yes, all of that exists. I guess my only question now is when do we get the LeBron has one more championship left in him. Does the old guy still have it? Yeah.

Don't you think the countdown is on to that piece being published? Are you thinking we're going to wait till October? Or do you think we're going to get that like, you know, in the summer where LeBron like on the set of or, you know, the publicity tour for Space Jam or something? When are we going to get that piece? By the way, LeBron did mention Space Jam in his postgame press conference when they're they're asking him if he's going to play for the Olympic team or asking him to hint one way or the other.

And he was like, now I'm going to play against the Monstars or whatever. Like he's going to play for the suit up for the tune squad. And he said it in such a straight way that when I saw the clip, I thought that this was a commercial that was like pre-packaged for that moment because it was just so matter of fact and, you know, unusual to say right there. But that's probably not, that's probably going to do as much damage to LeBron's legacy to the talking heads to the chattering class as anything he did on the court. I do have one other thing that I want to mention about this,

which is specific to the Twitter reaction. You mentioned the LeBron James Industrial Complex. Actually, I have industrial complex in my notes, but it's about something else. It's the sort of data viz industrial complex on Twitter. Go on. I saw so, so many, like, graphic, like Twitter, like social media graphics that compared LeBron James to Michael Jordan in the goat conversation, where it would be like, you know, dueling pictures of the two of them and the way their stats lined up or the way the, you know,

how many first round exits or, you know, whatever. And first of all, what's shocking is. there's a I mean not maybe not shocking but fake news has interdata this right I mean they're like the exact same stats are conflicting in side by side graphics right I mean it's like

there's some of them are just full of lies many of them are years old that are just being recycled right now because they because it's you know of the moment and people dig them up and don't realize that this was made in 2020 or whatever but it's it's kind of crazy how

one how the the goat conversation, the LeBron versus MJ conversation, feels somehow more pointed than ever. Maybe it's because LeBron's rounding the corner, you know, he's on the, like you said, he's got one more, two more left in him, and we really have to start setting the terms now. But also, it's, it's impressive how much misinformation there is in the form of social, like social, like social team graphics, right? In the form of those like ESPN side by sides. Now people just make fake ones.

and everybody believes it to be true. Because people, for some reason, the one thing people trust more than anything else are like those little one-to-one ratio athlete, athlete head with numbers neck to them, that of his thing. It's so crazy. I did see one last night that was like, where do the Lakers go from here? And it was like a picture of Dennis Schrooter and Alex Caruso and LeBron wasn't in the graphic. I'm like, can we get me rewrite?

Like, I don't. Nobody cares. Right. Yeah, nobody cares at all. Here's the thing. LeBron. We want to put LeBron and maybe AD in the graphic and we'll go from there. Should we start this show, David?

Yeah, let's do it. We're going to answer some listener mail about the race to write a conservative bestseller about Joe Biden. We're going to do more NBA playoff notes and a very clever commencement speech in our old home of North Texas. All that and more on the press box. A part of the ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoeaker here along. with Erica Cervantes. All right, David, we passed around this piece earlier in the week.

It is in the Atlantic from our friend McKay Coppins. There is a race within book publishing to write the definitive, negative Joe Biden book. Or at least you would think there was a race in book publishing. Turns out not so much. Not so much. We know that like when Barack Obama became president, it was just like, boom, here we go, books. Bill Clinton, same thing back in the 90s. McKay Coppins quotes a frustrated conservative editor saying, in the past, it's been like

taking candy from a baby to write a book about the Democratic president. Now nobody is trying. What do we make about the absence of books with kind of an awkward picture of Joe Biden on the cover and some kind of pun title, which is not coming to my mind right now? say it ain't so Joe you know that kind of thing yeah I thought that the I thought that the piece was really well done I mean that should be no surprise but but some of the you know when you Ben Shapiro was quoted in the piece and I you know this a couple other people who I wouldn't necessarily describe as reliable narrators on another subject but like this was I thought I thought that

it was pretty much spot on there's not a bit the the story that that the conservatives are telling about Joe Biden um is not one that lends itself to demonizing Joe Biden. I mean, he's almost, you know, he's almost like depicted as a patsy. I mean, that's the harsh, that's the harshest criticism, right? And there is a Biden year's book you could write about this, but they haven't framed Biden in such a way that you can really do the, the, you know, the way that people were characterizing Obama, and even in the early years is sort of the Manchurian. candidate or, you know, that sort of thing. That's just not, the conspiracy theories about Biden just don't lend itself to that in the same way. Well, part of it is that Biden is a known commodity.

Yeah. Barack Obama was new. Bill Clinton in the 90s was new. So there was this question of who are these people. And then you could just insert conspiracy theory about land deals in Arkansas or, you know, Barack Obama, whatever. Right. We don't even need to rehash him right here. But Biden is almost more like what Hillary Clinton has been over the last 20 years. Like everybody knows Joe Biden. People have a sense of Joe Biden. But you're right. There is a framing problem.

And the framing problem is this. Eric Nelson, who is the executive editor at Broadside Books. Conservative imprint of Harper Collins, McKay Wright, says, nobody who watches Fox thinks that Joe Biden is in charge of the country. So if somebody came to me and was like, I have a book on Biden's secret plan to destroy America.

I would ask, how many times does the word nap appear in the index. So what he's essentially saying is that conservatives have been told through media outlets, look, Joe Biden's just his figure it. He's not doing anything. So then you can't actually write the book accusing him of doing bad things if he's not doing anything according to your media leading media thought makers.

Exactly. And there's also, I mean, the real story that the sort of conservative media, however you want to define it, is painting is of, and this is, and McKinsey. gets at this in the piece, is that is of the sort of liberal, the far left takeover of America, right? It's not person. And it is not personified in Joe Biden. And even if you tried to personify it in Joe Biden, you would fail for all the reasons you just said, right? He's not, he is not godly enough a figure to hold the mantle for the sort of wave of anti-conservative, anti-Christian grievances that are being, you know, kind of wrapped up.

up into this one big narrative. Now, the piece touches on, go ahead. Well, he's had some, some very progressive moments as president. We've talked about this, how the window has shifted so much that Joe Biden in a lot of ways is a lot more progressive than even Barack Obama was, the man whose vice president he was. And then at the same time, he has these Joe Manchin, Kirsten Cinema heat check moments that makes everybody on the left mad. And I think foils a little bit of this Joe Biden is the secret liberal narrative. Anyway, please continue. No, no, I mean, they talk about, the piece talks about Mark Levin's new book or forthcoming book, which is called American Marxism. And I'm quoting from the piece now, which it will tackle among other subjects, the widespread brainwashing of students, the anti-American purposes of critical race theory and the Green New Deal.

That's from the publisher's materials. And it's expected to be a massive hit when it's released in July. Can't wait to have him on the pod. What? Can't wait to have him on the pod. Give him a full crack hour interview. I find it kind of funny that Jonah Goldberg is quoted in this piece as a sort of voice of reason when the extreme here is being defined by, or the extreme on the right is being defined by the book American Marxism when Jonah Goldberg obviously rose to a great deal of his fame by writing a book called liberal fascism. Trump did funny things to the media. He really did.

but and Trump is a big part of this conversation too because um he's as Jonah Goldberg says here a lot of the things you would try to make fun of Biden about are things that we've grown to accept through Donald Trump both on the right and on the left I think there's just a lot less runway for making fun of someone for being merely like you know garbledy mouthed and confused and and whatever else I mean it's a it's a it's it's it's it's it's it's it's a it's He's diffused a lot of this. Trump's diffused a lot of this himself. I got a story, David, for you from North Texas,

our old stomping grounds. Did you see this video that went viral the other day? There is a woman named Paxton Smith. She is the valedictorian at Lake Highlands High School. Oh, yeah. Over there on the Dallas side of the Metroplex. She has, according to D Magazine, a 104.93 average. Remember how you could fool around with the GPA?

so that we were all above four because we were taking some weird classes or something like that. Was that to benefit students or to benefit school? I have no idea. I would read that piece. How did we get the GPA above 100 or above 4.0?

Honestly, I think more than anything else, it probably really reduces the number of angry parent phone calls that the front office of the school gets, right? Like if all of your honors program kids, if an honors program kids were getting 385s and three nines and their parents would be screaming about you better give my kid a 4-0 or he's not going to get into college or the college

that he wants to. Yeah, I bet, but it's, you know, no one's screaming about a 4.23 or whatever. Anyway, Paxton Smith is the valedictorian of Lake Highlands High School. She's going to give the commencement address. Here's something else that's been happening in Texas. Greg Abbott and the Republicans passed a very, very restrictive anti-abortion law. Okay. So Paxton Smith did something funny. she submitted the official text of her commencement speech to the school for them to take a glance at. According to Tim Rogers over at D Magazine, it was about, quote, the media and how much of it she consumes and how that consumption has shaped the way she sees the world. Pretty safe topic for a commencement address. Then she just came out and gave a speech about the anti-abortion bill.

They're just like, and by the way, here's the real speech. Yeah. Well, we were asking, what was it last week? Who was the next Dale Hansen was going to be? We may have found the answer. Absolutely. Oh, man. Did WFA hire her to do sports starting next week? It's really amazing. This is a really incredible story. I mean, what, when we were, when we were that age, the bravest people we knew were the people that did like DX crotch chops as they walked across the graduation stage. Now, this is someone who's actually doing something to better the world. Those heroes.

I don't use the word hero lately. You and I, let's just stop right there for saying because you and I would have not been able to give a speech like this. Never. And I don't mean just we wouldn't have been brave enough that that's the case too. But at 18 years old, you and I would not have had the chops to write a speech about Phil Graham or whatever the outrage of the time was. and go up there and deliver it in front of the school. We just couldn't have done. We were just not, we would not have been,

we were by David and I, by the way, we were not speakers at our graduation, but we were, we would just not have been capable of that. No, no. I mean, even if everything had magically in the line up to do it, I wouldn't have,

I would have been too scared to do it for any number of reasons. Yeah, it's really, really impressive. And it's important. I mean, listen, we don't, we don't need to get in the whole,

the long discussion. on the abortion thing, but it never, I am actually shocked at this Texas law. Yes. And I don't, shocked morally and everything else. And I think it's, I don't know if this sort of stuff is like, you know, if I'm reaching some sort of point of radicalization or something, but I, if you would ask me, even a year or two ago, I would have said that all of the, the, the vast majority of Republican anti-abortion talk is just posturing, right? It's like, it's, it's, it's playing to a certain fan base and that

when, when stuff gets real, when you actually end up having your judges on the court, on the Supreme Court, and you have, you know, huge majorities and state legislatures and even the national, you know, even our national government at times, at that point, it gets a little bit too real. And all these, all these people who are talking about anti-abortion actually have to reconcile what they're saying out loud to like the women and, and just otherwise sober people in their lives, right? I mean, it's one thing to talk about it. It's another thing to actually like pass, you know,

Handmaid's Tale style religious laws in the country. And then, but then they actually, you know, they actually go and do it now. In professional wrestling, there's a phrase called, where they say you worked yourself into a shoot, which basically means like you started off playing the role and you, but you invested yourself in it so much that you actually came out on the other side mad or, you know,

in a real fight with somebody or whatever else. This is, it's almost like the Republican Party as, worked itself into a shoot over this whole thing. We're like, we've just been shaking our fist at the sky for so long that we've turned ourselves into a party that's actually a retrograde

group of nut jobs. I feel like a lot of that over the last four years. There really was. Got a sports note for you, David. Elio Castro Nevis won the Indy 500 over the weekend. I actually watched the Indy 500 with a group of friends out here in Orange County. It was actually tons of fun.

It was a great race. Now, Elio Castro Nevis is 46 years old. Firmly in the Tom Brady, Phil Mickelson, oh my goodness, the old guy is still got it zone. Wins an incredibly exciting race. I believe he took the lead with two laps left to go. And Elio Castro Nevis said afterwards, quote, the old guys still got it,

still kicking the young guy's butts. How do we feel about an old guy actually owning and actually even speaking, the old guy still got it narrative. Well, I'm glad that he did. Listen, I'm sure it's impressive. I sort of like take it for granted that race car driving is an athletic endeavor,

but one that I will never take the time to understand. You know, so I don't want to say that my first reaction was why is it shocking that a 40, what, 46, year old driver can do this more better than a 36 year old driver or a 26 year old driver. But I do, I accept that it is very impressive. And I accept that 46 makes you an old guy in this sport. And that makes us a very fun topic of conversation. You're like, my dad's still a good driver.

Why would I, why would I doubt that this could happen? Maybe not my dad. But yeah, yes. No, no offense to Dr. Shoemaker. He's a great driver. This is from E. Spencer Kite. When did the discussion of television ratings, especially with sports become so prevalent.

And why does so many fans seem to care what it has nothing to do with the product on the field slash court or in the cage? Oh, Spencer, I'm glad you brought that up because David, did you see all the tweets last night? Oh my gosh, everybody in Bristol, Connecticut who works for ESPN is going to be upset because the Utah Jazz

could be in the finals or the Phoenix Suns or the Denver Nuggets. And oh, no, are we going to be sad? for ESPN and Turner executives, to which the proper responses, nobody cares. Yeah.

Nobody cares. Now, if you are like me and you think the playoffs is going to be really weird because LeBron James, a huge star, a great basketball player is not going to be in it, I'm with you. I'm there. I would kind of rather, to be honest, see LeBron James playing meaningful basketball games than other players. That's okay.

but you don't really have to care on behalf of television executives. They're going to be fine. You definitely don't. This is, I mean, there's a little bit of the Skip Bayless conversation in this too, right? Because you get, you know, everybody, even the sports media is polarized to the extent that when ratings are bad, there is somebody who is taking it, who is like squatting on the corner of, you see the X, Y, and Z factors. I told you that no, everyone's going to stop watching. watching basketball, right? So then people are forced to sort of like take up the mantle of defending a sport

when they wouldn't even have been having the conversation otherwise. You know, you wouldn't enter that fray unless somebody who's just out there being so wrong. But you're right. This conversation, I mean, more specifically to the point, oh,

ESPN's going to be upset. Oh, the networks are going to be upset. Well, I mean, what does that have to do at all with what we're looking at? You know, I mean,

it's, it is, it's so, it is very bizarre. This is the conversation we have. But it's, I don't know that it's that much different than talking about, immediately talking about how the Lakers are going to retool in the offseason. I mean, that does affect what happens on the court,

but it's all, it's all a different, you know, various versions of inside baseball. And that's all that we care about in sports now. The stuff that happens on the court is not the story. No, that's a good point. And I do think people are trying to get to that second level. They're going, okay, what's my meta take? You know, I don't, I, the, the, the interesting take is, wow, the Utah Jazz could win the NBA finals.

That's real. That's a thing. But everybody wants to bypass that and go, what would the effect be on the networks if the Utah Jazz won the NBA finals? Exactly. And which is just, and again,

as you and I sit here on this podcast and I think try to think of things the same way and we have done that for our entire career. So not knocking going to the meta take, but it does feel like you're just ignoring the take. Like, oh my gosh, the Utah Jazz be in the finals are the Phoenix Suns or the LA Clippers. None of these teams have ever won the NBA

finals. That's amazing. Yeah. And it's not the same thing at all as we were talking at the top of the show with LeBron being eliminated. But I think there'll be some of the same feeling at the end. If the Utah Jazz win the championship, I think we're going to feel on the other side that we didn't spend enough time talking about how crazy it would be if the Utah Jazz won the championship. Right. I mean, we have all this time to talk. We have all this space. And instead of talking about the thing. We're talking about some tertiary thing that's, that's, you know, a little bit more egg-hedy and whatever. More listener mail in a second, but David let us pause to do the overworked Twitter joke of the week, where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of

media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod, where they are always gratefully received. David from the they didn't get away Scott Free yet department. The Washington Post. Post reports, quote, FBI investigating postmaster general Lewis DeJoy in connection with past political fundraising. It was an overword Twitter joke to write. They probably started this in December, but sent notification to him by mail. And so he's just finding out.

Thanks to Jay Free Boo for that one. Did you watch Mayor of Easttown? No, it's on the list. But now it's gotten to the point where we want to, like, dedicate a weekend to it or something. You and I are the anti-Christ and Andy. You know, I listen to Chris and Andy on the watch, one of my favorite podcasts, by the way. And I'm just amazed at not only did they watch everything, but they've got those meta takes. We're talking about about everything.

Oh, yeah. They're on the second level, the third level, the fourth level. They're doing it while, you know, carrying on other jobs at the same time. You and I don't watch anything. We're just like, what happened? It's an HBO show. So anyway, if you don't want this spoiled, everyone, cover your ears. Because Mayor of Easttown finished up Sunday, I don't.

know what happened, but it was an overworked Twitter joke to write, congratulations, Kate Winslet for being part of the two biggest crashes of all time. I don't know. Thanks to MDV. And finally, David, and elsewhere in politics, over at the University of Virginia this fall, there is going to be a class about the Mueller report. Here's the twist. It's going to be taught by Robert Mueller himself. Robert Mueller is teaching a class about the Mueller report. it was an overwork Twitter joke to write there will be no determination on grades at the end of the semester.

Thanks to Mark Mascalino. If you helped us remember what happened at the end of the Mueller report, congrats, you made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. All right, more listener mail, David. This is from Small Town Teach. Should we be resigned to the idea

that we're going to be managing streaming accounts forever and the idea of a stable media library is a fiction? Wait, ask that again? should we be resigned to the idea that we're going to be managing streaming accounts forever and the idea of a stable media library is a fiction?

No, no, and I say this only because people that are much smarter than me on the subject all seem to think that we are heading back towards the sort of future that looks a lot like cable TV. Now, if we're talking about just that the libraries are going to be on different channels, I mean, that feels more...

Or that the movies drop out of the library. So you go, oh, cool, I have all the Indiana of the Jones movies, oh wait, they went somewhere else. Oh, right. Yeah. I mean, that's an interesting question, but it feels like one that's fairly obvious. It seems like a question that's so obvious that someone will solve for it at some point, right? I mean, I feel like, like the, the, the things that irritate me on a daily basis about my, you know, multiple streaming accounts and searching for things and finding them all seem, it's almost like at the same time is that they're frustrating because.

they seem like such obvious problems. It also gives me some sort of some sort of relief because I feel like they're so imminently solvable that someone is going to solve them very soon, even if it never happens. I don't know. It's a good question. I kind of assume that we're going to all end up with some sort of Google for meta-searching that gets us everything we want

and that we'll be able to, you know, as far as the movies dropping out, doesn't that seem solvable too? I mean, doesn't it just sort of seem like your Apple TV or whatever you use will eventually just be able to consolidate all the different things and let you know how to get a thing and automatically record it on whatever the TiVo of the future is if you want to see it down the road? I don't know. Maybe so. I mean, or maybe we'll just be frustrated and searching and trying to figure out where the hell Harry Potter went for the rest of our lives. is haven't we all become incredibly spoiled with this stuff?

And isn't that part of the frustration? I mean, we went to a, we went from a world, we just had all that blockbuster nostalgia, where you would have to go to blockbuster, actually physically drive to blockbuster, hope the movie was there, pay for the movie,

and then return the movie at a point of time, and oh yeah, the movie was on a crappy format VHS, which half the time was Pan and Skagit, now we can have any movie we want instantly. So when it disappears instantly, even if we just have to go and pay $2.95 to rent it, we get so mad.

Yeah, but I think there is an element of frustration with paying for anything at all when you're already paying for stuff. And also, dude, you had to pay for everything in the old world. No, I know. I'm saying it's the uncertainty. I'm going to give you a thousand movies for $10 a month. Yes, no, you're right. We are incredibly spoiled.

But there, you can't tell me, you've never had a situation where your kids' favorite show is suddenly undiscoverable. And then you're, and you're like, oh, like, you know, mommy daddy,

where did, or you're, someone saying, Mommy, where did my content go? I'm saying my kids don't actually talk like this, but you're talking to, you know,

talking to your wife and you're just like, wait, where the hell was Little Bear? My kid, weren't the kids watching Little Bear yesterday? And as far as you can tell, it's gone. And then,

no, but then in the olden days, yes, we were not as privileged. We might not have had it. But if we had it, it would have been on two VHS tapes that you physically know where they are. Now, yes, you can go push by on, you know, Apple or whatever you, however you buy this stuff. But then you buy it and then it pops back up on another service two days later and you realize you've just spent 20 bucks.

Yeah. I have exactly the same take I had 20 seconds ago, which is who cares. I mean, you know, the one that got me, remember when the Oprah Harry and Megan interview was happening. And everybody online was mad that they couldn't get CBS because they had Paramount streaming. Like, I can't watch. I don't get CBS. I'm like, you don't have rabbit ears.

You don't have cable. You don't have CBS. And you're so mad because you have all these other things. Just like, folks, folks, it's going to be okay. We'll just, we'll just, the kids are going to watch another show. I just, I don't know what to tell you, kids. We're going to have to do some, some new content. This is from Maddie Wasserman.

I like this question. This came in last week. I'm assuming you saw John Oliver's recent piece on sponsored content. That was an amazing piece and an amazing stunt. If you didn't see this, John Oliver basically made up fake medical products and then got them on these kind of infotainment shows on local news. My question, what's the line as a journalist slash news organization between the ethics of a radio row book tour style interview in exchange for airtime promoting something for

is literally paying for an interview. Those are different things. Those are different things. Hold on. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. So let's take the first question or the first half of the question. Okay, so a Radio Row book tour style interview.

Now, there's a lot that's changed in media. It's not just the advancement or the appearance of sponsored content. I use the phrase SponCon out loud in my house after this thing and after this piece. and my wife was like visibly ill at that word coming out of my mouth. But, but, I mean, one of the other things that's changed, separate from the existence of sponsored content, is that, and we talk about this a lot, but that the gatekeepers that we were used to aren't really,

don't really have as much standing as they once did. It wasn't that long ago that like a pitch from a publicist at a legitimate publishing house had to be, be treated seriously, right? I mean, if you don't have to, I mean, I'm not talking about you have to respond to it, you know, within any sort of certain way. But like, if you got a press release from an, I mean, a PR person that name your house, it cannot for Scribner, Henry Hold, or wherever else, you wouldn't have to sit and think, like, is this book just full of made-up nonsense? You would assume that it's like a book that's worth, that merits discussion, maybe not

on my show, but somewhere, right? But now those sort of gatekeepers don't exist in the same way anymore. You can self-publish things. You can, you know, and there's a, well, there's a lot of different ways in which they don't exist. So a book review, a book tour style interview is just, can mean a lot of things. But in its classical sense, it's just, I can't even compare the two things. I mean, you're promoting something, but that's not it. When we have authors on the show, we're discussing the piece, but we're talking about other things as well, right? I mean, I just don't, I don't even know how to respond to this. I do I do understand what he's getting at,

but I'm not quite sure what the response is. Well, I mean, look, there's, if we separate sponsored content from, we say, and book tours, media tours, tours when somebody has something out to start, that's helpful.

But I will say that I do get personally uncomfortable when it becomes, when anything becomes, you know, I have something out, can I come on and promote my new thing that's out. Oh, yeah. I think a book is pretty radically different than,

or at least I tell myself this, than a celebrity sitting on a couch with Jimmy Fallon telling canned anecdotes so that, you know, that are obviously so fake and so you will go watch the movie or something like that. I like to think that, oh, you've written 300 pages. You put thought into something. This is something that people will perhaps not know about if it's not,

you know, as opposed to a movie which has ads on TV and stuff. but I got to say as a journalist, it does make me, and I've written lots of pieces about people who have a new sports thing coming out and have a new book coming out or have a new, you know, or celebrating anniversary, I get all that. I've done all that. Yeah. But there does become a point where that gets too much of that and I start to recoil. And I go, oh, do I exist here to promote other people's things? Yeah. I mean, and you also don't, I mean, from a just a purely selfish point of view, you don't want to, I mean, I don't know, I can't speak for you.

I know that I've turned down interviews when I can tell somebody's basically doing a rope line, right? Oh, that's the ultimate turn down. If you know, if somebody's promoting a book or whatever, you know that they're doing 10 of these interviews in a row, then what's the point? You know, I mean, it's- It doesn't feel special. It doesn't feel interesting.

It doesn't feel organic at all. But the book thing, it's an interesting point of view. I mean, it's interesting point because, you know, know, now you hear a lot of, people are always promoting something, right? So, I mean, a book, you're right. It feels different. But like, what if you're out there promoting the new season of my podcast, right? I mean, does that feel closer to a book or whatever the other than the spectrum is? And then if it's not that, I'm promoting, well, technically I'm promoting a very good intention charity that I've started. But I'll come and talk to you about whatever you want to talk about

in my history and we'll talk about current events and whatever. And then at some point, it's just like, I'm here promoting Takate, you know? Like, do you want me on the show? We see a lot of this at, you know, the Super Bowl and whatever else. You know, people come on with, basically with brands plastered across their t-shirt. And it's, if you're going to draw the line right after books, I understand that. But the whole thing is very, I mean, it does get hazy at some point. And I don't draw the, I don't even draw the line there or anything. I just feel like there becomes so much of that in the media, in print, in podcasts, in. in television, which is always that anyway, where everybody is promoting a thing,

where it's just this kind of giant log rolling in our time where everybody just kind of goes around from thing to thing and is always promoting this and this and this, that at some point, I just get, I recoil from it, even if I occasionally do it and in a sense of, let's say, I don't know if I'm promoting things, but interviewing people who are doing a thing. Yeah. Then I recoil from it and I go, I don't like this. I don't want to be a part of this. That's not what I got into this to do.

I don't think that there's a bright shining line, but I do think that there is a, I think that we all have had that feeling of recoiling that you're talking about. And I don't know, it's, I don't know if you can really separate one from like church from state here. But I mean, listen, I think probably we, I mean, I'm probably not the only one in the world that was just sort of like, floored the first time I saw Larry King rest in peace doing just like infomercials after Larry King Live went off the year, right?

It's the exact same. It looks like the same set. he's talking about a, you know, just like a ridiculous vitamin supplement or something like that. And it was kind of the same show. It was the same show. But, I mean, listen, Larry King is not, you know, is not some, was never as sort of incisive journalist that was breaking stories or anything like that. But that doesn't, but we shouldn't diminish his role in television journalism and radio

journalism, right? And to take, basically take everything you learn, take everything that made you special there and to pivot to the entire, to sponsored content feels like a betrayal. right? And so I understand why there's, I mean, for, for, in all these different ways, you would feel betrayed by the existence of sponsored content, by, and by all the sort of borderline things that you were just talking about. At what point does your promotion of a thing become, turn regular journalism into sponsored content? It's a good question. I feel like the book example is so far a way that maybe it blurred, maybe it confused the point. But I think that the, the, the final, I mean, the real answer is an unsubed. I mean, the, satisfying one, which is, it's on us to make those decisions. You know, you have to, at the end of the day, you're still trusting the source. You're still trusting the podcast or the, whatever periodical you're reading to be that gatekeeper that was talking about it up top to say, this is a thing that matters to you and we're not taking money to tell you about it. Or if we are, we're going to tell you about it

clearly. You're going to tell you that clearly, you know. Or that we have other missions as opposed to just, you know, interviewing people who have things out, right? We do, we do other, we, we, we, our journalist mission is bigger than that. A couple more, David. This is from Justin Bray. I don't know if you've already mentioned this on the podcast, but where does the term embroiled fit into the embattled conversation? Embroiled seems like a headline-only kind of word.

Are you embroiled in something before you are embattled? Are you both at the same time? Clearly, these are important questions for our time. I thought that you were going to say the word embryo, and I think that actually fits into the same. in the same conversation. That's not a real word. That's a journalism word.

It's certainly not a word that anybody ever speaks out loud. So I shouldn't have assumed you were going to say it. Embroiled is a good one. I don't know I don't even know how I would use embroiled

in a casual conversation that didn't involve a political scandal. What is the last thing that you, Brian Curtis, were embroiled in? I don't know. I hope I'm never embroiled in anything.

Can you be embroiled? You can't be embroiled in the interviews for a story. You can't be like, it's not, I mean, what is, I don't even know. Yeah. And so it feels like only a scandal you can be embroiled in. But no one would ever say that, right? You'd never say, my kids are embroiled in something if you were updating your mom on how the kids are doing.

That would just never come up. Yes, you can talk about the senator, the president being embroiled in scandal. You could even talk about, you know, the owner of a sports team or something being embroiled in scandal. is in scandal. I can't imagine a situation where you would actually just say out loud, like the principal of your kid's school is embroiled and scandal, even if there was scandal involved.

So we need this little dictionary now that we've got a few of these. Words that happen in journalism, but do not, are never spoken in real life by human beings. Embattled, embroiled, and oust. That's the list so far.

Embroiled, embattled, and oust. You are invited to add to that. more David, from our friend Matthew Zyland, who points us to this headline from page six. Ben Affleck's dad breaks silence on son's reunion with Jennifer Lopez. We have a breaking of silence. And did you know that Ben Affleck's dad had been notably silent on this issue of Ben getting back together with J-Lo? I was wondering when he was going to chime in.

I have to be honest. I feel there's a little parent celebrity parents are often breaking their silence. Can we can we have Erica? Can we just change the description of every one of our podcast to Brian and David break their silence on and then whatever the subject of the week? Oh, that's funny. All right. It's time for David Shoemaker. Guesses the strained pun headline.

Yeah. Wednesday's headline about the Knicks getting blown out in Atlanta was joke from State Farm. We had to vote, David, for State Farm is theirs. Remember the old State Farm is there commercial? Oh, yeah. It's pretty good. Okay. Today's headline comes from Chris Marsh.

It's from the Sydney Morning Herald. The Sydney Morning Herald increasingly becoming a go-to for this feature. It is about a plan. I'll read to you from the lead here, David. A heritage theater in Sydney's Inner West that has sat dormant for two decades could be revived as a craft beer and live entertainment venue. Okay. This is probably a story for our time. A theater is

becoming a craft beer venue. Mm-hmm. You're going to want to think Shakespeare here. Oh, no. What was the Sydney Morning Herald Strainpunt headline? I don't know Shakespeare. I'm so bad at Shakespeare quotes. All the world, is it like all the world a... It's a title.

A Shakespeare of a title of a Shakespeare. play. And I come up with some synonyms for beer here. And I think we'll get there pretty quickly. Uh, suds. Brew. Oh, Taming of the brew.

The taming of the brew. The taming of the brew. He says he doesn't know Shakespeare. They didn't go with much of brew about nothing. That would also would have been a good one. I can't believe my first guess was right. Now there's better ones. Uh, the tape.

We said, taping of the brew. Oh, how about this? How about King beer. Kind of on the nose. Much of brew about nothing feels like you're predicting failure for the craft beer theater. Yeah.

Yeah, you're right. You're right. Okay, we'll go with taming of the brew. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Servantes. We are back Monday with Brian Stelter of CNN, who's going to give us the latest on Fox News after Trump and a lot of other things. See, they were going to have people on the show.

We're going to keep having people on the show. Plus more lukewarm takes about the media. See that, David. See you later, bro.