The Press Box - Live From Radio Row! Plus, Palin vs. NYT.

Episode Date: February 7, 2022

Bryan is live from Radio Row to talk with David about the media leading up to the 2022 Super Bowl (0:00). They discuss the hype surrounding the Super Bowl, the Radio Row hierarchy, and the quid pro quos attached to the week (6:43). Later, they break down the ongoing Sarah Palin vs. New York Times libel trial and talk through what we could learn about journalism throughout (25:23). 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

Listen up all you New York fans. Veteran New York sports talk host, John Dostrompsky gives his unique take on all the big stories in the Big Apple and beyond, including guest conversations, gambling picks, and reactions from you, the listener. Check out New York, New York with John Dostromsky on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

David, what's on your mind today? I know you're on Radio Row for the Super Bowl and you're surrounded by reporters, many of whom I know who they are. I guarantee there's a handful that, like, if you told me their name, I would draw a blank. The NFL, obviously more up on than other sports. I probably know, you know, the majority of NBA reporters by name,

but other sports, you know, not as good on. So I have to go to you, or listeners, I'm sure, know this when I'm just like, do I, should I care who Phil Jones is? Is this a person that I need to be reading? Like, whatever, when a name pops up. So I'm going to do that now live on the air. do I need to pay attention to the writings of college football writer's sliced bread? I'm not sure.

Let's unpack that, as I said. So I don't even, I can't explain the story as well as you can, but I'll give it a shot. So upon having the greatest signing day in Texas A&M, history. And according to some measures, the greatest signing day in college football history, Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher took the podium to, you know, talk to the media and was asked about a report on brobibble.com from a user going by the name of sliced bread that said that Texas A&M took advantage of a very meticulously organized booster system. that also was a system of

of like non-profit organizations of some sort to like funnel upwards of 25 to 30 million dollars into the pocketbooks of these potential A&M recruits. And Jimbo Fisher, I mean, I guess justifiably took exception to having to answer to the reporting of sliced bread in front of the amassed media, although he did seem to sort of relish in identifying the reporter as sliced bread

and the venue as brobibble.com. You know, as these things go, it's not surprising that such a rumor got people's attention. People are looking for an explanation for a sort of inexplicable moment in college athletics. But it is sort of a new thing,

a relatively new thing that big time coaches have to answer for totally unsource speculation. What do you make of this? Yeah. To answer for it is an interesting part, right? Because college sports, college football in particular, has always been the most, you know, diffuse sports media press core. Like a lot of work is done on those message boards. I was going to say, in some ways it was it was more kind of. forward looking than a lot of, I mean, now you can, now you see a lot of NBA news happening

on Twitter, right, or on various other places that it's a little bit under the radar compared to where it was 20 years ago. College sports, you did not have a fraction of the picture for some teams without spending time on these message boards. Absolutely. And they were sort of taking, you know, over for those downsized local newspapers in places like Austin and Tuscaloosa and places like that. And they could come in. They could cover recruiting. and occasionally cover like, hey, we think this coach is going to get fired or this coach is going to do something else. And you'd have this hilarious thing where you'd turn on ESPN and say, according to a report on orange bloods, right, because they were really breaking news. Now, to have a coach actually reference the name sliced bread rather than say all that speculation online and on the internet, which is how they used to kind of short form it is absolutely hilarious to me.

That I have not heard. It gives volition to the sort of unnamed poster, right? I mean, it's sort of, it's, it's, the sliced bread sort of has become an avatar for everyone who seems, who feels like they're screaming into the internet void, right? Because they, he's been given, he or she has been given personage because, because of Jimbo Fisher's indignation. And I'm, uh, not particularly familiar with the uvra of sliced bread, but doesn't it fit right into this? What am I sliced bread?

Yeah, exactly. That's an expression, right? So sliced bread is no longer sliced bread. Yes. What? Just as a football fan, answer this in two ways. As a football fan, college football fan, obviously in the state of Texas, you have a lot of steak there, but also as a journalist, fan slash journalist, how much credence do you give a report like the one sliced bread posted on Bro Bible. So it's interesting. I think, you know, you obviously go in with a lot of skepticism or, you know, like, you know, show me, show me some proof and some documents and something like that is true.

But I've been around college football long enough to know that a lot of those stories originate on message boards. And the first time you hear about it is some poster that says, you know, my uncle's friend told me. and then it's something, and it turns out to be true, or it turns out to be like 20% true, but it's still a big story. So I would say that like, if we just like random website slash message board story in college football,

it's a pretty low hit rate, but just enough of them have turned out to be real that, you know, when slice bread talks, we pay attention here at the press box. Slice bread may be hosting the press box for all I know. Slice bread, you're welcome to take a seat on this show. anytime you want. Coming up on today's show, that background noise you hear.

That is your sports writing sausage being made here on Radio Row with the Super Bowl. We will discuss, plus David and I will catch up on the Sarah Palin, New York Times libel trial. I think we're going to be the only ones here, David, talking about that particular story. All that more on the press box. A part of the Ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shumaker of the Ringer here along with producer Erica Servantes. David, as you can see in the Zoom there, I am in the L.A. Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles.

Near the old Grantland headquarters, by the way, it's really a day of revisiting the past. This may look to you like a big charmless exhibition hall. And in fact, it is a very special big charmless exhibition hall. I'm pretty sure I went to a WWE fan fest one time when there was a SummerSlam there. It's that kind of place. the kind of place where financial advisors or insurance adjusters across America would gather for their annual convention.

Except the people in here today are much less athletic than perhaps I'm. Because David, all these sports radio hosts in America have gathered here to spend a week hyping the Super Bowl. That is why we're here this week. If we're just being honest about it, we are here to hype the Super Bowl. So let me set the scene for listeners who are not looking into the Zoom as you are right now. all the giant national sports radio shows, your Jim Rome, your Boomer and Gio, your Pat McAfee,

they are going to be here this week, doing their shows live from what we call Radio Row. And most of these people, including me, are not actually going to the Super Bowl. This week will not culminate with them in the press box.

They are coming here to be part of Super Bowl hype, and they are coming here to surf off the high. to promote themselves. Okay, does that make sense? I'm going to be kind of in the penumbra of the Super Bowl. Right. And I'm going to use that as a way to make me bigger.

Sure. That's the point. Now, how do you go about promoting yourself? Well, one way you do it is you say, hey, I'm on Radio Row, like I did at the beginning of this podcast, which sounds kind of cool. But the second part is there are lots of famous people walking around here, and you can join your media brand to their media brand.

And the idea is that everybody then benefits from this unholy union of media brands. So last year, COVID canceled most of Radio Row, as you would expect. But two years ago in Miami, we would look up in Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg, we're walking around. Or Katie Couric or Rick Flair, the professional wrestler, or Russell Wilson, the quarterback of the Seahawks. They're walking around. and if you have an appointment, they stop at your table and they do 10 or 15 minutes with you. And that is what Radio Row is.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a sort of chicken and the egg thing, but there's certainly, like you said, many more media members than are attending the Super Bowl. And obviously, there's no, I guess you're not honor bound at any point in history to have attended the Super Bowl if you go to Radio Row. But I'm guessing it was more of a one-to-one sort of situation.

10 or 15 years ago, right? Sure. Like the reporters dispatched to the Super Bowl would be the reporters who got a seat on Radio Row. The number is grown because there are many people, I mean, because frankly, it's easier to get seats on Radio Row than it is to get tickets to the Super Bowl. But also...

Absolutely. I can attest. But also at the same time, the number of potential interviews has expanded, right? I mean, talking about people who aren't going to the Super Bowl, you're kind of flooded now on a yearly basis with NFL players who aren't playing in the Super Bowl, who were there to give interviews and generally attached to some product or brand that they're promoting, right? I mean, so there's no, there's no, you could show up with very little, with very few plans and not have that much trouble filling out a week of podcast, for instance.

I mean, it's something that's been happening for your entire life and my entire life and probably even before we were born, which is that Super Bowl hype has been growing crazily in relation to the actual Super Bowl. actual Super Bowl's huge. 100 million people are going to watch television, but the hype around the Super Bowl has become bigger and bigger and bigger in relation to the actual game. And in some ways, in some ways, as you said, has become detached from the actual game. Like Martha Stewart presumably doesn't have anything to do

with the actual Super Bowl, but Martha Stewart has something to do with Radio Row and is going to be here doing something. I think what always fascinates me about this week, and I wrote about this a couple of years ago, is this is the single most ruthless hierarchy of American celebrity I have ever seen. You know, we like to compare celebrities. Oh, you know, she's bigger than him and he's bigger than her.

But you'll never see it like you do on Radio Row. And let me explain why. So this goes from Monday to Friday. And the least popular celebrities, David, will be appearing today on Monday. And then the slightly more popular celebrities show up on Tuesday. and then on to Wednesday. And then Radio Row peaks on Thursday. And then it kind of dips a little bit on Friday.

Sure. So what happens is you are a Monday guy or a Tuesday guy. Or if you're really big stuff, you're a Thursday guy. And this is not me making this up. This is these PR agents that take people around Radio Row. They have a very keen sense of what day you're supposed to be on. Because not only do you want to slot in where you fit on these, celebrity power rankings, you want to pick the day that your media impact can be the biggest.

So let me give you an example. If I had David Shoemaker and he'd written another fantastic book about professional wrestling and I was taking him around radio rope. I'll be there on Monday. You can just go ahead. No, look, you're a Thursday guy to me. You'll always be a Thursday guy in my life. But if I was like, I was trying to book you on sports radio interviews and Patrick Mahomes was here on the same day, you and I wouldn't be getting very far.

So I would bring you on Monday, knowing it's a slower day on Radio Row, and I could get you fantastic, hilarious David Shoemaker, on every show in America. So you would be a Monday guy, possibly a Tuesday guy. And the audience, you know, presumably there are some degree fewer people listening to sports talk radio or whatever on Monday than they would be on Thursday when they're getting really amped up for the Super Bowl. Yes. So I would get a lot of exposure, but potentially fewer listeners. Absolutely. You remember Jim Everett, who was the quarterback of the Rams in like the 80s and 90s when we were kids? Yeah.

So Jim Everett this year is a Wednesday guy. Now, if the Rams weren't playing in the Super Bowl, I don't think Jim Ram, Jim Everett would be an anything guy. I don't think he might be a borderline Monday guy. So you can change from year to year, but hey, the Rams are in the Super Bowl. want to hear what Jim Everett has to say about what Matthew Stafford may be thinking right now, or what this might mean to the Rams to finally win a Super Bowl in Los Angeles. Jim Rome is literally sitting over your shoulder. It's been a couple of decades, but you could book the rematch.

I think people would line up for that. Yes. But you're right. If he's a Wednesday guy with Jim Rome, we've got something amazing on Radio Row. But your point is taken. I like that you can go up and down depending on your sort of, ability to contribute. I mean, in some ways, that's sort of reassuring, right, that we still care about the value of the content. Yeah, well, it's funny. I had a PR guy a couple years ago tell me,

he had a former NFL player, I'll just leave it at this, who was a Thursday guy. You know, true, genuine Thursday guy told great stories, great on the, you know, great on the radio, had a pretty, pretty decent career. And the guy wound up doing so many interviews on radio row year after year that he was downgraded to a Wednesday guy. The sports radio show, got tired of it. Yeah. So he went from Thursday guy to Wednesday guy, which is pretty funny.

So you can also go down the power rankings in Radio Row. By the way, it was fairly funny. We walked in here this morning with a pal, and we were looking at Jim Rome set here behind me, and we saw somebody's like, wow, who is that? Who is that? It was Dan Weiki who covers the Lakers for the L.A. times. Dan Waikie, by the way, happy to be a Monday guy.

But that gives you a little taste of what's going on here. The other funny part about Radio Row, David, is the quid pro quo nature of the interviews. So, oh, yeah. When you talk to Russell Wilson on Radio Row, you don't just talk to Russell Wilson or fill in the name of a famous NFL player. Sure.

They are here on behalf of a product, right? So you get a few minutes with them, and then you do this hilarious, ungainly transition where you go, hey, so thanks for all that information about football. Now tell me what you're doing with Sleep Number. Or can you tell me what you're doing with Old Spice Deodorant.

And that is the tradeoff for your Radio Row interview. Is essentially you are putting a native ad into your sports radio show. And this just doesn't happen with the very famous quarterback. This is literally every interview you

do. The Monday guy also has something he's pushing. And the Tuesday guy has something he's pushing. Well, if you're going to go do Radio Row and you could get paid for it's radio, right? So you've got talk about it. You can't just show up in your sleep number t-shirt and cash a sleep number check. You have to, you know, actually say a few words about it, explain. I like how everybody, it's not

just like, I'm here on behalf of sleep number. They have great mattresses. We hope we get paid, by the way, for doing all this fake sleep number ads. But you can't, you don't just read. It's not just an ad read. You have to, like, they all have like a personal story, a personal investment. I've teamed up. I've teamed up with Brand X. That's great. Yes. to present the this I don't know this lottery

this charitable organization this this football related endeavor you know it's there's always that connection and that makes you pay

attention when they say the brand's name over and over again it's really funny though right because you don't you love that transition

in sports radio where it's clear it's clear the host doesn't want to do the plug oh yeah but the host knows they're required

to do the plug because that's the tradeoff and so their voice kind of goes down and they kind of go, oh, so tell me what you're doing with the avocado growers of America here. Well, I think from a host perspective, it's nice

because you can ask, you serve up that question and then you can just go ahead and go straight to the bathroom or just start prepping for your next interview. Like, you don't have to listen to the answer. But it's also, is it an implicit part of the deal, though, that the guest agrees to not mention the brand until they're specifically asked about the brand,

And because you and I have both done these interviews. I haven't been on Super Bowl Radio Row, but I've certainly interviewed people that were kind of offered up because they're doing the rounds for an event or for a product or for whatever. And, well, at least with Radio Row, it's a little bit more of a straight-up transaction, right? Everybody's doing this. Everybody gets their spot to do their ad read at the end, like whatever. It's all on the table.

It's all on the table. But what do you think? Like if you were interviewing, you know, football player, I guess we could just keep dragging Russell Wilson's name to them. money. If you said, Russell Wilson, like you've played against both these teams. Who do you think,

what defense would you rather see in the Super Bowl? And he was just like, well, I was just lying on my sleep number bed this morning thinking about that very question. That sort of violates the spirit of the whole thing, right? Yeah,

it's kind of an unspoken code that I will get my four or five sports questions in. But then I will not just end the segment, oh, sorry, we're out of time. and cut him off so that he can do his head. By the way, I don't believe I have ever done one of these interviews. I've heard a million one of these interviews.

I do not believe I've ever done this. I mean, it kind of gets to a bigger question, doesn't it, about podcasts and radio and everything? What is quid pro quo really? Yeah. Because I've certainly interviewed people about their book, and I've certainly interviewed people about their movie. We had Jeffrey Rydon to talk about the French dispatch last year. And if I had had Jeffrey Rydon, it's like, hey, man, I just want to talk about the French Dispatch last year. about Westworld and I don't want to get to, I don't want to talk about this other movie or even

mention it at all. I think I would have been violating the spirit of the interview. Sure. But I always see it as like, I think if I want to do an interview with somebody who is pitching something, it is a book they wrote or a movie they made or podcast they made, whatever it is, rather than a random product that is not attached to them. But I guess if there was somebody that could argue, well, quid pro quo is much bigger than the way it is on Radio Row. It infuses everything we do. I don't know. I've found myself at a place sort of in the middle, right? I mean, I'm specifically thinking of like doing when they have, I mean, this is very specific. But WWU put out a video game and will send wrestlers out to do the ad, to do the promotion for it. And they don't, these aren't

the programmers. You know, these aren't people that have any real like ability to talk about the video and they probably haven't even played it yet. So you have to, sort of shoehorn in a video game related quite talk to them about whatever you want and then at the end it's like so you could play any wrestler from your childhood or from the 80s or 90s like who would you like to you know you get it's it's always uncomfortable but that's kind of an interesting one because they actually are in the game they're a part of the game they didn't make the game but they haven't been a part of it up till now to the best of their knowledge right they weren't part of the process they're just part of the product they're not the ature of the game but they are in a weird way the

star of the game sure also funny I got an email asking me if I was interested in interviewing Carolina Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey you know it's always weird when I get email saying would you like to interview the NFL player

I'm always wondering you have really looked at the articles I've written lately I'm not really doing a lot of NFL player interviews but Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey one of the best players in the league right played only 10 games the last two seasons because of injuries so maybe if I were doing hypothetically a Christian

McCaffrey Radio Row interview, I'd like to ask him. How are you feeling? You know, you think you'll be back for all 17 next year? Here's a line from that email. We do need to specify that a few topics will be off limits with Christian. He will not field questions related to either injuries or roster, coaching, or personnel updates with the Panthers. Now, number one, I'm not sure what the difference between roster and personnel updates are, since the roster sort of is the team personnel. But secondly, I can't ask him about injuries. Yeah. So here we are. Now we're doing radio row interviews where we have to do the thing. We have to the plug, but we actually can't ask what I want to ask. So I will not be taking them up on that interview. Christian McCaffrey will only be fielding questions about the sleeve number.

I mean, so that would be the ultimate test, right? I have a really, really famous athlete. They're not going to talk to you about sports. They will only talk about the product they're pitching. Will you sports radio host of America take on this athlete and just ask them questions about that? Sleep number, maybe not, but if Christian McCaffrey or somebody was out here saying,

I'm only going to talk about, I mean, there are subjects where the answer would be yes, and you can't deny it. If he was like, Christian McCaffrey, Christian McCaffrey will only be answering questions about the new and improved on the border menu.

You would just be like, hell yes, I will talk margaritas, and salsa with Christian McCaffrey for five hours. Like there's certainly things that you would agree, terms that you would agree to. It's a subject I'm definitely more interested in. I'll put it that way.

All right, David, let's do the overword 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. There was a much talked about column

in the New York Times, David. It was called Europe thinks Putin, That is Vladimir Putin is planning something even worse than war. It was an overworked Twitter joke to imagine what Vladimir Putin might do that would be even worse than war. Do you want to hear some of the nominees? Please. Putin is going to try stand-up comedy. Putin got into crypto.

Putin is going to start a podcast next to Jody Canada. The crypto part kind of sounds like Radio Row, by the way. Journalism story we missed this week, David. wordle, the game that journalists love to tell you their playing, has been sold to the New York Times. There's an over-word-word-word-old Twitter joke to write,

W-N-E-R. We would have also accepted M-O-N-E-Y, thanks to Dr. Rachel Gohms or Gomez and Andrew Grainning for that one. And finally, David, here's the story right in our wheelhouse, and speaking of on the border. Complex reports,

a video shows over 40 people in a massive brawl at Golden Corral. That allegedly started because the restaurant ran out of steak. It was an overword Twitter joke to call this All You Can Beat.

All You Can Beat. We would have also accepted a high stakes confrontation. Thanks to intermodal motorist and our good pal Derek Burke, if you reminded David and I of our favorite restaurant at age 18, I mean age 28. I mean age 28. I mean age 38

Congrats you made the overwork Twitter joke of the week What would you fight over if Golden Corral ran out of it? Shrimp When that always the draw of Golden Crow? I would like to say that I would not fight over anything but

You got to think about the kids at some point right to take your kids out to Golden Corral with the promises of fried shrimp and state and all you can eat steak That's why you're fighting I'd be fighting if the kids were crying That's probably the thing that would get me closest to swinging. Would you fight the people at Golden Corral or would you fight the people who took like all the fried shrimp?

Yes. If somebody jumped in line ahead of you and was just like, it had like a bag, a giant bull full of shrimp and we're just like licking each one and throwing it on the ground. That's what makes you mad, right? All right, David, in the notebook dump, let us catch up on the Sarah Palin New York Times libel trial. Fill me in. You may remember this was delayed because Sarah Palin had COVID. trial started again on Thursday. The big question here is whether a jury will find that the New York Times liableed Sarah Palin in a 2017 editorial.

We will get to that in a second. The second part of that, though, is whenever you have a journalistic entity like the Times on trial, however badly in tension the trial is, it is this very odd peek into how journalism really works. Because you wind up with editors on the stand, reporters on the stand, their, emails and communications put into evidence. I mean, it's an incredibly invasive process. Just imagine your baseline wrestling story that you write, media column that I write, if suddenly the entire world saw all the emails and Slack messages that preceded that.

I mean, there'd be nothing remotely bad about them, but they would be incredibly weird for other people to see. They would probably tell you a lot about how. our journalism shop works. And in this case, there is a whole bunch about how the New York Times works, at least on the editorial page. Just the point of clarification.

So if I wrote a piece and then they, whatever, like someone sued me over it and all of the correspondence surrounding it was brought into evidence, does that include Slack messages to like you where I'm saying, just like, holy shit,

you wouldn't believe the interview I just got and like bragged about it or just like gawked over what just happened to me? I suppose it could. Yeah, that would be tough. If it was deemed relevant to the trial.

Yeah, that'd be tough. Here are the facts here. Back in 2017, Representative Steve Scalese was shot at a practice for the congressional baseball game. You remember this. So the New York Times editorial page snaps into action. It says, we need to weigh in, right?

We need to write an editorial, not just about the shooting, but we need to try to make a larger point here about what is happening. A Times journalist named Elizabeth Williamson wrote a piece about the shooting and the rhetoric that may cause people to do those kinds of things. She files the piece to her boss. Editorial page editor James Bennett. Remember him? Frequent subject here on the old press box. All right. So Bennett does a very heavy edit of this editorial. And then he writes to Williamson in an email, and here's another one of those things that got revealed during the trial and

says this, I really reworked this one. I hope you can see what I was trying to do. Please take a look. Thank you for the hard work today, and I'm sorry to do such a heavy edit. All right. So there is an email from an editor apologizing for getting into the pros to that level. The problem was James Bennett didn't just edit the piece. He added a few lines about the shooting of Gabby Giffords, another member of Congress who was shot back in 2011. And those lines read like this. The link to political incitement was clear. Before the shooting, Sarah Palin's political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized crosshairs.

So now the editorial is asserting that there is this link between Sarah Palin's political action committee. Right. And the shooting of Gavie Giffords. Okay. One problem, that was not true. That was not true. And in fact, as Eric Wimple has pointed out, the map circulated by Sarah Pack, which was the political action committee, didn't put Giffords under stylized crosshairs.

It put congressional districts under stylized crosshairs. And the rage of the shooter against Giffords predated the circulation of the map. Now, outside of the libel trial here, I cannot think of something an editor could do that was a whole lot worse than editing a piece and inserting incorrect information into the piece. I mean, that's just, and again, there's nobody disputes that that was absolutely, that was absolutely the wrong thing to do in this case. Sure. But you're taking something, you're amping it up a little bit, and in the process, you are putting something that's bogus into it.

Right. Information that's incorrect. Now, nobody disputes the fact that this was incorrect. The Times found out about it when the piece went up. People got mad on Twitter, and then they issued a correction. Okay. So now comes the interesting part of a libel case, because being wrong about a public figure like Sarah Palin is not liable. You have to go much farther than that.

And as Wemple writes in the Washington Post, Palin has to prove the Times acted with actual malice. That is, that the newspaper published a knowing falsehood or proceeded with reckless disregard of truth. or falsity. And that requires establishing the key actor's state of mind. Okay? So Palin's legal team

can't just say, hey, the New York Times published something that wasn't true about me. They have to understand the state, they have to sort of show a jury the state of mind

of the people doing it. They have to prove this. How do they do that? Well, they're going to put James Bennett on the stand this week. They're going to read the emails that were sent back and forth

inside the New York. our times. This is an incredibly high bar for a reason, right? Because we want to give journalists, we do not want journalists to write something that turns out to be wrong and then get sued into oblivion, right? Yeah. By public officials. So this is essentially what's at stake here? This is kind of beside the point in the whole scheme of things, but when it comes to the initial error that set this whole thing going, it's probably not super helpful if this was a heavy rewrite, Right, because, I mean, I can only speak from personal experiences, but as an editor, the things I'm most blind to in terms of, like, fact-checking pieces I'm working on is the shit that I put in myself, right? You, like, you throw stuff in as a writer, and then it's kind of missing that first layer of, you know, adjudication.

But setting that aside, yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a really bizarre situation. I mean, it's hard. even in the world of journalism to not see this as politicized kind of on both sides. And it's hard from, I think it's hard to not read the story from a political point of view, right? I mean, it's hard to not sort of have a rooting interest when you're hearing it because even, like, you know, political allegiance aside, you find yourself either rooting for a politician or the journalistic establishment or whatever. We can all agree that they made a mistake. But at what point is, does, you know, at what point does a win here for Palin, even if this is, even if this were a much more dire situation, when one point does it win for Palin, so we're going to signal

the opening of the floodgates and that, yes, every, and the journalism is going to be in a precarious place moving forward. Even if it's just an issue of, even if it's just an issue of like people filing suit on a more regular basis, you know, people with financial backing, taking more things to court. That becomes paralyzing in its own way. You don't think you're boss is going to send a company-wide memo that says, listen, don't let the outcome of this case make you afraid from reporting the truth. But do be in touch with your editors and have them running up the flagpole in case there's anything coming up that might be viewed as distorting the truth or problematic in a certain way that might, you know, raise the legal hackles

of whoever you're writing about. I mean, you'd be frozen immediately. Yes. If a case like this went to the complaint. Owners of publications get jumpy and then bosses get jumping. and then journalists get jumpy, right? And there's this chilling effect all the way down. That is absolutely what people feel, fear here. A couple of weird things we've learned from the trial, which is still ongoing, by the way. Wimple notes this,

the testimony includes insiderish journal terms such as playback when writers get to review their work after editors have inserted changes. I have heard the words, playback. I don't think I've ever used them myself. Josh Gerstein of Politico tweeted this. The judge is cajoling lawyers in Palin v. New York Times to speed it up. Quote, the testimony of Phoebe Letts, that's a Times staffer, took about an hour. As near as I could tell, it should have taken five minutes.

So just like your editor is always telling you to get to the point faster, the judge in the journalism trial is telling them to get to the point faster. Also, there was a whole issue about James Bennett apologizing to Sarah Palin that Wimple pointed out. And this is kind of fascinating because the New York Times, Bennett said, and I believe this was in his pre-trial discovery testimony, does not apologize as an institution? So they correct an error? They never apologize as an institution.

This is not a present tense retelling of the story. It is their policy to not apologize. Yes. So there was this kind of thing where Bennett was sort of wondering, can I type up a personal apology to Sarah Palin? Just like an email and say, hey, on my own behalf, I apologize. And then it was deemed somehow that he would be apologizing on behalf of the institution. The institution, as you say, doesn't apologize.

So that's where we are. Like I said, we're going to learn all kinds of very interesting things about how journalism works through these. It was determined that he was not allowed to personally apologize because the New York Times doesn't apologize. Yeah, I believe he was answering questions from a reporter. And they were going through the PR apparatus there. And it was determined that even if he said that, it would be seen. is the institution doing. So I couldn't do that.

Yeah. A couple more fun things for you, David, before we get out of here today, our friend Ben Lindberg sent me an email. We love Ben Lindberg. Oh, yeah. I learned everything I didn't know about Boba Fett and baseball from Ben Lindberg.

First of all, he sent us a great headline rule of three from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Hammers, Unicorns, and Ice Cream, how the Pittsburgh Pirates finally revamped their pitching program hammers, unicorns, and ice cream. Also a great example here of media piss test. This is from

Celine Gounder, infectious disease specialist and clinical professor at NYU who was quoted in Axios. The tension between the health and science industries and media and tech has been building for years. But now it's on steroids.

It is on steroids. this is the retraction of the week got for you, David. It's sent in by alert listeners Mike Soto and Mike Shaw. This ran in Bloomberg on Friday. This is kind of amazing. It ran under the headline statement on publishing error. Here's what Bloomberg said.

We prepare headlines for many scenarios and the headline Russia invades Ukraine was inadvertently published around 4 p.m. Eastern today on our website. We deeply regret the error. Yeah. Wow.

I do love that you needed to type the words Russia invades Ukraine in advance. Yeah. The precious seconds would have been lost. If it's possible, yeah, if it's that easy for it to accidentally end up on the homepage, it sort of defeats the purpose of saving the time, typing it out ahead of time, right? Yeah, what's the possibly fictitious William Randolph first quotation, you furnish the pictures, all furnish the war? Like, we accidentally published the headline, you furnish the war.

Yeah. Not the case. I have one idea I want to run by you right here on the air. You don't know about this. Okay. Go for it. Yeah. So we're here at the Super Bowl.

I have been thinking we should do a press box questionnaire. Three questions that we do with writers in audio form. All right. You ready for the questions? Mm-hmm. Number one, when you want to sharpen your own writing, who do you read? Got it. Number one.

Number two, what is the best job you ever turn down? Oh, God. I think there's going to see people that don't react to that. I mean, they don't want to respond to that, but that's a great question. We're going to put them on the spot. You're going to have to tell us.

Some may even say, I don't know what they'll say. We'll see. Number three, what is your favorite media or journalism movie? Love it. You say book or movie. I mean, there's more movies than there are books. Wait, we're saying books? No, I was going to say book or movie.

I say, open it up, so it's not just movies. if you want to pick the newsroom or something like that, then you should be able to pick the TV show, book, movie, anything. Okay, okay. We'll open it up. It's time for David Shoemaker, guess is a strain pun headline. Yeah. Last Monday's headline about the L.A. Rams beating Tom Brady was goat busters.

This week's pun comes from Alec McDonald. It's from the East Bay Times up there in Northern California. David, I want you to flash back to the 49ers lost to the Rams in the NFC title game. It's obvious frustration with the play of quarter. quarterback Jimmy Garapolo. Okay. You might know Jimmy Garapolo's nickname.

Jimmy G. That's correct. What was the East Bay Times' strained pun headline? Oh, is it G, Jim, G.E. Jimmy, or Jimmy comma G? Oh, you're so close. G. G.

You're so clear right on the doorstep. Jimmy. Jimmy. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm so frustrated. Oh, that interception at the end of the game. Oh, I'm making a sound of frustration. Jimmy.

G. G. Jimmy. Jimmy. She. Sounds like Tony Romo here. Jimmy G's. Jimmy G's.

Is correct. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Erica Zervantes. Coming later this week. Podcast of collected interviews from Radio Row. All the newsmakers and sports radio people and assorted others. And then Sunday night, right after Rams Bengals,

David and I are going to turn on the mic. We're talking about the announcers, the commercials, the hype, anything we can squeeze into the media category, stay up late Sunday with us and then pass out listening to the press box. Plus more lukewarm takes about the media. Happy Super Bowl week, David. Happy Super Bowl week to YouTube. Before you go, do you want to talk to us a little bit of that sleep number? What am I doing with them this week? Yes, my plug will follow right after this.