The Press Box - Matt Gaetz Investigations and Covering the Men’s and Women’s Final Four

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker discuss the investigation involving Florida Representative Matt Gaetz. They weigh in on his response to the sex trafficking investigation, his interview with Tucker Carlson, and decided where Gaetz falls along the scale of politicians labeled by the press (5:10). Then, they switch gears and talk through the highlights and key takeaways from the men and women's NCAA tournaments (21:13). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Head into the Ringerverse to stay up to date with all things superheroes and nerd culture entertainment. Hosted by a rotating lineup of superfans at The Ringer, including Mallory Rubin and Van Lathen, shows will provide instant reactions to blockbuster releases, insightful backstories on canon, and mind-bending theories, as well as fresh takes on the latest news and rumors. Check out the Ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. David, your Baylor Bears thumped the Gonzaga Bulldogs. last night in the NCAA men's final. What I want to know is in the list of famous Baylor

alums, David, where do you feel you rank? Oh, man, not high. Listen, I've never, as far as I know, never given a dollar to Baylor. So I don't even know if I officially count at this point. I left Texas about six months after I graduated, never went back. Although my sister, it should be said, is a professor at Baylor University. That's something. But as a professor there, where do I rank?

Okay, so I don't even, I only know, my list of Baylor graduates is probably largely farcical, right? Like I remember the people that we talked about when I went there. Do you have actually a comprehensive list of who went there? I do. And I think we can kind of fill out the power. rankings. I want to start with people that I'm pretty sure are more famous than you. Okay, that should be easy. Jump in here. Chip and Joanna Gaines. Oh, yes. Yeah, I mean, you've got, you could have said, you know, Jesus. Yeah, Chip and Joanna Gaines are certainly

much more famous than me. Silence of the Lambs author Thomas Harris. And without a doubt, especially, you know, before Clarice, when, went to be, became a full-time primetime show, maybe not, but now we all know Thomas Harris's name. That's a joke. Of course, he's more famous than it. Angela from the office. Oh, man. Yes, a million times over, yes. NCAA and WNBA champion, Brittany Griner. Yes. RG3. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Vinnie the Microwave Johnson, long time NBA six man. Yes. And finally, Senator Rand Paul. Oh, man.

I actually have some Rand Paul stories, but I don't even think I'd probably get thrown out of, throwing off the earth for telling them. So those people are ahead of you in the Baylor alum power rankings. Yes. All right. For sure. Now I've got a list of people I'm not sure about.

They may be more famous than you. They may be less famous than you. Let's hit these. ESPN host Trey Wingo. I guess former ESPN host. But ESPN host, Trey Wingo, who with the exception of, I mean, the only Baylor grads who I, who I saw celebrating on Twitter last night where the gains is in Trey Wingo. So big ups to Trey Wingo. Love Trey Wingo. I actually

know some members of the Wingo clan, the extended Wingo universe. He's great. Definitely more famous than me. Noted ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. He should have been on the first list. Jeff Dunham is one of like the highest grossing performers in the country. Of course. of course. Yeah, I looked at about 538,000 Twitter followers.

Whoa. I mean, I knew he was more popular than you in Vegas, but I didn't know, you know, on Twitter.

Anyway, okay, Jeff Dunham. Former Miami Dolphins executive, Jeff Ireland. Oh, I did not know

Jeff Ireland went to Baylor. Oh, man. Yeah, I mean, how on earth would I be more

famous than Jeff Ireland? I have no idea. And does Jeff Ireland have a podcast? because if so, he is more famous than me. I was thinking like if you two were on cameo,

if I could get a cameo from Jeff Ireland or renowned wrestling writer, the mass man, David Shoemaker, I'm going to pay a lot more for David Shoemaker. I appreciate that, Brian. Jeff, you probably five bucks, Jeff Ireland, 50 cents. It's not a ton more,

but I think I would pay more for the David Shoemaker cameo. And finally, the last one I'm not sure about, Watergate Special Prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. Now, we're not talking early 70s. We're talking right now, 2021. David Shoemaker or Leon Jaworski.

Oh, man. I have not. You can make the call on that one. Coming up on today's show, we dissect the story of embattled congressman Matt Gates, which I think we're calling Watergate. Plus, our thoughts on the way TV covered the men's and women's NCAA tournaments. All that more on the press box.

the Ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here. Man, we have been champing at the bit to talk about this story involving Florida Congressman Matt Gates. First question, David, what do we

call this story? Are we happy with water gates? Or Gatesgate is the other one I hear pass around a lot. Oh, yes. And you know why you hear that? Because five days before this story broke, Gates was in a Twitter convo with Elon Musk already.

What? Right? But Elon Musk had tweeted, if there's ever a scandal about me, please call it Elon Gate. Right. And then Matt Gates replied to that and said, deal, I want Gatesgate. Yeah. Wow. Now, do you think it's good karma if you're a public figure, particularly a congressman?

And you're looking for Twitter content to go, hey, if there's a scandal about me, What should we call it? Vote right now. Oh, my gosh. I don't think that's a good idea. No, no, no, no. Not at all. Especially when you know you have this loom.

I mean, listen, there's no way. You might have rationalized all this to yourself. But you can't feel like there's no chance that there would be a gatesgate in the future if this is the life. If the life that we is rumored to have been leading, was it in any part true? This was five days before the New York Times story broke. five days he was on there just just riffing yeah just a public figure with a funny Twitter account what could I do and not wait and if I don't even know the exact timeline but five day I didn't realize it was that that recent five days before the story broke all the stuff with like that he's

that that that he's claiming that is in some way is true I mean he this story was already bubbling up right those people who were like who were like you know he had the FBI wiring his dad was wired for the FBI or whatever. That story was already in motion, right? And those people had suggested that they knew that this prosecution was coming. So he made that joke knowing full well that this was in the offing. It's crazy.

If his counter charges are true, then he knew Gates Gate was a thing at that point. That is very, very weird. All right. The first of these stories was broken last Tuesday by Michael Schmidt, Katie Benner, and Nicholas Fondos of the New York Times.

Matt Gates, they wrote, Quote, is being investigated by the Justice Department over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him, according to three people briefed on the matter. Investigators are examining whether Mr. Gates violated federal sex trafficking laws the people said. A variety of federal statutes make it illegal to induce someone under 18 to travel over state lines to engage in sex in exchange for money or something of value, end quote. Now, let us pause there for a second and talk about, Matt Gates's reaction to that particular bombshell story. Because Gates, David, didn't just deny the charges, calling them a lie. He started doing interviews because that's what Matt Gates does.

According to Media Matters, he has done 300 plus cable hits since 2017. So he jumped on the Tucker Carlson show over there on Fox News. And I want you to listen to how one particular aspect, of that interview unfurled. It is a horrible allegation and it is a lie. The New York Times is running a story that I have traveled with a 17-year-old woman

and that is verifiably false. People can look at my travel records and see that that is not the case. You know how David Tucker Carlson always does frown face when he's doing an interview? Even when the guest is agreeing with him. This time his frown face was like

what are you talking about sir and he came out later and said i don't remember the woman you were speaking of or the context at all honestly now that was gait sort of roping carlson into the story then he really roped him in listen to this i'm not the only person on screen right now who's been falsely accused of a terrible sex act you were accused of something that you did not do and so you know what this feels like you know the pain it can bring to your family Now, Carlson came back later on and said, look, that was 20 years ago. I had never met that person.

That accusation was not true. CNN's Oliver Darcy has a source saying Carlson was, quote, pissed off after the interview. Understandably so. I mean, I've never seen a guest in a sympathetic cable news interview, try to sort of rope in the host that way. no especially i mean especially when tucker is offering safe harbor right i mean it's not like like people are

interested in this story on a lot of cable news networks although fox has been doing a pretty good job of pretending it's not happening outside of that carlson show may that's something to do with it but i mean tucker is either directly or indirectly offering gates just a hell of a solid by letting him just get out there and defend himself on national television and whether it is their buddies or this is payback you know just like in in kind for all the appearances that he's made in the past and good tv that he's given him or or if he just you know

politically wants to stand in lockstep or whatever it is Tucker is doing him a good turn here and and then Matt Gates for whatever reason decided to he didn't even help his case i don't even know what is the best case scenario there right that Tucker would be just like oh that lovely woman? I was sure by looking at her, she was 25 years old. You know, I mean, like, what could have happened there? Even though I watched it and my first reaction was that Gates was telling the truth, but was just really out of line by bringing it up without Tucker's foreknowledge, even the more that I go over it in my head, I'm like, I'm not sure that there's a real distinction between it being true and it being false, right? I mean, it's like, it's, it, no one is,

No one is going to take Matt Gates's side and all that. And there's no, and no one heard that and said, oh, well, then it must be okay. Like, it's just very bizarre. Can we pivot quickly to a principle that if any politician has, you know, had a story published about them that, you know, an investigation is happening or there's some, some sort of charge potentially boiling somewhere in the universe, that they should immediately jump on cable news and have a freewheeling conversation about it? Yeah. Yes. I didn't see any of those tweets where he said, what was Matt Gates thinking by going on?

I just want to preempt any of those tweets and say, politician, embattled politician, please jump on cable news immediately, even a sympathetic interview and just start talking about this stuff. Yeah. That's good for journalists. We want more information. Well, I mean,

especially if your subject is so, you know, as clearly addled in whatever way is Matt. Gates and just willing to either overshare or lie so ostentatiously on the record that it just makes the story more complex, you know? Here was Tucker Carlson's note at the end of the interview. If you just saw a Matt Gates interview, that was one of the weirdest interviews I've ever conducted. One of the weirdest interviews Tucker Carlson has ever conducted.

And think of all the clips that wash up on media matters or that we have talked about on this podcast over the last couple of years. That somehow was a top fiver for Tucker Carlson. Pretty incredible. This story got more and more detailed, I guess would be one way to put it.

This is from CNN. Behind the scenes, Gates gained a reputation in Congress over his relationships with women and bragging about his sexual escapades to his colleagues, multiple sources told CNN. Gates allegedly showed off other lawmakers' photos and videos of nude women he said he had slept with, the sources told CNN,

including while on the house floor. The sources, including two people directly shown the material, said Gates displayed the images of women on his phone and talked about having sex with them. One of the videos showed a naked woman with a hula hoop, according to one source, quote, it was a point of pride, end quote, one of the sources said of Gates. Gates did not respond to that CNN story, though, as we mentioned earlier, he did not the first round of allegations. We did get a question from a listener who calls himself 42nd,

feral hog, asking where do we put Matt Gates in the embattled versus whatever other label the press is going to put him on at this point in his life? Is this embattled Congressman Matt Gates? Is that the right way, do you think, for news outlets to describe him? This is an interesting question. First, I just want to respond to that previous quote that you read. If ever someone in the world is whipping out their phone and saying, check out this naked person I slept with last night, like, just get away from that person and report that person and like get. Yes.

Pick up a phone and call authorities right away. You know, I'm not, I'm not even making locker room exemptions here or whatever. Like, that is just, that is a huge, that is an enormous red flag. And even if what they're showing you isn't like explicitly illegal, the mindset there is just so out of touch. I don't even know what to say. So to answer your question, I actually was thinking about this. And I think we need, I think that our ever expanding embattled term universe or whatever we're going to call it needs a new word for a politician who's hanging on. despite being off the chart in a previous era.

You know, like, 10 years ago, Matt and Gates would already be out of work and, you know, largely off the map. It doesn't take more than a New York Times expose of charges that are inevitably going to be proven true to, to, to, you know, to get somebody, to give some of their marching orders. you could even put Governor Cuomo

in some sort of similar place, although, you know, I don't think that's as historically bizarre. But yeah, I mean, listen, he's beyond embattled, Matt Gates. He is, he is what? I mean, he's a persona non grata. He is a, he is,

he is the, you know, walking, breathing albatross of the Republican Party right now. I mean, what is, what is the best way to describe him? I just don't think that there's a, I don't even know if there's a newspaper term that could quite do it justice, although I guess that's sort of the purpose of all these regurgitated terms like embattled and disgraced. Yes. As we agreed on previous shows, embattled is a state of being that only exists in the media. Nobody says, hey, my son's having some problems. He's been pretty embattled lately. Yeah. That's only something you read about.

The term was created for people like Matt Gates, where there's some accusations out there in the world and some news stories. but no formal charges or convictions. So you have to come up with something so people settle on embattled. The aforementioned 42nd Feral Hogg sent us a screen grab from Steve Bannon's podcast, the video version which is on YouTube. And it identifies Gates as Congressman Matt Gates and then underneath that author comma firebrand. So remember when we had the scale of politicians It was the colorful politician

I think firebrand is probably next to colorful politician Just in terms of trying to describe someone Yeah firebrand sounds a little bit better than guy Who's always available to say crazy things online I think it was Josh Marshall who tweeted In this whole thing that the most bizarre aspect of it Was that there is not a Matt Gates that exists to go on to go on TV and defend Matt Gates.

Like there's, he does, you know, he has had some defenders, you know, Jim Jeffrey is a couple others, but. Who will be? Matt Gates is Matt Gates. Matt Gates needs a Matt Gates to go on TV and say unhinged, you know, defenses of a fellow crackpot. Yeah, an embattled congressman, you might say. All right, David, time with the Overwork 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. Coca-Cola, David, which is based in Georgia, criticized that state's new restrictive voting law. That made some Republicans in the Georgia statehouse mad, and they demanded that Coke be removed from their offices. It was an overworked Twitter joke to call it can-sul culture.

Thanks to Sean Hayes and Bob Melvin Capital for that. A tweet from KXAN News, quote, a Michigan University is offering the first cannabis chemistry scholarship. It was an overword Twitter joke or maybe just a good joke to say that the payments should be dispersed in increments of $420. Thanks to David Welgwees. Hope I'm saying your name right, David. And as mentioned earlier, the Baylor Bears destroyed Gonzaga in yesterday's NCAA men's final. A couple of good jokes I saw sent our way.

They gonzigged when they should have gonzagged. And this was pretty good. Not a fun final, but have to let Bay Gons, that is B-A-Y-G-O-N-Z, be Bay G-G-Gonz. Thanks to Charles Pryor III and Grouchy Broderick, if you brought a smile to David's face, congrats. You made the overword Twitter joke of the week. on that theme, David, let us spend some time

in the notebook dump talking about how the TV networks covered the just finished NCAA men's and women's tournaments on the Gonzaga UCLA semi-final. Listener Tyler Norton asks us, hey, press box,

was the UCLA Gonzaga finished the sporting equivalent of the old tourneys still got it? Yeah, I think so, right? I mean, that was the, I mean, I saw a lot of people, I saw a lot of people saying it was like one of the best finishes to, you know, a basketball game they'd ever seen.

But I do think that there's sort of the subtext there is, you know, I forgot that this could be fun, right? I mean, because no one's actually going back through their mental, uh, archive of all the basketball finishes they've ever seen. And all they're doing, all that really means is, you know, what a finish. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I, I, I do think that it's, it's been a, We always talk about the sort of end of monoculture on this show. I think that this is a great example of when one defining moment in sports can sort of bring us all together to make jokes to say wow for the whole thing.

I mean, that used to be basically every year in the tournament, especially in the final four. You know, every TV, every house that you were in was tuned in. And so yeah, the old tournament still got it, man. And a lot of that was stored up, I feel, just because the tournament got canceled last year. And so we had like a whole year's worth of we want to all be together watching teams with players we've never heard of, beat teams with other players we've never heard of, and just enjoying this crazy sports marathon thing. Yes. Ronnie Ronerson had a related question about that UCLA Gonzaga semifinal. I don't know if you notice this, but the announcers on CBS and basically everyone on Twitter kept saying,

this is a great game. This is a historically amazing game. How much should you say that during a self-evidently fantastic game? Where do you fall on that question? Oh, man. I am, I am,

my perception is very skewed by, you know, decades and decades of pro wrestling watching, which, by which I mean, one, it is incredibly tiresome when the storyline dictates that two minutes into a professional wrestling match, the announcer is screaming about how this is the greatest match that's ever grace our television screens. The flip side of that is there isn't a human necessity for the, I mean, the narrative does actually, like, affect your brain in a way that only is like storytelling humans are attuned

to, right? Like, we need, in some ways, it's the affirmation of, yes, this thing I am watching is incredible, um, let's you sort of digest it, appreciate it in a different way, even in real time, right?

I mean, it's, it's the same, it's a much bigger version of the same thing where you're just like, man, it sure feels like Baylor's, you know, way bigger than Gonzaga or something.

And the announcer comes on is like, Baylor's got an average of three inches of heights advantage. And you're like, yes, yeah, I feel good about having recognized a thing, you know, and having it proved out.

It's a, it's a, but there, obviously, it's, it's, It's overkill. At some point,

at some point, it does start to feel like reality is competing with the sort of social media perception of reality, where you're just sort of priming everybody to make their overworked Twitter jokes instead of actually just telling the story

of the game as it, as it, you know, occurs. I think that's what weirds me out, is people, so many people, and again, it's a product of social media narrating something that we're all watching in real time. Because, you know,

if you and I, in the old days, watched a game like that, and then picked up the sports page next morning, sports writers would be explicitly saying that was a hell of a final. And trying to put in the context, was that better than Kentucky versus Duke? Was that better than Villanova versus North Carolina? They would be doing those same things.

It's just weird when like 300 people in your Twitter feed are doing it all at the same time. Yes. Amidst like going, whoa, wow, crazy game, what a shot. And then you're seeing that at the same time. But you're right. there is a human need to have, for one, to just come out and say it and just kind of tell people, by the way, this game is freaking amazing.

And at the same time, exactly what you just said, which is validate something that someone who's watching television is already thinking. You're sitting there, if you're like me, with a kind of unformed thought in your head, like, this is awesome, right? This is incredible. And to hear an announcer say, you know, by the way, this is, this game is. freaking great. You do want a little bit of that.

Yeah. Though I would think, just watching CBS, it felt like 30% too much to me. It felt like all three announcers kind of kept saying it. And I was like, okay, I got it. Now just let the game unfold and let's have a good time. It's true. I mean, it's sort of like, from what you were saying earlier, it's sort of like when, you know, newspapers started putting up tomorrow's headlines

today, you know, they put up the front page after something important happens on the, on Twitter, just so you could sort of, you know, they could sort of, you know, they could sort of recreate the effect of seeing. the front page and then everybody on Twitter started doing fake front pages of every newspaper and you realize there was no significant distinction between the ironic ones and the real ones. The point I'm trying to make is, yeah, I mean, if you just keep saying this thing is important over and over again, it has some positive, I mean, there's some advantage to doing that, but I'm not sure that it's actually like a net positive beyond like the third time.

another thing about that very same game and I always try not to go too far down the sports media rabbit hole here because we have a lot of listeners who are like, what are you talking about? But I think this is interesting. There was a moment toward the end of UCLA Gonzaga that was maybe the best sequence of basketball

all year or in like five years. Tie game, two minutes left, David. Gonzaga guard Jalen Suggs, who you will be hearing about a lot more in the ringer verse. I can guarantee you that. Jalen Suggs. is 6-4, he blocks the shot of UCLA's Cody Riley, who is 6-9. So already like, whoa, smaller guy blocks the shot a bigger guy.

Then Suggs picks up the ball, throws a bounce pass halfway down the court to Drew Timmy for a layup. So tie game with two minutes left in the final four, and then suddenly it's a four-point swing. Gonzaga instead of trailing by two leads by two. Now, the game continues for a little bit, and CBS, which is televising it, goes to commercial without showing a replay of the amazing thing that just happened. Yeah. You don't need to know anything more about sports television, sports media, anything, to know that that is bad.

And more than bad, it is weird that when an amazing thing happened on the broadcast that you and Turner are paying $8 billion for over eight years, that you don't show the replay and instead try to squeeze in an ad. but on a more just like, you know, larger sort of level. To me, it's so weird that we're in this age of television where something like that happens, and somebody was tweeting this at me during the game, and that basically television is sending you to Twitter. Yes.

To see what just happened in the game. Yes. Television, which used to have the monopoly, is now telling you, if not in so many words, hey, you want to see that amazing thing that just happened again? you need to go to Twitter to find it. That is a truly mind-bending moment. Yes, incredibly weird.

That's exactly what I was thinking as it happened. And I think here's the real takeaway. I mean, far be it from you or I to try to, you know, program a sports broadcast, let alone a network. But at the degree at the rate to where, I mean, the degree to which we, or the networks claim that live sports. rights are the most significant thing. And we saw the NFL contract that you and Kevin talked about, was it last week to week before.

These rights deals are going to keep coming up. And there's something, nothing, I mean, there's few things more valuable in the universe than the final four. The whole point is that it's not deviarable, right? I mean, these things are things that, for the most part, people are watching in real time, in mass, as, you know, monoculturally, the whole thing. How about this?

How about just no commercials during these broadcasts? I mean, sorry, no cutaway commercials. How about everything is just scrolling across the bottom of the screen or, you know, you got your broadcasters are like, you know, drinking Pepsi's on screen if Pepsi wants to give you a bunch of money. Do whatever. That might not be appropriate, but I'm just, like, embedded ads are all over the place. All these people are talking with ads floating in their heads behind them.

Let's just do it all that way. Just charge more money for it. We don't need to cut away. This is the only thing we're ever going to watch. And you know what? It's not just the things that you're going to miss. It's an entire generation. of viewers who are watching these games going, who are not used to watching commercials at all

on their content. And they're saying, why do I have to sit through this? Like, why are you doing this to me? Let me see the thing I'm here to see. And my counteroffer to that would be, how about just none during the final two minutes of a final four game? Great deal. Great deal. You take that deal? Like, I'll give you one at the 16 minute mark in the first half. You got it, baby. Twelve minute mark. Great. Make half time three times as long so you can squeeze in commercials. I don't care. But you are doing something where you're now to the point where, and again, I understand, I know that number is so big.

You've got to squeeze in those ads. I totally understand. But as TV, it sucks. It absolutely sucks that you have an incredible play that everybody in the universe, no matter what they know about sports, can recognize as such. And you don't have time to show a replay because you've got to cut to an ad. That sucks. I'm sorry.

You don't, again, you don't have to know anything about television to know that that is bad television. You have the rights to the game and you are not putting the good parts of the game on your broadcast. I'm sorry, that stinks. By the way, the ad happened to be that Dekembe Mutombo ad where he's blocking people in the supermarket. So instead of seeing Jalen Suggs block somebody in a replay, we were seeing DeKembe Mutumbo block people. Now, maybe that was an unconscious tribute from CBS, and I just didn't understand it. But I felt that was really, really strange. Let's talk a little bit about the women's journey, David.

It is not a hot take to say that the women's tourney this year was better than the men's turning. In terms of excitement, in terms of action, in terms of competitiveness, the men's tournament had some amazing high points. Men's tournament also had a lot of games that absolutely sucked. Yeah. See both of Baylor's wins in the final four for comparison. Richard Dight, the Athletic, had a story noting that a lot of the women's games

is here aired on ABC as opposed to just ESPN where they normally live. And they did quite well compared to other sports. Dietrich's the women's NCAA numbers topped the Sixers-Lakers game last week on TNT

were similar to the third round of WGC match play, that's golf, on NBC, and were way ahead of the most watched NHL game. He also has a suggestion. So now it's time for ESPN to push for

and it's not a suggestion out of charity, but one that will prove successful for them with advertisers. The sport has earned the opportunity for the title game, and I'd also argue the semifinals, to air on ABC. So let's take these ESPN games and give them the network spotlight they deserve. Sounds fair. Sounds good, right? Absolutely.

It's interesting to me because you and I talked to, what was it now two weeks ago, about the disparity in resources offered to men's tournament participants and women's tournament participants by the NCAA. That is symbolic of the disparity in media coverage of men's college basketball and women's college basketball over the years. What was interesting this year is

ABC is showing a number of the games to give them a much bigger platform. And also, if you looked at Twitter anytime, especially during the women's final four, how many sports writers did you see saying, hey guys, want to see good basketball? Turn on the final four right now.

You know, again, sports writers, most of them who do not cover college sports who don't cover mostly, making a concerted effort to say, like, let us,

let us, let us, all you, you followers of mine and everybody on here, let us watch this right now. Mm-hmm. Because this is really compelling basketball. Well,

we're in search, like, we're always in search of things to watch together, as I just, as I said earlier. and, you know, increasingly for those things, social media is our viewing guide, right? It's our TV guide.

It tells us, like, you, I, I turn things on, I mean, literally half the things that I, that I turn on the TV for are because I see someone saying, you got to watch this right now, or you got to watch this at all, you know? And, and, and I think that that, in this case, that's actually a really good positive use of social media or, you know, contemporary media in general,

to push people towards things they would, you know, that they haven't traditionally watched. A lot of those, and it's a good thing that they were on ABC too to give them that sort of platform and to give them that, you know, make it easy for people to find. Honestly, as, you know, I'm a Baylor grad, as I said earlier for years. I mean, I was not a Baylor student at a time when the men's basketball or football programs were even worth mentioning.

But we did always have a good women's basketball team. And as someone who was there through those years and who was a fan of those teams, after I graduated, it was really hard to follow those teams. And that really had more to do with what, you know, the network sort of allowed you to watch and what, you know, as anything else. So it's good that the opportunity in this case

is important and it's it's great that they're that the numbers were really good too. I like the idea of the Twitter viewer guide being a great leveler. Because usually when we have these arguments and it's what Deich is talking about is you are putting pressure on media organizations to say, hey, devote resources to this. You'll always devote resources to this. Why don't you also devote resources to this? Whereas Twitter then comes along and says, hey, you, hey everybody, let's just just watch this game right now.

Yeah. We do want resources devoted to this too, but in the meantime, everybody watched this game. And that helping level a little bit, maybe on the margins, I don't know, but it helps level that a little bit. Got one more note to you from the LA Times Sports page. So Gonzaga's Jalen Suggs races down the court at the end of the UCLA game, banks in a long three-pointer to beat the Bruins.

The next day, the Bruins hometown paper, the LA Times, which has a sports page known for clever headlines goes with banked robbery, banked robbery, which got a huge pop on Twitter. Now, my family actually subscribes to the LA Times rather than just using sports pages as fun Twitter content. And when I got the sports page down here in Orange County, the headline was a bank robbery. So not banked robbery, but a bank robbery. I assume a bank robbery was the first draft that went to the outlying areas like where I live,

and by the time they perfected it, it was the other headline. What do we feel the subtle differences between banked robbery and a bank robbery? Banked robbery is better. The problem with a bank robbery is that the pun is not evident, right? Like you wouldn't see that headline. I mean, the picture, obviously juxtaposing with a picture of basketball does some of the work. But I think that the phrase bank robbery is too firmly instituted in your head. I mean,

unless you're, it needs a lot more than a photo to take you to the pun. By shuffling it up a little bit with banked, it just, it makes you, you know, do the double take and that's what's really important for a, for a good pun.

I'm being too serious, too earnest about this, but I, yeah. Bank's robbery felt to me like a great New York tabloid headline. A bank robbery felt like a breezy 1980s Sports Illustrated headline.

It's a subtle thing, as you say, but they do feel different. And something with maybe a big picture and a big story around, I don't know. Speaking of which, it's time for David Chewmaker, guess is the strained pun.

Yeah. Last Monday's headline about monks with excess cheese supplies was, Blessed are the cheese makers. We got lots of votes for friar sale too, which is way better.

I will take friar sale over Blessed are the cheesemakers. Also, a couple of people pointed out that we're idiots and that that phrase actually goes back to the Monty Python the life of Brian, which I felt like a real dodo for not remembering that in real

time. That should be in our cultural wheelhouse. It really should. Give credit, I mean, they can't deny the great ones that came before us. So we're all walking in the footsteps of the Monty Python crew. Today's headline comes from Phil R. It's from Art News.

I believe that publication's first appearance here. It's a story about George W. Bush's new book of paintings he made of immigrants. Made paintings of immigrants now. He has a book collection of them coming out. Author Zoe Samudzi, I hope of I'm saying the name right, writes, quote, it's as sinister a revision of his legacy as you'd imagine. right now i'm going to spot you a word here ice ice as in immigration and immigration and customs enforcement what was art news's strained pun headline like cold as ice uh ice tea ice uh ice uh ice um

oh vanilla ice uh no uh uh i was thinking you know white washing uh uh revision revision revision of a legacy ice Ice man. What about Ice Man? The Ice Man cometh. The ice, is that the ice? Getting close. The Ice Man painteth? The Ice Man Painth.

Was that really it? That's it. The Ice Man Painter. Oh, that is, that is, that is intense. I think that's a compliment. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Isaiah Blakely.

We are back Thursday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.