The Press Box - NFL Media Overreactions? Plus, Listener Mail on Newscaster Pronunciations and Overused Headlines.

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

Bryan and David recap Week 1 NFL media reactions and address the self-aware overreactions (5:23). Then they answer more Listener Mail and discuss newscaster pronunciations (22:10), overused headlines (25:06), and the transition to digital edition covers in journalism (33:21). 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

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, I've got some breaking news for you as we start the podcast today. Oh, no, what is it? I want you to sit down for this one. Here it is. People are writing. books about Donald Trump. Is it about his adventures in Trillerland or are we going, is this

more of a retro White House take? You have a retro White House take. All right. It comes from an interesting person, Stephanie Grisham. Oh, right. Yeah, you remember the former Trump White House Press Secretary. Now, the title of Stephanie Grisham's new book

is, I'll take your questions now. which is something the briefer says after making an opening statement at the press briefing. Right. But as you know, Stephanie Grisham never gave a press briefing during her time as White House press secretary. Right. That was what she was known for. Yes. So where should we put the English on that? I'm ready to take your questions now? Not when you needed the answers, but now I am ready.

to take your question. This is one of those books. But like Stephanie Grisham had a number of roles in the White House. She worked for the First Lady. Obviously, it was the press secretary. I think there were a couple of job titles in between. But I feel like at this point, she's just best known as the person who is who will be telling all in the indeterminate future. Right?

She spent more time in the public eye since she left the White House, but in this very vague, like planted story sort of way. Like, just wait, when Stephanie Grisham finally writes her book, it's going to have a lot of details about the Melania Donald relationship. But that was like a year ago, you know, and then at this point, it's, I guess, is the book finally written and coming out? I guess this is, it shouldn't be, I'll take your questions now. It's like, I'm finally going to write this book now.

Absolutely. And in fact, that has come to refruition in Politico's playbook. Oh, my God. on a couple of levels. One is this is how Politico introduces it. Now Grisham is breaking her silence. Not only a favorite press box phrase breaking her silence, but in this case, yes, she did not speak to the press when it was her job to speak to the press.

Now she is breaking her silence. A couple of scoops from the book ladled out in this preview. But I want to call your attention to an anonymous source, David. Listen to this part of the Politico playbook here. a publishing source said that quote Stephanie knows she stirred up a hornet's nest with this book continuing quote Stephanie has secrets about Trump that even the first lady doesn't know the source said

secrets that he doesn't want her to know they will be in this book a publishing source that sounds an awful lot like somebody who works at the publishing house that's coming out with the book and presumably someone in the public relations department of the publishing house, right? Because if it's not them or the publisher, no one is being, no one is being greenlit to pass this information along. And certainly not in such

a manufactured quote sort of way. Yeah. You didn't think this is a kindhearted soul over at Knaff, who just really believes in what Stephanie Grisham is doing for literature here, passing this quote along to Politico. I tweeted about this and Sopon Deb over at the New York Times said, it could also be an agent publishing source may cover the person who is actually representing Stephanie Grisham. That's definitely plausible. The lines between publisher and agent are very fuzzy. But yeah, I mean, this is not.

I mean, I'm sure there's, it's a matter of perception more than, more than ethics, but certainly to serve it up as if this is like, you know, an associate editor. who's gunness who's like with an ax to grind who's like it was leaking stuff out without their employer's consent for the better you know we like this this is like a like a like a like a Trump White House post facto whistleblower or something that's not what this is at all I don't want to speak out of turn here but this book is really really explosive let me tell you something coming up on today's show we react to the way the media reacted to week one of the NFL Plus, do broadcasters say the words million and billion in a really weird way? And David, another very special headline format inside the secret world of.

We'll explain. All that more on the press box. Part of the ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker here, along with producer Erica Servantes. David, we just enjoyed week one of NFL action. Lots of great games. should we share our reactions or and tell me if I'm doing this right,

our overreactions to what just happened. Did you notice this? I guess it wasn't just me. I think it seemed to me when digesting the games this morning and some last night

that every single outlet present company included Bill and Sal did this on the guest of lines pot I'm sure the NFL show has done it to some degree. Every single outlet at this point is doing ironic overreactions, right? Now, let me couch this a little bit. Week one of the NFL season is the time for overreactions, right?

I mean, I think if you went back the past decade, you would see that the top topics on first take were completely baseless by the time the season ended. right they like the the the the the the the the the the the the the the hopelessness of certain franchises week one means nothing nothing to you know but by the time the season is is born out so there's a lot of overreactions or at least uninformed reactions deliberately so at week one but now everybody is overreacting stevenate smith style, the difference being that they're doing it with self-awareness, or at least a stated self-awareness, it's not the Stephen A. Smithification of all of the sports world,

because they're addressing it from this remove, right? This is an ironic overreaction. Ha, ha, ha. But it's, so, I don't know. What do you call it? It's like, it's like the hipster Stephen A. Smithification of sports or something. It's like, and, and the thing is in, in an effort to be, it's like Stephen A. Smith, and he's not the only one. This is sports talk. This is obviously, there's a lot of TV shows on Fox and ESPN that are deliberately over the top with their, with their statements on a daily basis. But it's like everybody else in an effort to be different from that perceived monolith. Now, everybody else is doing it exactly the same way. Yes. We're all doing the exact same takes as Stephen A. Smith. We're just saying they're overreactions instead of reactions. and we're aware that they're overreactions.

And I'm not exactly sure, except for the framing, I'm not exactly sure what the difference is between a week one overreaction and like a week three regular take. Right? I mean, like, are you, like, do you, because clearly you believe what you're saying to some degree. Well, I guess some people don't. But, but it's just, it's just allowing,

one allowing oneself to be ridiculous when, in the absence of, well, when they will probably be ridiculous, with or ridiculous, had the same similar takes with or without the framing. We know they're going to be ridiculous. We know it is ridiculous to say after one week of football, are the Eagles for real? Right. Could the Texans be on to something here?

Right. So as you say, we do that take, but we put air quotes around it. And that gives us the distance. It allows us to do what Steve. and A and the ESPN opinionators do, but it gives us just enough distance from what they do. Yes. So that we feel comfortable with what we're doing. And I think, by the way, we could add the audience feels comfortable with what we're doing.

Because I think there's a big, again, and some of our best friends are probably involved in this take economy, but there's a big audience out there on Twitter that says, like, I want you to have instant opinions about everything. But I want you to do it with a little wit, a little more comedy, a little more self-awareness, perhaps some more hard-headed X's and O's in it than, you know, your normal ESP and Fox Opinion show would have. So just do that exact same thing, but just again, put air quotes around. Here's my week one over reactions.

It's kind of fascinating that that just became the lingua franca of sports takery. in the last couple years. Well, I mean, to some extent, it's got to be the realization that, you know, Stephen A. Smith and all of his ilk, and again, broadly, broadly, broadly defined, the people who are making, you know, loud, semi-serious pronouncements on a regular basis.

I mean, obviously that works. I mean, there's a, there's a whooping crowd. Everywhere Stephen A. Smith decides to sit down and broadcast, right? I mean, it's, this is, this is, numbers are incredible. And that's also, I mean, again, that's sports radio too.

I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, you're always way up when you're up and way down when you're down and it's very personal. I mean, that's maybe the biggest difference in sports radio, although I was watching TV today and you kept saying the, I mean, Stephen A. Smith went on Aaron Rogers as if they like had just gone through a breakup or something, you know, I mean, there's always, there's a very personal aspect of that as well. Yes.

But yeah, I mean. Reaction Canada, by the way, Aaron Rogers. That's it. That's where we were, we spent, everybody spent a lot of time on Aaron Rogers today. It works. And like you said, people want to hear it. You know, I mean, people don't turn on podcasts. They don't turn on anything for well-considered, lengthy, you know, thoughts on a subject.

Well, I think they'll take lengthy, well-considered thoughts on a subject. But the first thing they have to have is that is the frequency of the thoughts. Yeah. And that it feels like the thoughts are responding to what they just watched and what they just enjoyed on television or on Twitter. I mean, what I think is what's happened over the last 20 years and especially since social media really ramped up is it became necessary. If you're really going to make it as an NFL pundit or NBA pundit, person,

right, or whatever it is, I say, pundit sounds like a kind of a bat like I'm, I'm putting a bad label on, just as like NBA writer person podcast or whatever it is. It became incumbent upon you to take every morsel of information as it was dished out and to be right on top of it. Like that was how you were going to really win on this. So like Gardner Minshew, the former quarterback with the Jaguar signing with the Eagles, you had to have something on that, even just on Twitter, maybe on your podcast. whatever it was. You have to be on that. The only way you lose at the game is if you say, you know, Gardner-Menshew signing with the Eagles, I just don't, I don't think that's that

important. I don't know. I don't see the Eagles as being like a huge playoff team this year. I don't see him changing their fortunes. I just, I don't really don't have anything on that because I just don't think it's a big deal. Oh, you lose. You lose if you have that take. But if you have a big joke, a funny kind of, again, air quotes over reaction, then you win on that take because you are there for the news. and you were there for that moment when it happens. And I think that's what that is kind of, it's like it's the transaction economy that we've talked about many times in the show. It's like, I'm going to dive on every single transaction and pretend that's the biggest story in the world.

Well, of course I'm going to also dive on week one of the NFL and pretend that this is the biggest again. Even if I'm kind of winking doing it, even I'm doing it, that's the way to win in the business right now. Mm-hmm. Is to be that way. And I think if you don't do that, you lose in the business or your competitors are going to do it. They're going to record a podcast that day. They're going to tweet 20 times about that. And you're going to be left behind.

Yes. Don't you also think people just love doing it, though? Sure. Everyone's just been freed by Stephen A. Smith to be the hot take artist that they've always wanted to be. Yeah. Sure. I mean, also we're like so, you know, we're trained by. Twitter now. You mentioned social media where we

this is how we interact. This is how we think. This is how we slack with their co-workers. You know, it's a, it's a, it's a fun way to communicate. It's just weird that. It's fun. I does feel like a bit to me a lot of the time. Well, it is. It's a bit. That's the point. Is it like we need to figure out, can we get to a point where if everybody is doing it ironically, it ceases to really be functionally ironic, right? It's like we just need a new name for it. You know, we're let, we're just going to, we're just doing, we're just doing

hot takes here. Well, no, we're doing overreaction. We're doing overreactions here. We're doing overreaction Monday. Yeah. No, but wasn't our, our sort of group critique of ESPN television opinion people, see, they're just doing a bit. That's not what they really think about. You're right. They're doing a bit. Now, if we're all doing bits, uh-oh, wait a second. Our, our, our take was that they were doing bits, but now we're doing bits too. It's just a different bit. Well, ESPN, I mean, I was watching first take this morning, and it was just nonstop, like overreactions, self-aware overreactions, and just a level of laughter that put the Fox

halftime show to shame. Like, it was, they were just having a, sounded like they were having a rip-roaring time over there. But yeah. This is Stephen A and Michael Irvin on Monday morning. No, no, no. I'm sorry. Get up.

I was talking about get up. Oh, get up, sorry. First take. That was first take. I mean, that was get up. First take had Michael Irvin and Stephen A who were, well, they seemed much more earnest in their overreactions. That's for sure. And I have to admit, by the way, as a consumer, it is what I want. If I turned on a show or a podcast and somebody was saying, you know, there was some interesting games in week one, but I'm not going to get very excited about anything that happened today. I think we should all just calm down and wait six weeks to really learn anything about this NFL. I'd be like, the hell. with you. That's no fun. Yeah, of course. But on somebody else. No, and this is when you want it the most.

I mean, listen, that's just the way that this sort of stuff works. Like, your hunger is that it's great, at its greatest right now, right? You just want to know everything about your football team, every little minuscule detail. You also want to know, takes about the entire league. You want to know about the sport. So, yeah, you're willing to, you need reactions. over the top reactions are part of that. And like we said, there's like the least information,

the least like interesting information available. It's always, it always fascinates me when the question that everyone most wants to know is the question that nobody has the answer to. Like as a fan of the Dallas Cowboys, you a nominal fan of the Dallas Cowboys, the question we want to know is,

are the Dallas Cowboys going to be good this year? How good are they going to be if they lost a tampon Thursday night? Nobody knows the answer to that question. Right. but everybody has to take a stab at answering that question because that is that is the question that's the single biggest queen again you can analyze it and say well you know I'm worried about their offensive line with Lyle Collins getting suspended I'm worried about their their defense and they're not going to be able to cover anybody in when they play the chargers next week okay

but the big question is what we really want and again that's the thing that the ESPN host would take on right you know that would be the lead the A block right are the Dallas Cowboys done or the Dallas Cowboys secretly good, whatever it is. But then for everyone else, that would be the kind of, let's overreact. Let's take a shot at that. But with just enough distance that we're not really taking a shot at. Mm-hmm. That's that's my niche.

Do you think every NFL announcer signed a contract before Sunday's games that stated they had to say, isn't it great to have all the fans back? Didn't you miss this? How many versions of that did you hear Saturday and Sunday while watching football? Yeah, I mean, it was every single person that said, I mean, every single broadcast, it was great to have fans back. And it was, although they did a pretty good job of, you know, as we discussed, sort of obscuring that last season.

Yes, they did a good job technically with it, where it didn't bother me all that much when watching a game. It just bothered me as much as I probably thought it would. But it's just so funny because we are still in whatever you want to say about transmission at outdoor events and stadiums, it is still a little while to turn on the television and see 85,000 people sitting together. And my first thought is not, isn't it great to have fans back? It's like, are we sure this is okay?

Maybe the answer is it is okay or it's okay enough to do it outside that, you know, we should, we should go ahead and do it. I'm if that's the answer that's the answer. I know Anthony Fauci was like talking about this this last week, but isn't isn't this great is not my first reaction. It's yeah, sure this is great. Isn't this great?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Am I, am I feeling great enough about this that I'm not going to go to a press box where all the sports writers are like super masked up and staying away, but I'm just going to be out there in the stands with everybody, varying levels of mask wearing and stuff? I don't know.

I don't know. I don't. I'm a little, I'm not quite there yet. That's fair enough. It's just funny. I want to talk to you, David, about newscaster pronunciations.

Also overused headline templates, but first let us do a football-themed version of 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, always gratefully received. Buffalo Bill's wide receiver,

Cole Beasley, David, has been a noted skeptic about the coronavirus vaccine. Oh, no. Do you think any of Beasley's plays against the Steelers on Sunday got extra scrutiny from Twitter for that reason? I would assume so, yes. It was an upward Twitter joke to write.

I guess Cole Beasley was right. He won't catch anything. after a drop. Thanks to Mike Rusak and Paul Middilkoff for that one. Another week one NFL news, David, quarterback Aaron Rogers and the Green Bay Packers, as mentioned, were absolutely terrible. They lost by 35 points to New Orleans.

It was an upward Twitter joked right. I can't believe I drafted a Jeopardy host for my fantasy team. Thanks to David Carpenter. Also a lot of, you know, I'll take I'll take washed up for a thousand Alex something you don't see every day via the Twitter account for the comeback quoting here David USC kicker Parker Lewis was ejected for targeting on the opening kickoff

of their game against Stanford it was an upward Twitter joke to write Parker Lewis can lose if you remember that early Fox I do and as you were reading it I was I was wondering if it was if that even had enough culture relevance for that to be the overworked Twitter joke. So I'm glad that, man, I'm glad that that Ferris Bueller ripoff is still on the top of everybody's mind. We have a question about the shelf life of cultural references coming up, which I will get to in just a second. Thanks to Tom Valentino and Matt Cox for that.

And finally, some Hollywood news, David, from the Twitter account discussing film. Quote, the runtime for the upcoming film, No Time to Die, is two hours and 43 minutes. the longest runtime for any James Bond movie. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write, that's so much time to die. We would have also accepted no time to pee. Thanks to Nick Sandberg, if you like James Bond,

but three hours sounds like absolute hell, congrats, you made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. This is where we always reference our friend Josh from high school, whose only critique of movies was that was too long. Back in high school, remember you and I were like, ah, we are budding film snobs.

We liked this three and a half hour movie. Josh was absolutely right. All movies should be an hour and a half. In the notebooked up, David, we had some leftover listener mail from Friday. I wanted to get to. First on the topic of newscaster pronunciations,

this is from Pieces of Rick Flair, good handle. What does it take for a foreign capital to have its pronunciation changed in the Western media? Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, went from Kabul to Kabul, and Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, went from Kiev to Kiev. Wait, I thought that Kabul started, I thought it started as Kabul and went to Kabul.

Okay, he has it backwards, maybe. Kabul. No, I could be wrong. Maybe it came full circle. I think what he is, what pieces of Rick Flair is getting at is this thing where everybody learns to pronounce a word at the same time, but it's not the first. first time the name appears on television. It's kind of like after a couple of weeks and everybody, let's get on the same page here.

And you're like learning how to speak from watching the other broadcasts, right? So there's all this. I mean, each newscaster is watching other newscasters to learn. So all you have to do is just like, you know, decide you're saying harassment instead of harassment one day. Remember that one in the 90s? The harassment harassment thing? Like everybody changed a harassment?

Yeah. It's at once. That was so weird. If you need any better proof for like, you know, the grand dark conspiracy theories, that's got to be the time. It's got to be some good evidence there. Daniel O had a related question. Why can't broadcast folks say million and billion like normal people? Is this the work of Dr. Evil?

Wait, what do they say? Oh, like, do they do the Dr. Evil style? Well, I think especially in sports, when somebody signs a contract, it's like signed a $130 million contract. even though all contracts are now kind of that big. Oh, yeah. It's like this. It's the fake shock, right? And coming out of the mouth is someone who's probably making in the millions to say it.

So, you know, I guess it's, you know, gets you get your blue collar cred back or something. Yeah. It feels like you're still doing the 80s, 90s bit about how the ballplayers are all overpaid. Yeah. I feel, look how he's playing. He signed a $56 million. contract. If somebody signed like a $56,000 contract given that that would probably violate most of the collective bargaining agreements and professional sports, do you think that they would use that they would

also be shocked, right? They would also feign shock or maybe be really, really, I mean, they wouldn't be learning about it at the time. How would you pronounce it? But that would be more shocking. Yeah. How would you pronounce it on sports radio of 56,000 dollars? Just like a just, just an amount of money that people. people could at least have a chance of wrapping their heads around. Yeah, I like that. This one comes from our friend Simon Pollack. I know you've got only in journalism words going strong.

Is there a segment out there for overused headlines? I submit inside the secret world of. Oh, man. And I want you to note the example here because it really does work. It's from the Seattle Times morning briefing. $18,888 for a plant. inside the secret world of Seattle's plant hunters. So it's not like the secret world of the Taliban,

which is a secret world. Where a reporter has had to, you know, you understand like, wow, I don't know as much about this as I would like to. And a reporter has done some incredible reporting here. It's like I didn't know the plant hunting world was a secret. Right. It seems like all you really have to do is like show up for a meeting. Right.

It's not exactly. It's not like the. secret world of like the, you know, Huntington Beach PTA or something. It's like you're just, if you have a kid, you're allowed to go. But most people, most people don't. And so I guess it is a secret to them. It's also the secret history, right?

The secret history of something. That's a good one. It's just like every, any, anything that's like a non-Alist subject, name or a subject, you get the secret history of the Huntington Beach PTA. Or the secret history of, yeah, it's not like you're like, you know, you've uncovered a tree. of information that no one knew about. It's just, you know, Wikipedia page

that most people haven't stumbled upon. It just gives it an air of mystery. Yeah, that's good, though. It gets you reading, I guess. I said, if every piece you wrote was inside the secret world of professional wrestling, which has been in the past a kind of secret. Well, and it's a world that's built on secrecy.

Yeah, I mean, in some ways, that would make more sense. Although I think people would assume that they knew enough that it would, that even that wouldn't be a secret history. And again, you're not like, you're not like, you don't have to embed yourself with like, you know, an isolated tribe somewhere or something to find out the secret history. You just got to Google stuff. Yeah, all, I mean, all sort of high level reporting is the secret world of. Yeah. Otherwise, you wouldn't be writing it. Right? That's why, that's why reporters get mad when they get scooped, because it's not a secret anymore, you know? The secret, the, the curtain has been

pulled back into the secret world that I've been reporting on. Mention this one a second ago from listener Jack Drees. What should slash should there be a cutoff date for pop culture references in journalism? Oh. Here's what I would propose because I remember when I was starting in this business and you were starting in this business, one of those long in the two sports columnists would make a reference to Animal House or anything from an early Bruce Springsteen album or any Bruce Springsteen album. and I'd be like, oh man, just please, please, please stop. Don't ever do that again.

Now I feel like I'm constantly in danger of being that person. I'm like, wait, what? That's out of date. What? You know, just completely unaware that what I, that I am just committing a problem here. I would propose that there's like a kind of blackout period of history that you can't reference. So let's say like 1980 to 2017. Okay.

Yeah. So I can't call someone like the Simon Cowell of broadcasting, right? Because you'd be like, oh, God, that's really bad. Or, you know, the Han Solo of something, right? That's just that sort of off limits. But if I went before that, it would make, it might seem kind of cool or certainly the last couple of years would absolutely be fair game. So what if we just have a sort of a sliding scale that kind of slides forward every year as we go into the future?

I think that makes sense. Although it's tough because like, you know, when you say Simon Cowell, like, okay, he was a major, major figure that I would hope so has some relevance now. But that's fine. But a Han Solo, it's like there's no movies coming out. There's the shows are, the movies are constantly rerun. Okay. Han Solo is back as a reference. I guess. Yeah.

You wouldn't call someone to Hans Solo. I don't know what the, I would be very interested to re-en-old. article on like the Han Solo of the NBA. I have no idea what that would mean, but I'm down to read that article. Yeah. I like that. I mean, it's also, I remember the Animal House. I didn't see Animal House until I was, you know, I think out of college.

I mean, not in full, at least. And I didn't have any interest in seeing it. And I think partly I was just turned off by the constant references to it. Yes. It was oppressive. And I, well, but maybe, maybe if we had just, if it had been more of a curriculum thing, Maybe you don't like how some cities have like the book program or like everybody decides to read the same book at the same time. Maybe we should just get together and vote on like 10 movies.

And those are the movies that we're going to reference this year. Right. So like it's like we're all going to stop talking about, you know, no more animal house. But we are going to talk about the secret of my success. Like all of the or like whatever it is. Nashville. See no evil, hear no evil. That is your point of reference for everything.

So there's just like there's a limited sort of sort of pallet you can play with there. We are designing the cultural lexicon anew every January 1st. Yeah. There should be, you know, we talk about sometimes how you hear a television show recommended so many times that you don't want to watch it. You just get mad. Oh, yeah. There should be a related one for a movie or TV show that is referenced in so many sports columns that you didn't want to watch it. like Animal House with you.

Yeah. Like my sports writer, we're just constantly comparing people to this guy. And I just didn't want to do it. By the way, better than Hanselo, Darth Vader. He is the Darth Vader of finance,

the Darth Vader of this. That, that, that, that feels like the, the 80s, 70s, 80s reference that,

uh, is completely out of gas. This one's from Brian Monson, David. Love this question. The, uh, bona fide bonafide discussion got me thinking

about the only in the printed word phenomenon of writing Latin phrases that are generally not spoken, i.e. a priori, ergo, ad infinitum, ipso facto, et cetera. Remember when you thought it was really cool, and I say you, and by that, I mean, you and me, thought it was really cool to just plug in a little Latin phrase

for your copy? That was like the height of sophistication. Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. When that came up in the computer thesaurus, that you just like, you know, gave yourself a high five in your mind. No, no, it was right. It's, it's, it's, it's, and there's some, you know, for some of them,

it does feel like they occupy a sort of singular space, right? But it's only in the written word. So think about how you, you know, if you, if you think about how you say it, it's not as exclusive a territory as it might seem. Mm-hmm. You remember the first time you put vis-a-vis into a piece? Ooh. That was a huge day in your career, wasn't it?

Yeah. Wait, while we're on the subject, this is I guess only in journalism because of what I'm about to say. How do you pronounce, is it sui generis? That's what I've always gone with. Well, that's one for sure. That's one that it's like, I don't, like, I'm, what would you put, what would you put instead of sui generis? Oh, you're saying it's a defensible only in journalism. I think it's defensive.

I mean, it's only in journalism for sure. But I, but it does sort of mean a certain, it points at and identifies a certain thing that. Can't you just say unique? Yeah, but it's. more of like a, like unique doesn't have the extreme, like unique has been watered down. Right? It's like, that's why we have to say unicorn. We're talking about athletes.

Right. I don't know. That's a good one. Yeah. Like it's unique and it's like irrepressible sort of. You know, it's like it's a, it is a kind of an undeniable figure, you know? I don't know. We'll, I'm sure we'll get some suggestions on that too.

I like how we were treated to Suey Generous because unique was worn out. that makes me laugh. This is from our friend Andrew Joe Potter who talks about the phenomenon of digital magazine covers. Have you noticed this? Not sure when this started, Andrew writes,

but it looks like Rolling Stone is also going the route of the digital edition cover. Is this a refuge for one of the hallmarks of print journalism or something that only cheapens the notion of the quote cover story? He sent us the Rolling Stone

digital cover for Sopranos family secrets. There is something, and I would love to read a piece about this, but the whole idea of when magazines or what we used to know is magazines now, big digital publishing companies, go after stories about big television shows, big movies, big movie stars, and they promise them the cover. Oh, yeah. They don't have as many covers anymore.

Or they have a cover, but nobody's buying the print. magazine or reading the print magazine. Mm-hmm. And yet somehow the cover still has some currency in the kind of celebrity TV movie PR world. So you give them a digital cover? Wait, do you think it's still- Does that's what's happening here? I'm just asking. If you get somebody, if you produce a JPEG of a fake cover, do you think that there's a publicist who's like, that's exactly what I was promised?

that's like you agreed to make that's like it's it's an interesting social execution or something yeah but but it's it's still cool i mean you know it'd be fun to have cover you know a cover for your wall or whatever that you can print out i would say it's kind of cool it's it's not novel of course and we've seen it so much but it's still a cool way to promote a story yeah but the whole thing of the cover was its frequency sure we're a monthly we've got 12 covers a year or a weekly we've got 12 covers a year or a weekly We've got, you know, 50 or whatever, how many you actually do 48 covers a year. So if you are on the cover of Time Magazine, that's a big deal.

Now it feels a little bit like that Trump cover of Time Magazine that they discovered. Oh, yeah. Which you and I used to get when we went to Six Flags in Arlington, you know, where they'd say, like, put your face on the cover of Newsweek. They would have like a couple of magazines where you get that really bad, early Photoshop effort. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Admirable. Admirable.

You know, as a headline. Yeah. It kid goes to an amusement park. Yeah, no, no. I mean, yes. Yeah. I mean, it's not that. It's not an exclusive club anymore. That's definitely true.

It's not exclusive. And I just can't, I cannot help but think it is part, and I'm not saying anything. I don't know about this Rolling Stone thing. But the digital cover is, one, it gets attention, right? You can put it out on Twitter. People share it. It does, as you say, sometimes it looks cool. But I have to think when it's about celebrities that it is part of a good or service that is part of the transaction of the celebrity interview.

We are going to give you a cover. It's not the cover you would have gotten from us two years ago or even five years ago, whatever it is. But it's a cover. Yes. It will be a cover story in our former paper magazine that's now a digital magazine, mostly. Yeah. It's interesting. Our only in journalism word of the day, David comes from Jack McCullough.

I enjoyed this one, eatery, eatery. Oh, yeah. Have we had eatery yet? No, I don't think so. That's really good. Yeah, I'm thinking you and your wife, you know, don't say, hey, do you want to go down that eatery down the street that we all enjoy? Yeah, there are any new eateries we haven't tried out?

Yeah. Feels like one of those words where, and I see this, you know, I read the LA Times here. And sometimes in the baseball stories we get to, you know, the pitcher had a great first ending, but he wasn't so great in the second frame. Oh, yeah. And I just want to be like, it's just okay to keep writing inning. Yeah. It's just inning is a good word.

Restaurant is a good word. We know exactly what you're talking about. Okay, you don't have to change it up midstream. It's time for David Shoemaker guesses the strained pun headline. Yeah. Friday's headline about basketball player Anthony Edwards seeming to grow since he's been in the NBA was tall, don't lie. Today's headline is also basketball.

related, David. It comes from Nora, who spotted it in the Arizona Republic. Give you the story here with the Atlanta Dream up two points. Phoenix Mercury Guard, Shea Petty, Shea Petty made three free throws with 3.8 seconds left to give her team the win. I want you to focus on Shea Petty leading her team to a win in the closing seconds. What was the Arizona Republic's strained pun headline? Shea Petty. what did she do she her team's down

she makes three free throws her team wins the game a game that her opponents the Atlanta dream thought they were going to win stealing petty stealing nodding oh petty theft petty another word for theft would be we call it petty

robbery well Lla, Lar. Petty larceny. Petty larceny. That's good. Solid work by the Arizona Republic. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis.

Production Magic by Erica Servantes. We are back Friday with more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.