The Press Box - Night of the L.A. Fires, The Washington Post Vs. The Atlantic, and How to Cover Trump: Part 2

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel kick off the show with this week’s class in J-School. Joel discusses a few topics from this week, including Bryan’s impression of the Intuit Dome (2:02), why Hulk Hogan was booed during the WWE 'Monday Night Raw' Netflix debut (7:44), and the Fox Sports lawsuit (12:12). Then, Bryan discusses the fires in Los Angeles and a new app that helped him get through the night (16:11). Also in the headlines, they discuss The Washington Post and The Atlantic (33:49) and how to cover Donald Trump (48:02). Before they go, they talk about Jason Kelce’s new late-night show that featured Charles Barkley (56:05). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, humanoids. It's the Maskman David Shoemaker. It's a new era in professional wrestling, and that means a new era here at the Ringer Wrestling show. Kaz here, every Monday and Thursday hang out with me and my guys' shoes on the Masked Show. And Ben Cruz here. Come kick it with me, Cal and Brian on Tuesdays for Ringer Wrestling worldwide, where we hit on the most interesting headlines and even react to some of Maskedmans and even your hottest takes. Don't tap out. Tap in to the Ringer Wrestling show feed now on Spotify. or wherever you get your podcasts. Worldwide. Consumers, welcome to Pressbox. You got Brian Curtis.

You've got Joel Anderson. You got producer Brian Waters. We start the Thursday pod with Joel's take on the week that was. Take an empty seat in the back and get ready for J-school. Thanks as always for the warm welcome. I'll have your papers back to you in a couple of weeks because I'm as good with deadlines. is your average journalist. I don't totally know how to read that, but...

Yeah, well, I mean, I think we're all pretty... You know, we're all sort of, you know, we need an extension from time to time, don't we? Yeah, we come through when it counts. Yeah, that's right. That's what I'd like to think that. Brian, I listen with great curiosity to the last episode when you mentioned that you made your first trip to the Inuit Dome?

The Intuit Dome. For WWRWA. And I, too, have heard so much about what makes it a top flight destination for sports viewing. It seems like it's, you know, pretty cutting edge, gorgeous, that sort of thing, right? It's got all the bells and whistles and then some. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So you also said something about not being a romantic about stadiums.

And that's going to be one of our first real schisms here on the press box. I'm really surprised. What's going on there? Well, I think like every kid who grew up a sports fanatic, I was like, I can't wait to go to every stadium in Major League Baseball and the NFL and visit them all. And then when I became a hardened and jaded sports writer, I pretty quickly realized that there was a tiny group of stadiums that are actually cool and unique and different. and the other 90% are stadiums. Wow. Okay. Wow.

Really? What's your NFL bucket list stadium that you haven't been to? Well, see, this is the, that might be where we have a departure. Probably all of them. I've never been to Lambo. I've never been to Lambo. Lambo is legitimately cool. Yeah.

I've never been to Lambo. You know what? Actually, I wish I could have gone to was Candlestick Park sometimes. Like when, you know, if it still was around. And I drove around that area. when I first moved out here just to kind of get the feel of it. I was hoping George Tomo was out there working on some turf. Yeah, right.

So definitely that one. And maybe, you know, the Bill's Stadium, do they call it still Ralph Wilson? They don't call it Ralph Wilson Stadium anymore, do they? The Bill's game would be a fun one to go to. Wouldn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Now, although it is the site of, you know, probably one of my most horrific fan viewing experiences of all time.

Oilers, Bill's, Frank Reich. Yeah, man, yeah. That last time I cried about a sporting event that I wasn't involved in. But look, and I'll give you the basics here for me. When I drove across the country to move from D.C. to the Bay, and we took two weeks to drive across the country, kind of went up, went down, and went up. So we went to like all the way up to Buffalo and then went down to Houston and then went back up to the Bay. So we did it all. I stopped it pretty much every stadium that I could along the way. I went to Notre Dame. I went to Northwestern. I saw Buffalo Stadium, like University of Buffalo, not the Bill Stadium. And I even got onto the University of Wyoming field and ran a little bit because that's my thing.

If I can get onto your field, I'm going to run on it. And then I took a picture with the cheerleaders out there too. They just happened to be out there and they was wondering what this weird guy is doing on the field. And so I took a picture with them. So anyway, but right here right now, I want you to do something for me because J-School is as much about me learning about you as it is our listeners learning about what's on my mind. I demand you tell me your favorite stadium you've ever been to or maybe your favorite place to watch a game.

And then I want you to tell me the stadium that's still on your bucket list. Okay. Favorite place to ever watch a game. It's an easy one, 2006, Rose Bull, Vince Young versus USC. Vince Young doesn't run in the end zone on fourth down. Maybe that's a different answer, but that's a beautiful stadium, beautiful place.

And also just felt like a cool moment at night and everything else. That's number one on my list. Where would I still like to go? So I think there's a bunch of college stadiums that are on the list. Notre Dame and touchdown Jesus would be up there. Yeah, okay, okay. Especially for a night game. I mean, look,

there's still, I don't want to be too jaded because there's still a lot of places, especially in college that I think would be really fun to go to. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, I'm even like a big fan of the high school stadiums. You know, like, this is going to be the second episode in a row that I bring up Max Preps. But Max Preps did a thing of, like, the top 10 high school stadiums. And so there's one in, and people will remind me of it, Tacoma, Washington.

And it was featured in the movie, I think, 10 things I hate about you or something like that. And it's like right on the water. Like it like butts right up against the water. And it's like kind of like an old amphitheater sort of looking. stadiums. So do we need like a college in high school carve out for this? Yeah, because, okay, so I think we're kind of, maybe we're on the same page.

Like the NFL stadiums are not that interesting, right? It's more the college and the high school stuff. And frankly, the NBA stadiums are not that interesting. The arena's like, you know, like, you can, the Warriors, I've been a game there, that was pretty cool, into it's pretty cool. The Staples slash crypto, that is

a stadium. That is a thing that has a McDonald's in it. Like, there's nothing romantic about that other than the Lakers play in that, and I guess that's kind of cool or used to be kind of cool. Yeah. Well, what do you think? I mean, I'll tell you this. One stadium, basketball stadium, that lived up to its hype, Madison Square Garden.

Oh. I went and saw the Knicks play The Wizards in like 2014 for no reason. I was just at BuzzFeed, and, you know, at the time, publicist would reach out to you and say, hey, come check this thing out. And I was like, well, I don't I go do that. I don't remember anything about the game, but the atmosphere was amazing. It lived up to the hype. So I give New Yorkers that.

I've seen hockey there too, by the way. Also cool in MSG, and I don't even care about hockey. Really? Okay. We were on the same page. I will say, though, too, I've never been to AT&T Stadium, believe it or not. And that stadium is 16 years old. Did you know that?

It'll be 16 years old this year. It's amazing. I remember that first game there because George W. Bush and John Madden were sitting in the booth together. And that was something. And also the Giants beat the Cowboys. It wasn't a great day. Yeah.

I mean, that was a long time. Although, I guess the Giants and the Cowboys are still bad. You know, it was a long time ago, but it's still... Something's never changed. Something's ever changed. Right, right, right, right. Well, I'll move on. So I actually heard our other Brian say on the Ring of Wrestling show

that this WWE Raw Netflix event was so great, such a draw that he heard from folks who hadn't watched since the attitude era, okay? I don't know what the attitude era is. And I'm sure our wrestling fans will tell me now. So, fine. I'll catch me up. But as I mentioned to you the other day, Brian, I haven't watched WrestleMania since WrestleMania 4.

Like, actually, I haven't watched wrestling at all since WrestleMania 4, okay? And I'm going to give you a little background. So I had been mesmerized by WrestleMania 3, where the highlight was Hulk Hogan scoop slamming 500-plus pound Andre the Giant, right? He picks him up, drops him, and then he does his famous leg drop and won a championship. And I was so excited, you know, I'm like eight years old. is the, you know, Hulk Hogan is as big as Michael Jordan to me at this time.

Then my parents paid for WrestleMania 4, which I later learned was the first WrestleMania event to not feature Hulk Hogan. And he was just working Randy Macho Man Savage's Corner for his match against the million dollar man, Ted DiBiase. And I've got to admit, it didn't have the same juice. And I lost interest halfway through.

And as far as I can remember, I never watched wrestling again. And of course, I could not convince my parents to pay for that, Because it was on pay-per-view at the time. So they were like, if you're not even going to sit down and watch this, why will we ever pay for this again? So what did Joel, who had these wonderful memories of Hulk Hogan way back in the, you know, in the vestiges of his childhood, in the 80s,

think of Hulk Hogan getting booed out of an arena. So this is why I wanted to bring up, man, because, I mean, I thought Hulk Hogan was still your favorite wrestler's favorite wrestler. And you all had some interesting theories. And so, like, David hinted at this on my day and Brian said it more explicitly. So I just need a moment to, like, get some clarity on this. Wrestling fans don't like racism anymore?

What happened? What has happened in the last 30 years? What? So I, let me tell you. What? I was very surprised. And I think Brian and Dave and them could probably give us a whole hour on the complexities of the way wrestling fans feel about whole.

Kogan and the things you forgive and the things you don't forgive given the whole history of everybody who's ever been involved in that particular sport. Yeah. My takeaway from that was, you know, how we've had these conversation about like, oh, Donald Trump actually was very popular with young people. Actually, it was more popular than we thought with people of color. It was just that moment. I was sitting in that arena.

I'm going, you know what? People are complicated. Yeah. The world is more complicated than you. think. Here is this arena full of 17,000 plus wrestling fans. And they can't stand this guy. And yet everybody who's in the arena for the Republican National Convention is like, yes, this is our hero. We got you, Hulk Hogan. We got your back. Yeah. Yeah. And Brian actually did go, he said it was more complicated than that. There's also like him holding back other

wrestlers and other stuff like that. And I've heard Jesse Ventura say some things about how, you know, Hulk Hogan's kind of a rat and all this other stuff. So I get it. But I just, it never occurred to me that there might be some people in the audience that were like, you know, Hulk Hogan said the N-word. And by God, I don't like that because that just really surprised me. You've crossed the line, sir. You're never going to get back in my Graces again.

Maybe there's more hope for us than I thought. And I also want to say about that WrestleMania 4 thing, and it's buried in this Wikipedia entry. The event was held at the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casillas. you know, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Remember when Atlantic City, New Jersey was a thing? It was a real event place. And a Trump thing.

And a Trump thing. And apparently this was like one of the first real events where he used the event to promote his properties and sort of make himself into a cultural figure at the time. This is according to Wikipedia. So maybe I don't know who the editor was on that entry. But it makes sense in retrospect. Yeah, it was part of his entree into popular culture or further entree. You know, he was hosting title fights, and then he was hosting WrestleMania and the wrestling, which was so big at that period of time.

Well, I'm glad to say. I mean, no wonder I was out on wrestling at a very early age. Didn't even know why. Anyway. So you also mentioned in the previous episode that I might have some thoughts about that FS1 lawsuit. Yeah. Okay. I'm not going to dwell on this too much.

I don't have a lot to say because it's a lawsuit. as anybody knows, you can sue a ham sandwich. I understand that. But I just want to go back for a second and think about at least one of the people involved in this lawsuit. And for people that don't know the background here, a former Fox Sports hairstylist alleged a lawsuit that the network executive used his position to sexually harass women

and that Skip Bayliss, former host of the show Undisputed, touched her inappropriately and propositioned her for sex. I, Brian, was first aware of Skip Bayliss in the year 2000 when he came to the TCU press box to cover a game between TCU and Northwestern. It was a game won by TCU 4114, Ladanian Tomlinson, 248 yards and two touchdowns. So you can see how that might have turned out the way it did. I missed the time when Skip Baylis was a columnist in Dallas. Like I just missed him.

Was he a thing for you at the time growing up? He was a huge thing. Going up there, absolutely. Okay. Like, who was more popular at time? Him or Randy Galloway. Which one was it? They were different strokes for different folks.

They were definitely working different sides of the room. Randy was pull up a bar stool and Skip was, you know, the thinking man's sports guy. That's how we build himself. Okay. I can get down with that. I can get down that. So anyway, Skip Bayliss has sort of had this really interesting place. sports culture the last decade or so.

He's been a villain, right? Or, like, people, you know, he's taken, I mean, he was promoting Tim Tebow well after the, well after everyone realized that that dude could not be an NFL quarterback, playing it for maximum effect. He's been probably the most notable LeBron detractor, I would say. You know, they've been, he, you know, resuscitated his career in large part because of, you know, his sort of crazy, you know, resistance to the idea, even considering the idea, like, LeBron might be one of the greats.

So anyway, and I'm just sort of, when this lawsuit came out, and look, man, we all have our group text and people are laughing at a lot of sort of memes and everything. It just, how did it happen that Skip squirmed out of being the villain here and Joy Taylor became the viral punching bag, as best as I can tell? I don't understand that. And I just think, without being too much of a scold here, we don't really. have to follow the cues of some of the worst men in sports media. And I'm not even talking about Skip here. I'm talking about some of the other people that have been making hay out of this

the last few days. And we don't have, we don't have to do that, right? And I think we can do better than that. And even if we're to believe some of the accusations in the lawsuit, I'm just moved by the idea that it shows how little women are valued in this industry and how deeply entrenched this sort of harassment abuse is. And I'm sure there are a lot more women. that can say a lot more about this than I can because I don't have that experience. But I just, we can do better than this. I really think that. People can't see me, but I am nodding as vigorously as possible.

Yeah. Because we were saying on that show, you know, it's like, it's very hard to play the podcast game here where you see something like that. And you're like, oh, here's my take about this thing. Like, here's my conventional response that I would have to any other news story. Right. But, man, I'm happy to have a response to the response about this whole. lawsuit and everything I saw on Twitter and clips of other people's podcasts and stuff and I am

I'm with you we can do better as I mean you're looking at that and you're going for really this is really what we're making of this story yeah man it's just I'm I'm sure it's very discouraging and we will hear I'm sure we will hear from a lot of other women and female sports journalists in the days to come about what's going on behind the scenes and how they see this but I'm sure it's got to be very discouraging to see how a lot of their colleagues have kind of taken these allegations and run with them in a whole different direction. They zagged when they should have been zigging. Let's talk about a few headlines from this week, Joel.

And we got to start with the fires here in Los Angeles because, man, that has just been one of the, I mean, calling it a story does not really do it justice at all, just calling it something, just an absolute horror show to watch from both afar and from up close. I just want to give you a few impressions I've had being here. It's really started for me on Tuesday night about 5 o'clock. Our whole house here in South Pasadena

started to smell like being inside of a chimney. Oh, man. I'm talking about inside the house. Yeah. And you're sitting there going, wait, what in the world is going on? I walked out in the backyard. I was there for probably 10 seconds

and my eyes just start watering. immediately because of the amount of smoke in the air. The other thing that was so striking about those early moments is palm trees in Los Angeles. To me, palm trees at dusk where you see them outlined against the sky, it's like one of the most romantic. Just beautiful. Just detective novel images of L.A. you could possibly stand. Well, these palm trees, thanks to winds that were in the L.A. area, 70 miles per hour and above, had gone from 12 o'clock to 10.30 and 10 o'clock. I mean, we are talking about some serious,

serious wins. I barely knew that palm trees could move like that, actually. Yeah, me neither because you know, you know, they're strong, you know, they used to be near the water and they were so high, but just watching that image. And that was the first, a lot of people have brought out like biblical metaphors to describe what's happening. I don't sure I can improve on that because it just felt like already something very, very big and awful was about to happen. In fact, was already happening at that point to Los Angeles. So that's 5.30.

A couple hours go by. My wife and I are watching the news and talking, and you'll understand this, and perhaps we'll understand this even more in years to come because your kids are still small, but you start talking elliptically about what's happening so you can have a conversation without alarming the kids in front of you. Yeah.

In our case, we start putting batteries and flashlights, making those kind of preparations. Eventually about 930, my wife takes the kids and takes them to my mother-in-law's house down in Orange County just because the air is just so bad. Like I said, even inside the house at that point. So now I'm in our house by myself sitting there monitoring the situation. And that is the moment where I'm like, okay, now I need to be a certain kind of. media consumer. Like when I'm watching these stories from afar and you and I are talking about on the podcast, it's always like, okay, let's get some context.

I'm interested in context. I'm interested in this kind of big thing here. I'm interested in the person who's on television who's doing the standup in front of the raging inferno. At this moment, I'm like, the questions that I am just focused on as focuses I have ever been on anything are, how close are these fires to my house? and will I have to leave this house? Well, I need to pick up my stuff and go and get out of here

because that's what city people want me to do. City officials want me to do and that makes things easier for people fighting these fires. And at that point, I'm like, how do I find that kind of information? Wow. Right? Because it's like this is not like Pasadena people evacuate. That's not, that's actually, if you know,

if you look at all these maps, some of Pasadena's been evacuated and some of it's never been evacuated over the last 48 hours. So you need neighborhood by neighborhood very, very specific information all of a sudden. Like that's the place I found myself in. And again, I want to just foreground right now. We are okay. I'm a very, we are very, very fortunate. Do not want to equate my experience with anybody who's been been, been lost to home or been sort of affected very, very deeply by these fires in Los Angeles. But I'm sitting there and I want, looking at Twitter and somebody's Like you should download this app called Watch Duty. Mm-hmm.

I've seen that floating around a lot. I've seen a lot of people saying that and recommending it. Mm-hmm. Never heard of it. Turns out it's a nonprofit watch duty. Found it in 2021 by a guy named John Mills up in Sonoma, so up in Northern California. And it has information about wildfires and firefighting efforts when there are wildfires. And it's a combination of official information that's given out by government officials

and also people that are listening to firefighter scanners and police scanners to get information about what's going on. So I download this app. It's free. I didn't even need to plug in my email address. And all of a sudden, here is a map of the city of Los Angeles in front of me. Here's my location.

Here's the location of the fire. And here's a neighborhood by neighborhood breakdown of people. people that are evacuating and people that are being told to evacuate. And what's more, Joel, is all of a sudden this app is buzzing every time there's an alert that concerns this particular fire. The fire I'm talking about is the eaten fire, which is affecting Altadena, which is like six or seven miles north of us, just to give you a little context there. So I'm sitting there and all of a sudden, my phone has just turned into this thing that has

giving me exactly the information I want that is notifying me whenever there's an update, which sometimes is every few minutes, sometimes it's every hour, all through the night with this very, very specific, almost block by block information about this fire in Los Angeles. It's one of the most just kind of like amazing interfaces I've ever had with anything. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I got to believe that like, well, first of all, it's just, it's sort of heartening. that there are resources out there, that there are people still out there creating this sort of

stuff that is useful to us, right? Yeah. But I'm just, I mean, it's both heartening and mind-boggling. Yeah. That there is an app for that at that point, you know? Well, I was, we were talking about this before, but like it was, what, five years ago that we kind of went through the same thing up here in the Bay in northern California where there was a fire that people probably remember the orange sky.

out of the Bay Area. And I had much the same experience as you. It was actually ash falling from the sky down where we were. And you could smell the smoke inside of your house. And it would have been nice to have had watch duty. Of course, I was nowhere near where the, you know, the fires were. I did not have to evacuate. I wasn't even nearly as endangered as you were.

Because I remember when I saw Al-Dena, I was like, man, that's actually when I texted you, Brian. I was like, Al-Fadena. I was like, you know, that's near you, right? So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's just, it's just one of those things where you're like, you have this, you have this app that suddenly becomes this just, you know, absolute vital source of information.

Again, don't want to take away anything away from television reporters and the people at the LA Times, but there's so many people. And again, like I said, I don't want to make myself be the most needy of them because I certainly wasn't at all, but all of a sudden just need a very, very specific kind of information a specific time. Does it make you think, though, too, because I just think about, like, it's great that it's available to us and that's a resource that we can use. I just think about, can my parents use watch duty?

Like, would they be able to do that, you know? Well, that's what's so interesting, right? Because we're in this moment where you feel like if you're not doing that on an app, where is that vital information coming from? Right. So that you're not having to knock on people's doors and being like, hey, it's time to go. There's already been, we'll sort this out, you know, more in the coming, days and months, but there's already been like, you know, did these people get notified, you know,

in time? Was the government working to notify people in neighborhoods, especially where the fires were affected, to give them a chance. Right, right. To get away. The one thing I've seen in, in addition to watch duty, I've seen a lot of people praise the local TV news stations down in L.A. And L.A. does have a tremendous local TV news culture. You know that probably better than I do. It's one of the places I think in this country where there's still a robust appetite for like local news, right? Absolutely. And all these, you know, sort of moments watching there and people getting so close, you know, to the fires and just kind of giving you that idea of this is what's happening here, right? It's easy to internalize LA weather phenomenon and earthquakes and everything else.

Oh, that's just something that's happening there. But it's like, no, no, no, this is different. This is something that is on a scale that we maybe have never seen before. And that was just a really, really valuable, I think, as a visual and then also as a source of information. Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you see these? So I'm looking at a couple different things about this.

First of all, there was inevitably going to be a main character of Twitter on Tuesday night. Yeah. Turns out to be this guy Keith Wasserman who tweets, does anyone have access to private firefighters to protect our home in Pacific Palissela? Sades. Need act fast here. All neighbors, houses burning will pay any amount. Thank you. Pay any amount. Thank you. Okay. And that comes up. And I'm like, I'm looking at that. And I think I'm probably in the moment on Tuesday night of with everything going on. Then I'm just like, wow, now I've reached the part where I'm like looking for information where I'm concerned about other people. I'm concerned about my family. And then I'm also like looking at this guy's

tweet. But also in that moment, I was thinking like every time we have. have a moment like this where there's some kind of emergency. And I think of the aforementioned Skep. Bayless the night Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest on a football field. There's always this person. And without defending this person in any case, whoever it may be, I'm always like, this person, the role they're playing is that we're upset about something that we can't control.

Right. We're having all this. And so here comes this person. And now here's the thing we can control. Right. here's the thing we can get mad at. Like, you can't be mad at fire. So let's get mad at this guy, right?

This is what it is. And again, I say that without absolving it or being mad at people for being mad. But that always just feels like what's happening in that moment. I think he was definitely the first, but people certainly found a lot of other people to be mad at. Karen Bass, for instance, you know, Trump, you know, whatever. Like, there's been a lot of other people. But he had the distinction of being the first. And I think it's because not long after that, because you can understand in his desperation

how he could have sent that tweet. Like, I get it. But I think when people started looking at his other tweets and his resistance to paying taxes, for instance, like asking Donald Trump, you know, next up, lower my taxes, essentially was one other tweets. And it's just like, hey, guy, you understand that like by not putting your part in, this is how this kind of stuff could happen. Like where you're looking for some sort of private force.

Like, no, nobody is going to step in and help you with their private, specialized fire force. Like, we have fire departments for a reason. And the way you fund those is through taxes, sir. And so I think people probably saw that and that obnoxiousness and felt like, well, if that guy's house burns down. You know, it's like the, actually, it's like the Drago line. If he dies, he dies, essentially. I think that's how people sort of took the opportunity to jump on him, right? No, I totally.

But like to me, it's like, there's a psychic need. where you're not just litigating the specifics of the tweet. You're litigating this generalized fear and anger at what's going on in the world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think, yes. I think to understand, I also think that, like, people, yeah, they used him as a platform to discuss the thing that they wanted to discuss. And a lot of people, there's been a fight about climate change in this country. And he was a real perfect, the people that believe it's true and the people that don't believe. in it, right? And that it needs the dressing. And so they're just like, hey, like, this is what happens, rich guy, you know, when it happened. And actually, you tell me this, Brian, I was actually surprised that the restraint people have shown, most people have shown it not spike in the ball in this instance. Because we know that the fires have mostly affected a lot of affluent communities, right? And I think that, like, people have done a pretty good job. You tell me, maybe I'm wrong about this, of not, like, reveling in that misfortune, right? Right. Yeah, I, you know, I don't, I don't know that mostly is a word. I think they have afflicted, you know, affluent communities, but I think you could look at, look at like the path of the fire since, you know, the Pacific Palisades is the early part of it and probably complicate that.

But I just, you know, I don't know how, I don't know how to evaluate that in the Twitter age. I really don't. Because you and I could probably find tweets here and there. And I know I've seen some of them and then I've seen people. I mean, Patrick Soon Sean, the owner of the LA Times coming out and be able to. Let's talk about the fire department budget. And then somebody had any political's like, no, that's not, turns out not to be what he wrote wasn't true and all this kind of stuff. I'm always interested in what the think piece barrier to entry is whenever we have a thing like this. Like when is the moment like there's clearly there are things to say about everything, whatever kind of emergency. There are bigger things. There are bigger points to make about it.

But when is the moment that that you feel like that's okay? okay to move there, to move away from the thing in front of us and move to whatever idea it is you want to flog. I don't think people spend a lot of time waiting anymore now, right? Because it's the immediacy, right? You've got this in front of your face. You're reacting. Most people are just reacting.

And so they're doing it. Did you have this same issue that I had? Because, again, I'm bringing up Mayor Karen Bassigan. People kept talking about, oh, she cut money out of the fire department. gave more money to the police department. I had, it took me a little bit to just, I was like, you know what, I better make sure that that's true. Like as I got to look that up, where do I go to find out if that's true or not?

And I'm just like, that's, maybe that's not the time to be doing this, but it's like one of those things. It's like, well, I need to, if this is going to be one of the talking points of this tragedy, then I need to go find a source to make sure that this is true, right? Yeah, if people are tweeting about it, then you're like, if I'm going to read this a hundred times, I should figure out if this is correct or not. Right. I mean, that's what's, and of course, when people are making these points in the, in just in

the moments after tragedy, it's always what they already thought. Yeah. Right. They're telling you, they're not saying like, hey, I'd like to make a large point about this. What they're telling you is, I was right. Right. Right.

Whatever it is that I thought, I just would like to point out that I was correct. I, too, am sometimes afflicted with that disease. We all are. Yeah. Yeah. I think we all are. And it's like, you know, we see this after, you know, from gun violence to whatever it is, you know, and I don't, and probably by the way, your tolerance for moving into think peace land depends on what the think piece is. Right. You know, and who's saying it, you know, and what the point they're making is. But it's just so, it's again, and you and I, we will do this forever. But you just watch one of these things happening. You're sitting there, you're like horrified, watching whatever it is in the news. And then you go to, you go to social media. It's like, okay, here we go. Now we are making the quote-unquote big points. Now we have moved off to the next phase. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we've gotten a lot of practice at it too, right? Because, I mean, it happened during the Hurricane Haleen thing, right? When people were talking about what happened to Asheville, North Carolina, and, you know, the political leanings of the people in that area and the Hawaiian wildfires and, you know, so on and so forth. Like this is, we're getting more and more practice at this sort of, you know, this sort of discourse. I was going to say for better or worse, but clearly for worse.

Clearly for worse. Yeah. And like I said, every time it's like, I would just like to tell you that whatever thing you're watching on your television proves that I was right about something. I want to meet the person who's like, I just watched something and it turns out I was, I was completely wrong. Everything I said was. I had it wrong. What I believed about this is totally all. Let me tell you like what I learned.

Yeah, that's not. That's not happening a lot. I'm certain. But social media is not really the place for that either, right? No. No, it's not. Anyway, our thoughts are with everybody affected by the fires and law. Angeles, all the journalists who are out there working so hard to bring us information,

specific information, bigger pieces about information, all the various aspects of it, because it has just been an absolute horror to watch this unfold. Absolutely, man. And yeah, you too, man. Like, you too, I hope, like, you know, I sincerely hope that you're home and you get to, you know, stay safe for as long as you can, man. I appreciate you. I appreciate you checking on me too.

You want to talk about the Washington Post a little bit. Yeah. frequent topic here on this podcast shoemaker and i had a big bite at this on monday because we were talking about all the people that have left the paper in the last couple of days whether it's josh dossie or an ashley parker leaving for places like the atlantic or the new york times or the washington or they're not leaving for the washington post or the um or the new york times uh tell me what are your impressions about what's going on at the post right now well i mean i felt like this is the second a third time in the last 20 years that I've seen this happen for the Washington Post.

Right? And again, I don't, I'm not revisiting the conversation I had that led to me doing sort of mea Copa with Dan Diamond the other week. But it does feel like it's not a great place to work right now. And people are sort of looking for a place to land. And I'm kind of surprised, actually, and they've written about this a little bit, that people are running to the Atlantic. I mean, we can talk about that a little bit later, but I think that, you know, people

are sort of looking for the people that have the opportunities, the people that, you know, are star reporters that can, you know, have some options that they want to get out of there. And I understand it, right? Because it doesn't seem like the people in charge have a vision for the moment and that it doesn't seem like the people that come in, whoever the next editor is, no matter who it is, I highly doubt that people are going to be satisfied.

Don't you think? I don't think, I don't, I'm trying to think who that person would be, who will get named in that position, but I don't, I find it hard to believe that they'll be able to rally in this moment at least.

We have an update on that today because Ben Mullen over the New York Times reports that Matt Murray, who had been serving that and that job in an interim capacity, is going to take that job for good. That's something that Dylan Byers had, yeah, we know all about interim coaches. Interim coach, okay. In the sports world, some Dylan Byers at Puck had nodded at a while back.

Doesn't that tell you that they could not get who they wanted? It sure seems like it. It really does seem like it. I mean, it's just, and again, I think it's like you have all these people. And again, let's look at this from, let's look at this from the journalist's point of view. Let's look at this from the editor's point of view. You have all these people who are looking upward, up the masthead, at the owner of the newspaper and saying, what are your intentions for this place?

Yep. Which way are we going? And by the way, what is just the long term viability here? You know, we saw they had a bunch of layoffs this week that were in the business division. That included getting rid of the communication shop within the Washington Post as we know it. Apparently, it's going to be something else. And it was, again, one of those sentences from a memo that I didn't even understand. The talent, something, it was something.

Yeah. Yeah. My rule is always journalists, don't talk like the people you cover. Just say things directly. It's hard, just as much as you can, just say things directly. Give quotes like you would want to quote other people. But people are looking upward and they're just like, what is, what is the future of this place look like? And again, I don't, I think there's, you know, it's easy to be completely dire about it.

I think Washington Post can exist. There's still tons of good. stuff at the Washington Post, we say again and again lots of people writing good things. But if you're making that kind of decision, you can hardly blame somebody for looking at that and being like, what else is out there? What are my opportunities? Right. And I think you all talked about this on Monday. Like the Washington Post is still, for the most part, going to be the Washington Post. Like, they're still going to be really talented journalists who go there and do amazing work and, you know, accountability journalism even, right?

You know, from politics to climate change to whatever. Like, there are going to be a lot of people, but the people that they want to keep right now, they may not be there, but that's an internal thing. Like, I don't think, like, to your point, I don't think readers are going to be like, oh, man, I was how. And look, I like Josh Darcy. He's great. Like, good dude, great reporter.

Like, bam, you know, buffo. But I don't think there's going to be a lot of people being like, man, I don't see There's byline here, bro, I'm not going to get this. If they're going to walk away from the Washington Post, it's going to be because of broader, larger issues similar to the ones that have already affected it. I don't think it's going to be because, well, they've lost so many people that it looks like the, you know, let me not use another newspaper as an example there because I don't want to have to apologize later.

Well, you mentioned the Atlantic, and I think this is really a fascinating sort of compare or contrast between the two. Because the Atlantic, to some extent, comes in and they take the real. resistance branding away from the Washington Post with the very notable help of Jeff Bezos. So Bezos, we say, like, is like, oh, well, we're not going to endorse Kamala Harris, and we're not going to endorse her very, very close to the election. That's what we're going to make this happen. Yeah.

And I was, when that happened, I was hilarious because I get an email from the Atlantic, I don't know how many days later it was, but this email from the Atlantic going, by the way, we just would like to remind you that we have already endorsed Kamala Harris. Wow. This is what they're sending out to everybody. Yeah, of course. And it doesn't matter what's in the Atlantic or what's in the Washington Post, but that, again, that kind of welcome Matt, that kind of branding that says to readers. And that's something readers pay attention to.

That is something that I believe that penetrates more than the departure or arrival of any journalist. Right. And I think people don't really know who the benefactors of the Atlantic are. Like, we know that it's, we know Lorraine Powell jobs because the industry we're in. But a lot of people that are subscribing to the Atlantic or whatever, they're not thinking about that person. They know Jeff Bezos because Jeff Bezos is once the richest person in the world. Right?

And there's a profile with him. He's got like a long public record. We don't know anything about Ms. Jobs here, right? So I think that there's some of that. But to your point about this being a really interesting shift, I mean, man, have people paid attention to the Atlantic over like the last five years, bro? Like, I mean, they had laid off like a fifth of their staff, like just within the last four years. And, I mean, think about, I'm going to try not to get in trouble here.

Think about how some of the most prominent, powerful journalists who've ever worked there just left, right? Ed Young won a Pulitzer and left to go run his on substack in 2023. Has anybody asked them why? I mean, you might want to. Check into that. Even Ta-Nehisi Coates, there was that big New York MAG cover story in October talking about his new book and everything. And they asked them about the Atlantic. And he says this, and I'm going to just read a portion of that story here. It says, when I asked him about the role of the Atlantic, which I told him struck me as the mainstream magazine, most supportive of the Israeli state and most scornful of the campus protests that erupted in response to the siege of Gaza, he replied, a lot of people there who I love. who I really, really love, but I can't avoid the fact that they're part of it. They're part of it. He added, I wish they did better. So, I mean, so you're talking talking about adopting the branding of the resistance publication? I mean, that probably is not going to be. If that's what you're

hoping for, you're probably going to be disappointed, whether you're a reader or a journalist going over there. You're talking about a subscriber or somebody who actually goes and works at the Atlantic. Yeah. Yeah, but that's what that's what. That's what. to me is so fascinating about this because it's branding, right? Right. You know, are the contents of the Washington Post, minus that one endorsement that didn't run, are the contents of the Washington Post going to be noticeably different

versus what they were before, you know, a year ago, or what they were under Marty Barron? I don't know, I don't know that anybody could even evaluate that. But what you do is the one thing people will evaluate and people that are interested in paying money to subscribe to things. which is a tiny subset of humanity, are those big gestures like that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they see that. And within the Atlantic and whatever you just gave us like five data points, the Atlantic would go, oh, look at the generals and Donald Trump. Look at that story we published.

Right. Look at, look at McKay Coppins writing about Donald. Look at all these pieces we published about Donald Trump and everything like that. And there's just enough there that you can say, oh, well, I'm going to give my money to that place versus this place. Right. I do wonder if that's going to hold up.

I mean, I guess like the thing is, because of the way the world is working, if you had an opinion on what was going on in Gaza, it feels like that's going to fade to the background unless you're actively interested in that is the geopolitical topic de jure, right? Because there's about to be just like a fire hose of news coming at us probably over the next few months. About to be. Yeah, right, yeah, right, right, right.

And so if you were not inclined to have a position on that, then maybe the Atlantic will be sort of your sanctuary for the moment. But a little closer investigation would probably have you say, you know what, my five cents a day or $5 a day or whatever, it could be spent at the Washington Post or the Atlantic. It won't make that much of a difference. Well, that's that, again, that to me just underscores the craziness of what's happening. And those 300,000 subscribers that walked out the door between this is from Dan Falkin, Flick and NPR from the moment. They didn't run that endorsement until Election Day. 300,000 people went out the door. And that's what I want.

When we talk about the whole resistance, it's not going to come save the media again like it did in 2017. I totally believe that. But let's just say, and I'm just going to make up numbers here. Let's say there's a million people, a pool of a million people that would pay for, they were part of the, they're paid for media in the, during the first resistance as an act of the resistance. I don't like Donald Trump, therefore I will subscribe to your newspaper, sir, or your magazine. And let's say that that number is much smaller this time.

Let's say it's, I don't know, 250,000, 400,000. Again, I'm just making stuff up just for scale. I still believe that that little pool of people is overwhelmingly more likely to pay for news than just about anybody else that we can think of. That is a unified group. So if you put a welcome mat, for one of the, of those people, no matter what's in the magazine, and you take the welcome out and throw it in the

trash can at the other place, where are they going to go? Where are they more likely to go? You know, that's just, that is, again, it's just this, I mean, it's almost like something as silly as democracy dies in darkness. It's just, it's branding, but you screwed up the branding. Right. So now how do you, what do you do? How do you get those people back? How do you tell those people that, no, no, no, this is a great place to come and read the kind of articles you want to read. about what's happening in the White House. I think it's too, those people probably have already subscribed

to Ed Young's substack or somebody. You know what I mean? Like they've already moved on, I think. Right. Yeah, I mean, how do you get people to come back to newspapers? That's the thing. I don't think they're coming back, man. That's kind of the scary thing.

If you turn off the, like I said, that you call it the tiny subset of humanity willing to pay for news and they go away. Those people have long memories and they've got, I mean, they carry a grudge, man. It'll be really hard to convince them that you're back on. their side again. I don't know what piece of journalism

or what editor they can hire that will make you change your mind about that. And that's kind of scary. And they're finicky. Like when I use the word like resistance, let's be clear. The Washington Post reporters do not consider themselves members of the resistance. It's just that the great stories they were writing during Trump one and we'll write again during Trump two

are the kind of things that people in the resistance want to read. Same with the Atlantic for that matter. Right. Again, it's just this ice cream, you know, the scoop of ice cream on top. that you are just giving people permission or encouragement to come subscribe to you, that they just bafflingly took away. Right.

Right. And I can't get over that. Maybe they need to get more games. You know what I'm saying? They probably need to get more into the games business or something. We laugh, but that's not the worst thing. We've got better games than the New York Times, you know? Oh, my God.

I mean, I'd love to say that we're sitting around the dinner table, you know, talking about like a great piece of journalism we read the New York Times. But a lot of times, like, did you do the game today? Oh, you did? What was your score at the game? Let's play the game together. I mean, that's whatever works, right? That's much more likely to be the way for it than like, you know, hiring whatever journalists back and hoping that they're going to do some accountability journalism, I promise.

I also think, by the way, the Washington Post, I got an email today from the Washington Post and said the postmost. This is, I guess, like one of their, you know, here's our stories for the day. Biden delivers eulogy at Jimmy Carter's funeral. And then the subhead is who's at Jimmy Carter's funeral, a guide to the notable guess. Look, we need to do a lot of improving at the paper. We just, we need to, we need to fix a lot of things. We can tweak up a lot of things.

It's a very, very, you know, worthy story. But there are things we can do. Let's just say that. Were there some people there that were surprising at all? You had some former presidents. I don't know. It's surprising. You had George Bush tapping Obama on the chest, giving him a little like, how you doing?

I know. Yeah, man. Well, I mean, you know, like Vince Dooley is no longer with us, right? He's no longer with us. Oh, man. Mark Ritts. Former Georgia head coach who got a nice way. I feel like Mark Rick and Jimmy Carter would have been really good friends.

And you feel like Mark Rooke would be there. Don't you? I mean, I don't know. Maybe I don't think he probably went. But they seem like they would have a lot in common. Yeah, maybe some country music stars that we heard so much about after Jimmy Carter's passing. Absolutely. Well, that's before you, Joel.

How did cover Donald Trump a second time, part one of one million? Oh, man. I almost want to turn this into a running thing because we're doing it again. Mm-hmm. We're trying to cover Donald Trump. And I feel like we've learned things. And I say we as in a, you know, United Media. but I don't totally feel we have a game plan.

So I want you to listen to this exchange between Donald Trump and the New York Times is David Sanger at a news conference and tell me what we should do with this information. President, thank you. I wanted to touch on the world on fire that you mentioned, but let's start, if we could, with your references to Greenland and the Panama Canal. So forth, can you assure the world that as you try to,

to get control of these areas. You are not going to use military or economic coercion. No. Can you tell us a little bit about what your plan is? Are you going to negotiate a new treaty? Are you going to ask the Canadians to hold

the vote? What is the strategy? I can't assure you. You're talking about Panama and Greenland. No, I can't assure you on either of those two. But I can say this. We need them for economic security. The Panama canal was built for our military.

I'm not going to commit to that now. It might be that you'll have to do something. Look, the Panama Canal is vital to our country. It's being operated by China. China. And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama. We didn't give it to China. And they've abused it.

They've abused that gift. It should have never been made, by the way. Giving the Panama Canal is why Jimmy Carter lost the election, in my opinion. More so maybe than the country. the hostages. The hostages. So on and on from there. Now you have a particularly familiar media problem, Joel.

If Donald Trump not ruling out military force to acquire the Greenland and reacquire the Panama Canal, what are we supposed to do with that? Man. First of all, I just, I'd forgotten how he says the word China. Yeah. You know, I mean, we're doing that again. I think the thing is, is that, the American voting public chose to make this guy the president again.

So we have to take what he says seriously. We should be credulous. And I'm sorry that we're here again now, but this is what it's going to take. But I saw Jamel Bowie at the New York Times say this on a TikTok. And the thing is, it's like, it's not really about what Trump says, right, in terms of this kind of journalism. It's about what are the people around him?

And that's the missing piece. Like, what are they saying? Like, what are they going to be doing? And, like, are people going to have the bandwidth and energy to wait for the reporting to come out on the people around him? So, like, what does Mike Johnson think about the Panamaca now? What does Mitch McConnell think about seizing Greenland? Right? And so I think we just kind of got to wait on that because, I mean, would he think.

says, even if it sounds bizarre, it takes on a whole new weight from the pulpit of the presidency. Sure. Right? Sure. And so I guess, like, we're just going to have to grit our teeth and go through this again, and it's going to require just patience. It's going to require, like, doggedness. And I guess the thing is just, like, what kind of media climate is there going to be, like,

how scary are things going to get for journalists in this climate, too, right? Like, are they going to be inclined to retaliate? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, am I going too far afield here? Well, no, I mean, I think your first, the first point you made is, is really the answer, right? It's like not, so we've spent how many years just diving on top of sound bites. Yeah.

But did you hear the outrageous thing that Donald Trump said today? Right. So the interesting part of it is the end of the way to write about it evaluated is, is this feasible, given the people, around Donald Trump, both the people that would pass laws and the people who work with him, presumably in the administration. And then I would think also just talking about the motives of Donald Trump when he makes a statement like that, right? It's exceedingly unlikely we're going to use military force in either Panama or Greenland over the next five years. But he may have a reason he wants to talk, you know, because he wants to have leverage with the Panamanians, leverage

against the Chinese, whatever it is against that, right? Donald Trump uses certain ways to negotiate. which is to take, take or at least not rule out absurd notions and do that. So maybe there is a way to do that. But the whole thing is I think you nailed it. It was like you then have to wait. Who's waiting? You know, it's hard to wait. It's hard to wait or read that article in the Washington Post

that you just unsubscribe from to get the full context. Yeah. No, I mean, like, I think that's it. I mean, you have to report what he says. And then is this plausible is the next step? And then, okay. the degree of the plausibility comes from the reporting that follows. Right?

Yeah. It just feels like he's already won. I mean, he's already, you know, mastered the game and he's won the moment you're like, oh, hey, did you hear this Greenland thing? You know, like, look at this. I mean, man, I mean, this is what we wanted, man. Like, not we, but the American public. Like, we voted for this.

And like, people hear this and they like it. Not only these politics, but this particular rhetorical style. Some people want American imperialism to return, you know? Or they want somebody who wants to go up there and talk about stuff like this. Yeah, right. Who's not ruling it out. They think America is strong when you're tweaking Justin Trudeau. Yeah.

You know, they're like in the Gulf of Mexico. Like that's, yeah. Like that's a sign of our string. Yeah. So I just think, man, you know what? I recall, I'm going back to a meeting in January of 2017. I'm at BuzzFeed. And I got moved to the investigative team.

And we're all there. It's like a summit, like about 20 of us on the investigations team. And they were going over all the ways we were going to have to cover Donald Trump. And I was like, man, I'm not going to be a dude of shit, bro. And I left for ESPN, like, a few months later. I was like, I'm not doing this. The unwinnable game. Yeah, man.

I was like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that, man. I know. I just, I feel, and I feel like there are more, there are ways that we'll just continue this, right? There'll be one of these next week for us, next Thursday for us to talk. about. There are ways that are more that are less wrong than others are more right than others that are better than others. But at the end of the day, I'm not sure there's an answer. There's not a perfect answer. Like, what do you do with something like that? Yeah, man. I just think it's like,

it's going to be imperfect. And like, I mean, I know people are going to criticize journalists for reporting the things that he says. But I'm like, can I, should I curse? I don't know. I don't think I curse. You motherfuckers voted for him, dog. You know what I'm saying? Like with America, like he've won. So if we didn't want to have to go through this shit, like we did not have to elect him president. But now that he did, and there's not really, there's, you know, there's like some boxers that are just hard to beat. You know, like, I remember John Ruiz. I don't know if remember John Ruiz, like, the heavyweight. He, like, lost to Roy Jones Jr. and, like, he was a heavyweight champion for a little bit. And it's like, you could never really beat John Ruiz up.

Like, he was an awkward fighter or whatever. And I feel like Donald Trump is kind of like that. It's just like, there's not a real good strategy. You may be able to beat him. But you never beat him up. And that's just kind of like what journalism is going to have to be. We're going to have to approach him like you might, John Ruiz. Got two quick things for you before we get out of here. Yeah. One is Jason Kelsey made his late night debut on ESPN.

Because you never just hire somebody for a pregame show now. You get in business with him. Oh, man. So because we can't miss the Jason Kelsey late night show. But I would just like to acknowledge that Charles Barkley appeared on that show. And by appearing on that show kept his iron. Iron Man Streak Alive of appearing on the first episode of every single sports talk show known to mankind. I'm not kidding about this.

He appeared on the very first Manning cast. He appeared on the very first episode of Get Up. He appeared on our bosses any given Wednesday the first episode. He appeared on the very first episode of TNT's NHL studio show. Wow. Mind blowing as that may be. And now the Jason Kelsey late night show. I'm going to tell you that you know what else?

he was the first thing. He was the first article that ever went up at the undefeated. It was that piece written by Jason Whitlock. Do you remember that? It was like a long, a long story. Yeah, he was the first piece on the undefeated too. So, man, you got to go to that well over and over again, right? Every media thing has been welcomed onto this earth by Charles Barkley. Absolutely. Way to go, Chuck. Last thing, let's tease this because I had told some people, some viewers or viewers, some listeners at the press box, thank God, they're not viewers.

yet. Listeners of the press box, before you came aboard, I said, you know, maybe January 20th, we will do some kind of event in Washington, D.C. May we'll be there in Washington with the inauguration, new administration coming in and be nice to do some kind of event there. I still want to get to Washington, D.C. this year. Let's do it. But there is some other urgent national business that is happening on January 20th. Would you like to tell people what that is? Oh, man. the college football national championship game Mercedes-Vin stadium man in Atlanta in Atlanta my favorite my favorite city my favorite city and you and I are going to be there yeah with all due respect to the citizens of Washington and the surrounding areas you and I are going to be in Atlanta so we're going to be doing live press box from Atlanta yep I think we'll probably do the Monday show that week and have you and David trade spots so he can do the Tuesday show we'll be to be to a some special pods from Atlanta. We are going to have an amazing time. I've already got our invite to the shutdown full cast split zone duo party on Saturday night.

Is that a party to live show? Yeah, man. We don't even, we don't even have to produce a ticket or anything. We've been invited personally by the host and they said they're looking forward to us being there, Brian. Oh my goodness. I just want to sit in the audience and laugh and applaud and watch somebody else do a podcast. Yeah, I don't want anybody to make us do anything. No, no. We don't want to do anything. But I told Alex we would come down. So, yeah. Fantastic.

All right. Well, look for us in Atlanta. If you're in that area, he is Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic. As always, by our friend Brian Waters. Joel, see you next Thursday. Fort Worth to it.