The Press Box - Oscars Observations, a State of the Union U-Turn, a Royal Photo Scandal, and the Fate of ‘Good Morning Football.’

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Bryan and David kick off the show by discussing highlights and bad moments from the Oscars (00:56). Then get into this week’s topics, starting with President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address (24:04). Then they get into the Notebook Dump with the Royal Photo Scandal and the Princess's response regarding her photo editing skills (38:50), the changes coming to ‘Good Morning Football’ (44:30), and Deadspin’s new owners (52:40). In the Media Piss Test, they react to Donald Trump’s love for Mark Robinson (53:59), and Kayla Ard’s—Utah State’s basketball coach—press conference (54:400). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Every true football fan knows that the NFL season truly begins after the Super Bowl champion has been crowned, and the ringer NFL feed will keep you on top of all the news still happening around the league and heading into the 2024-25 season. I'm Sheila Kapadia. And every Monday and Friday, Ben Solac and I deliver Sharp takes the debates on the draft, free agency training camp, and beyond an extra point taken. And every Wednesday, it will have dual threat where Stephen Ruiz and yours truly, Nora Princeati, dive deep into all of the big offseason developments, with Ringer favorites Austin Gale and Lindsay Jones stopping by occasionally to share their expert football analysis.

Subscribe to the Ringer NFL show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. And don't forget to follow the Ringer NFL on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and X at Ringer NFL. David, I would love to start this podcast with some notes on the Oscars. Okay, let's do it. The rare monoculture event in American life that is not called by Mike Tarrico or Joe Buck or Kevin Burckhardt or Jim Nance. Let us begin to the red carpet pregame show. I got to say the affect of Alabama Senator Katie Britt no longer seems so jarring or unusual when I saw people asking questions of celebrities as they walked into the theater. Mm-hmm.

You look amazing. Your movie was wonderful. It's a contest to see you can seem the most robotic. Is that what we're doing here? Yeah, and that kind of tone where you're just like robotic plus ever, there's weird pauses between the words. It's like an alien's idea of what like a like formality. Like what is required of the moment,

but you're just totally wrong. Exactly. Also the ABC part of the red carpet. I don't know if you saw this, but they split the screen into four parts with four different feeds. Yeah. So if you were like bored of Paul Jamati giving an interview in the upper right quadrant, your eyes could drift to Anya Taylor Joy in the left upper quadrant. This just sounds fantastic.

This is what we've been begging for for years for inner red car coverage. Right. Our attention span has been completely destroyed by. social media. Oh, wait, here's some TV for us. I get out focus. Also on Twitter, I noticed Jake Kring Shrifles noted that there is no longer a Joan Rivers red carpet insult character. Oh, yeah. Isn't that Twitter's job now? I mean, hasn't that been supplanted by just the rest of us in the peanut gallery? So that got completely outsource. So she was a big deal when she would be on E and interview a celebrity and then say how horrible.

they looked when they walked away. But now that's the job of all of us on social media to pass judgment on dresses. I buy that. Host of the show, of course, was friend of the ringer Jimmy Kimmel, who, and I mean this in the best possible way, because this weirdly sounds like an insult,

has become the Billy Crystal of our times. But you mean that as a compliment? It sounds not like a compliment, does it? Because Billy Crystal had sort of a... Billy Crystal was a big movie star, in the 80s and 90s. No, yeah. But in the Oscar context,

he was the trusted host. Yes. Steady hand. Steady hand. The guy, like, it's almost like a podcaster where you're like, I really like this podcaster.

I think he's smart and funny, but more to the point, I have a 45-minute commute. Yeah. And the podcast will be on and will be what I expected to be during that 45 minutes. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. You don't want to be fumbling to find the next podcast 10 minutes into the show. Yeah. Absolutely. Didn't they invite Billy Crystal back after his run to be the steadying hand? What was it? What did it go through some down years? Was there, were some problematic hosts? What, what, what was the reason for his return? There was a lot of casting about and then he came back one time.

And Google that if you want to. There was also some problematic material. So I think Billy Crystal with no longer the steady hand at the till. It is now Jimmy Kimmel. As much as he wants to do it anyway. I know John Mullaney came out and did a bit. Everybody's like, oh, he's rehearsing to be the next Oscars host. I don't know if it totally works like that, but that's an interesting thought. Kimmel came out and did a monologue at the beginning. It felt like to use the podcast metaphor one more time that we had turned the podcast up to one and a half speed. Yeah.

Really getting those jokes. We were still laughing and he was telling the next joke. Also, I love the host thing they do at the Oscars where something. will happen and then either they'll go backstage and quickly write something or maybe they have it prepped, but they'll come out and do a bit about the thing that just happened. Yeah. Like, Devine Joy Randolph won the Oscar and then he was talking about how she had learned to smoke for the role in the holdovers.

He didn't come around. So smoking is good kids. See that kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, that's, we talk a lot about how do you do TV in the modern era. And that's a small but vital thing, right? you actually have to be reactive to what's happening on your own broadcast because otherwise, again, you're just getting outclassed by the denizens of the internet horde.

And speaking of which, speaking in fact of a particular denizen at the internet horde, how about Donald Trump dropping a post on true social that Jimmy Kimmel could then just come out at the end of the show and read in its entirety? Mm-hmm. did not know that Trump was calling George Stephanopoulos, George Slopinopoulos, until that was written. I didn't actually know that Jimmy Kimball was quoting Trump because he didn't say it at the beginning until we got to that line.

And I was like the only the only person who would think that was really funny. George Slopinopinopinopolis just seems like so, I mean, it's a great nickname. It just seems sort of unintelligible and weirdly over the line with it. But still, I laugh at Slopinopolis. The rest of it was, it's so weird when Trump gets on his high horse. And his tweets suddenly become like well written. Like not like well written in any sort of like I want to read this novel sort of way, but well written and just like he's like very deliberately put together,

not just stream of consciousness, all in caps nonsense. The sentences have structure. But it's like it's very odd. Like he's really trying hard to make a point. like he thinks like maybe if he puts in that extra effort then like what this excerpt will be picked up by the what i don't know by the new york times or something like uh i don't someone will ask him to write something it's it's it seems very try hard but just it feels it feels very loaded into the teleprompter yes like i want i want to i want to say this just the right way and include george stephen slopinopoulos

excuse me halfway through just what a what a just stray shot that he took. Some highlights from the show. Do we want to start with naked John Sina? Of course. I had to send the, you know, Drudge Siren text to Brian Waters. I was like,

I don't know if you're watching the Oscars, but you better get over there right now because there's some wrestling content happening. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we opened my other show with it today. So, I mean, it's, it's, you know,

what I just kept thinking when I saw him, I was just like, he's you know i don't know the intricacies of his of his shooting schedule like you know a lot of other wrestling fans might some people are keeping very good tabs on this but he's not actively wrestling right now and when he came out i was just like i kind of it's weird that he doesn't have any moment in his schedule where he can let himself go a little bit you know like he's just in such it's it's unbelievably good shape for someone who's not taking his shirt off literally every day for money yeah it just it just seems it just seems it's just it's just seems it's just it's just it's just it's

Unbelievable. Part of the bit was that he was walking sideways. Because if people did not watch this, he was not wearing any clothes or very few clothes. Yeah. But I also thought, is he just walking sideways because his legs are so muscular and this is the only way he can walk now? He must shuffle to the side because he is so exquisitely muscled. Also, he made a joke about wrestling and jorts. Can we commission a New York Times

Siena poll to see how many viewers of the Oscars the people who come for the movies also get the joke about John Cena wrestling in Jorts? Who gets that joke? Yeah, what percentage of Oscar viewers do you think, roll with that?

I know who John Cena is, I know he's a wrestler, and I know he wrestles in Jords. Oh. I wrestled in Jords. Do you think that's a good question? 25% of Oscar viewers? Oh, man.

35, 15. I could believe almost anything. Yeah, it's really hard to wrap your mind around. I would think it's, like my mom knew who John Cena was, but I'm her son. Yeah. And did she know the George part? Popping up on the morning shows or whatever,

but I don't know if she would have even, I don't think she would have registered the Jorts thing. I think so. Interesting factoid, apropos of, something, but relatively nothing. John Sina is, I think I'm doing the math here correctly, four years older than Billy Crystal was when he first hosted the Oscars. Whoa!

Bill Crystal is perpetually, you know, like 59 years old. Yeah, I don't know why I'm amazed by that, but I'm totally amazed by that. Also, right after John Cena, we had the Rock and Bad Bunny presenting an award. Two other WWE, well, Future Hall of Fame. gamers. This is just a kind of a sketchy theory, David, but maybe the WWE under newish management is trying to infiltrate the mainstream media. That's weird. Might need some more data points on that, but just a theory to throw out there. What did you make of how they handled the four acting categories where instead of one presenter, they had five presenters who were all former winners

each introducing one of the nominees? I thought it worked really well. I mean, listen, this might be one of those things that we look back on and say that was a terrible decision. But I don't know, man. The status quo just seems so boring. I don't think it necessarily is we should do this every year, but I'm all for trying new things. I would like to look back on it right now and say that not only did I miss the acting clips, a lot of people pointed that out on Twitter, famous people complimenting other famous people is never that interesting. it seems like it's going to be interesting, but what happens is they wind up reverting

to some generic talking points. Let me give you a little bit of Matthew McConaughey on Bradley Cooper from last night as one example. Nothing better describes you, sir, Mr. Bradley Cooper, who wrote, directed, produced, and acted in his latest film, Maestro. From the script to the screen, Bradley takes a transformative journey

into becoming Linder Bernstein bringing to life all the character, charisma and complex brilliance of an American icon. Congratulations. So that's kind of cool because he's being Matthew McConaughey. But if you listen to what he's saying,

that could describe anybody who took a role in the movies last year and was pretty good at it. Yeah. Yeah. I always take mild exception to the use of Renaissance man to describe somebody who does

like, you know, three or four things. but on one thing, you know, it's, it's not like Bradley Cooper like wrote and starred in the movie and also, you know, is a elite level mountain biker or something or, you know, just like writes epic poetry in his spare time that gets published. He just did, he just did a couple of jobs on one project, which is, you know, not that unusual in Hollywood. Yeah, it's like calling people with the ring of Renaissance people because you do something and then also host a podcast.

Yeah. No. Actually, you know what? Forget it. I'll take it. This is the, we're a bunch of Renaissance men over here. Some other highlights from the ceremony.

We had a lot of range in the acceptance speeches. So Devine, Joy Randolph wins best supporting actress for the holdovers. And she gives us amazingly emotional speech saying, you know, there's a place for me in Hollywood and I feel seen. And they go to Paul Jamon.

and he has a tear running down his cheeks. It's just incredibly emotional. And then Robert Downey Jr. wins Best Supporting Actor. And he gets up there and he's like, you know, I did tons of drugs when I was an actor. And they both worked on their own terms. Also, Robert Downey Jr.

You're using the word who's gal in his acceptance speech? Yes. not really an only in journalism word, more of an only in W.C. Fields movies. Got a word. He had Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling going back and forth on Barbenheimer. That was funny.

I thought there was a lot of really great use of cutaway shots. Yeah. Steven Spielberg had some funny ones. A lot of stone-faced Robert De Niro's shots. They caught Emma Stone, apparently calling Jimmy Kimmel a prick. You can see her mouthing that

after he made a joke about poor things. that was pretty amazing. 20 days in Maripole won best documentary feature, which I was so happy about. It was the only documentary feature I saw last year, so you're always rooting for the one thing you watched. But I was in New York City last summer, and I wanted to see a movie.

I was by myself. I was like, this is amazing. What a night of content. I can go see any movie in New York City, and I wanted to see Barbie, and it was sold out. So I was like,

oh damn it what am i going to do and i went to film for him and i was like i'm going to see this 20 days in maria poll based on a good new york times review that i just pulled up on my phone in a moment and i went in there i was like that was the best thing i've ever seen it's unbelievable it's really cool speech too after that movie won the academy award and finally in terms of highlights we got to have we got to go with crazy ass al pacino giving out the best picture award at the end of the ceremony. Let's hear a little bit of Al. And my I see Oppenheimer. Yes.

Yes. My IC Oppenheimer, yes. Really cool that Smeagel got to present Best Picture last night. Whoa, precious Best Picture Award winner. Wonderful. Also, all people presenting. best picture in the future should have to use the phrasing my I see. It feels like I said of a very, very old fantasy novel.

Or the Battle of the Republic. I don't relate. This is. Yeah, there you go. Even more to the point. Some bad moments or lesser moments from last night's ceremony. The Oscars started late like a sporting event. No, I was told this is going to start at 7 p.m. Eastern 4 Pacific and it turns out not so much.

in terms of sports style producing, I thought there were a few moments where we were seeing really weird camera angles for no reason. Mostly during the in-memorium segment, which now everybody hates. Have you noticed this on Twitter? Everybody says,

you know my favorite part of the Oscars secretly is the in-memorium segment. But then when actually the Oscars begin, everybody's like, I hate this, you screwed it up. You left out my favorite celebrity. It's awful. And last night, they were showing camera angles of the screens because they were putting up the departed

celebrities there and departed Hollywood people on the screen. But the camera angle looked like it was from the upper deck. Yeah. Where the spouse of the best sound nominee was sitting. It's like, I can't see what's going on on the screen. Can't see these people are? Yeah.

That was weird. Other low lights, Martin Scorsese for whom the old guy still got it award was named. Oh, God, yeah. O for 10 last night between him and his movie Killers of the Flower Moon. Joe Biden cashed in

all his old guys still got at stock this week. Martin Scorsese, not so much. And the other semi-serious point which I was thinking about as the night unfolded, with the very notable exception of Emma Stone,

we have taken a lot of the guesswork and mystery out of the Oscar broadcast by doing Oscarsology. It's a little bit like the NFL draft, the NBA draft, or used to watch it and be like, whoa, where did that come from?

And now we have two months of content before the ceremony, just like we have two months of content before the draft. It's probably a good trade, but by the time the actual thing comes around, there's not a lot to be revealed or be surprised by it's true uh somehow it's different than sports i guess because you're not seeing the action play out right in front of you like you know you're not seeing the voting happen on national television with the Oscars it feels like if you listen to even just a handful of podcasts on the subject you've heard people muse about every

possible iteration of the awards and so no matter what happens there's not a shock. I mean, with, I'm sure there's, there could be, you know, there's some exception

and there have been in recent years, but like, you know, unless they read the best picture winner, if they read the wrong name for best picture winner, and then they have to fix that on the air, nothing will feel like a shock,

right? No. No. And like I said, it's probably, you know, if you love movies and love the business of Hollywood, you probably will trade too much.

months of, hey, do you see who won the Screen Actors Guild Award last night? Do you see who won the BAFTA for like three and a half hours of crazy television? But this changed the nature of the ceremony just slightly. I was also thinking about the Oscars as a content poll, as we mentioned here at the top of this segment. It's funny because we always talk about how, how is the academy, how are they going to fix the ceremony, how are they going to keep the ceremony from slipping into irrelevance, especially after it slipped into semi irrelevance there for a couple of years. And they have some agency here, right?

They have more best picture nominees now. They reconsidered who the voters of the academy should be, who should vote on these awards. The producers can do cool things like, let's bring out Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Davido. Magnificent stuff. Yeah, like, let's just do pure nostalgia and have Arnold Schwarzenegger say something like, we are here to appreciate the people who are overlooked so often in Hollywood, the editors.

The editors. I'm going to start saying that whenever I want to salute people like Connor Nevins at the ringer. We must pay more attention to the editors. So you can do all those things, but I was also thinking, like, some of whether the Academy Award ceremony is good is just pure luck of the draw. Right? Like, the Academy did not commission the movie Oppenheimer and did not get Christopher Nolan interested in making a handsome and excellent biopic.

Yeah, nor did they, you know, decide to release Barbie on the same day and create this. Barbie on the same day. Or I'll put it to this or have a big star in Barbie record a ridiculous but amazing song that he then could perform live on the Oscars broadcast, which became a moment that everybody wanted to see. So so much of it is, you know, it's like saying, you know, I wish Fox would make the World Series more interesting. They should have the Yankees in it more often. Well, yeah, you know, that would help. But some of what you get on TV is just what plays out. Yeah.

In the year. Final note, did you see the story that dropped right before the Oscars in variety about who wrote the movie The Holdovers? Yeah, I did. Of course. So, It's another one of these stories about like somebody raises their hand. In this case, it's a screenwriter with some actual credits and says, no, no, I wrote a screenplay that he said was forensically identical. Or he said, excuse me, the comparison is forensically identical between his screenplay and the holdovers and riddled with unique smoking guns. And I'm reading this whole story and variety, which is quite long. And I'm like, there are so many of these. I have no doubt that some percentage of these have a legitimate argument or a legitimate claim.

But as a journalist, the thing I want from you is to actually tell me whether this is a legitimate claim or not. Do the side by side. Yeah. Because if it's not, it's not really a story. If it is, it's a really interesting story. Well, if it's not, it's a story, but it's a different story, right? It's a different story. If there's no there there, then it's not.

really a story about plagiarism. It's a story about an accusation of plagiarism. And this whole like CIA client versus CIA client, you know, sort of interesting. Well, there's, it's more of a Hollywood story, you know? It's a Hollywood story. Yeah. And there was this thing here like Alexander Payne, I guess, read this script at some point and stuff like this. So there's stuff in here that was newsy. But you're right. Like, it's not, if you just, if you just Google the holdovers now, there's like 800 aggregated stories of like plagiarism. to the holdsovers. If nothing comes of it, or if you just do the side by side and it's not real, then that wasn't worth it to do that. That was not a good use of everyone's time

to do a story like that. All right. Speaking of using your time wisely, coming up on today's show, let's chase these Oscar reacts with some State of the Union reacts. Did Katie Britt's response remind you of a youth pastor? Plus, the Royals reached out and retouch someone, David, and is good morning football moving west? Yes, it is. What does that mean? All that and much more on the press box. A part of the ringer.

Podcast Network. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, and producer Brian Waters here with you. Speaking of carefully scrutinized speeches, we got to talk about Joe Biden's state of the union. What an old guy still got at watershed that was. and I know this because Peggy Noonan's column was titled State of the Union shows there's life in the old boy yet. You think this is all a rope-a-dope?

Or do you think they decided internally? I'm sorry to just go right into this, but that they would just, that the kind of campaign offensive would begin at the State of the Union. And they would just let everybody just take their swings until that moment in time. So that theory reminds me of the people who hopped in the mentions. of football writers when the Chiefs won the Super Bowl and said, hey, remember that podcast you recorded on week seven, how the Chiefs weren't playing well? Yeah. To which the football writer would respond.

Well, you know, they weren't playing well. Just because they won the Super Bowl doesn't mean I was wrong when they lost to the Broncos. Yeah. So no, I don't think there would be any upside for Joe Biden or rope doping his way to the state of the union, be like, surprise, ready for a vigorous campaign. But it is the case that, like, there's going to be what, do you think? Three moments this year where Joe Biden will have that kind of undivided attention from the American public?

State of the Union plus conventioning Chicago plus the debates if they happen. Well, I mean, another one would have, of course, been the Super Bowl halftime interview, which he declined to do, but I think that there is some, and I think that was probably pretty boneheaded of them to have him turned down that interview, but I think no matter what,

there's always going to be, you know, Obama would sit down with Bill O'Reilly and somehow it would come out that Obama was dodging questions or, you know, whatever. Like it would, it's easier, I think, to knock

anything that sort of pre-recorded, anything that's, that's, that's sort of, you know, some manufactured as a halftime interview. So, I don't know, maybe they just calculated it. that it wasn't worth it and that this was going to be the sort of, you know, debutante ball of this cycle of Joe Biden.

Joe Biden is being presented to the American public formally. Yeah. No, he is the current president of the United States. Well, I know. And there is something different right about this kind of speech and there is an interview. You're going to get to make your points. You're going to get to say them exactly how you want to say them. you're going to get to make him in order,

in an order you think will not only be an order of importance, but in order to kind of create an arc and help people follow along at home, explain your presidency. It was a very, very political speech. It's just about everybody noted. The Republicans in the chamber made a very curious decision. Like, we're going to trip Joe Biden up by heckling him or putting a button on the dais there

or wearing in Marjorie Taylor Green's case a MAGA hat. which was it played exactly into his hands because you can tell his campaign wants salty Uncle Joe to be a character in this campaign. Right? There's Joe Biden, the president and all the questions, upsides, downsides, that comes with that. But then there's this salty Uncle Joe that can sit out there and be like, oh, you don't like that bill? Oh, really? Oh, that immigration bill that you, Mr. Senator from Oklahoma helped negotiate?

And what a moment. Speaking of cutaway shots, that was when Biden's reeling off the various planks of the bill and Langford goes, that's true. That's true. That was even better than the Emma Stone lip read. If he can heckle back, it solves all kinds of problems for him. One, Marjorie Taylor Green and those people, what a great thing for him to run against. Great foil.

Yeah. Not just running against Donald Trump and whatever. your hazy memory of the Trump presidency is here are the people I'm running against. Here's what they're doing. And two, if you have any questions about me and what kind of campaign I'm going to conduct, hey. Yeah, I mean, really to the point, if you have any questions about my mental acuity, then, you know, being on the spot witty, I think takes care of a lot of that.

What a bad idea by the Republicans in the chamber to try to heckle him. Like, you realize he's sitting at the podium with a live microphone, right? Yeah. And no matter what you do, his words are going to be the ones people at home here. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, where somebody would come up and say, I hated your column. And you go, you got a problem. I've got a typewriter.

Yeah. Or the, or the Jimmy Kimmel Donald Trump thing. It's like, you're on true social. You realize he's hosting the Oscars on TV, right? Yeah. and he can make fun of you and you will still be on true social at the end of the day. Biden also addressed his age during the speech and then in a subsequent ad, let's hear a little bit of that ad. If you can see how Joe Biden is attacking the quote unquote age question.

Look, I'm not a young guy. That's no secret. But here's the deal. I understand how to get things done for the American people. I led the country through the COVID crisis. Today, we have the strongest economy in the world. world. I pass the law that lowers prescription drug prices. And on and on listing off his accomplishments. Pretty simple, but pretty effective. Super simple point, but I have heard repeatedly from all corners that Joe Biden needs to just lay out the good things he has done in his term as president, the things he has tried to do and failed because of Republican opposition and just make it really clear for everybody. because I think weirdly, well, I think in the modern era, voters are largely unaware of such things, you know, if there's been any pushback, if there's been any mischaracterization or recharacterization, you know, whatever. And I think it's true more than ever.

And so it's really, I think that you can't get more, you can't be too basic. You can't be too straightforward if you're the Biden campaign. Just say things straightforwardly over and over again. that when people, even if they take exception to it, they have to say the thing that you said. Completely agree. And it reminds me of the sort of point about how in today's social media world, we rarely see the thing itself. We hear about the thing. We read about the thing, but we don't go to the primary source sometimes. So there were a lot of people that's like, I haven't heard Joe Biden talk in a while. I've been reading a lot about how Joe Biden talks, listening to

podcast chuckleheads like you and I talk about how Joe Biden talks. And then they watched Joe Biden. I'm like, oh, okay. That's all the thing. I heard him lay out the issues. I heard him lay out his accomplishments. Yeah. Hmm.

Funny tweet from listener Matt Williams. Since Biden skipped the Super Bowl, does this speech count as a breaking of silence? Excellent point. I think it kind of does. Should we spend a moment on Katie Brits' state of the union response? I mean, there's a world in which this was the whole opening of the show. Thank God the Oscars intervene.

You mean the opening of the show like it was the opening of Saturday Night Live with Scarlett Johansson? Yeah. For those who did not stay around, here's 30 seconds or so of Katie Britt with her state of the union response. I have imagined what my story would entail to think about what the American dream can do across to just one generation. In just one lifetime, it's truly breathtaking. But right now, the American dream has turned into a nightmare for so many families. The true unvarnished state of our union begins and ends with this. I have imagined what my story would entail.

There are a lot of people on Twitter after the speech saying the affect was one they had remembered from a youth pastor in their lives or perhaps coming from somewhere in the religious parts of their background, I turned to official press box religion correspondent David Shoemaker for confirmation. Was that what we were saying here?

I can hear a little bit of that. I guess people probably went to all kinds of different churches, but it does feel a little bit more like a maybe a youth pastor at a mega church. It's like someone who is, and this is what we saw with Katie Brett, someone who's modulating

for being in front of a giant audience for the first time, right? Because everything was so slow and deliberate, you know, coached sort of, but like miscoached, obviously in this case. You know, I've definitely, like, help, not public speaking,

or whatever, but, you know, if you're going to give a presentation or, like, your kid's going to give a presentation in school or whatever, I definitely said things, just like, it is impossible for you to go too slow, right? Because you hear them do it, and you're just like, I know, okay, that's what slowed down means. Well, you still need to go slower. So just you say, it's impossible for you to go too slow. And then your worst nightmare is that they're just going to really take that to heart and sound like Katie Brett. Right. Yeah, no, wait, that is too slow. I'm running at 0.5 speed for this is like one of the most important moments of my life. Um, yeah, I guess there was some churchiness to it.

It did have that sort of like, uh, just foreboding, but like slightly uplifting lilt underneath all of the wording, even the sort of dire ones. Um, but yeah, I mean, to me, it just felt, it just felt alien, you know, in a world of AI creep, the last thing you want to feel like is that, something was just created by a robot, you know, and is missing it by, you know, there's like an uncount canny valley between that presentation and what it should have been like. She recounted an anecdote about sex trafficking that turns out to have occurred when George W. Bush was president.

My to be sure paragraph here, we should have. By the way, Jonathan Katz, who's a great writer, was the source of, that investigation. So I just want to give him a shout out. We should. And that was a fascinating journalism moment because he did it on TikTok. He did it incredibly quickly. He managed to fact check her speech somehow before any of the professional fact

checking class got around to it. Yeah. And put it up immediately. And interestingly, it was mostly Google research and seemed to do it before just most of anyone else in the world did it, which you would think a lot of people would be doing that in real time. that's sort of the world we live in. But it shows fact-checking is still an incredibly important art.

I was going to say that if we have a feature on this podcast called To Be Sure, like modeled after the To Be Sure paragraphs and lots of news articles you read, these are really hard to do these responses. Yeah. It also feels like the president has just uncorked 80 minutes of content. And what you want is not another can speech that kind of sort of response. to the president, but actually addressing the things that he's just said if you're the opposition. Yeah.

He just said this. Here's our side's argument about why that's not true or why he's, you know, portraying that in a false light. That's what you want. But what you're getting is a response speech that is also very, very pre-written. Yeah. So it is by definition not exactly responsive to what we just watched. How did you feel about the kitchen as opposed to a, you know, more traditional blue curtain with flags in front of it backdrop and podium sort of thing.

Beyond the baggage that putting a senator in the kitchen hand, which a lot of people noted on Twitter, I just thought it was a really bad background. Yeah. It just felt it didn't accomplish. I think they were going for normalcy and, you know, something other than podiums and flags. And it just felt very odd to me. Yeah, it did.

It felt like she was an. an empty house, which I guess she wasn't. She seems to have been photographed in that same empty kitchen before. But it did, it felt, yeah, it sort of loses the, it loses some of the punch when it feels like you just like, you know, went to a

new development and rented out a house for the evening. It was lit, weirdly, was lit like an empty house. But it is not, apparently, an empty house. All right, coming up in 30 seconds, the royals put out a photo of the Princess of Wales that cleared up lots of conspiracy theories. Oh,

Oh, wait. It inspired many, many more. But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week, David, 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. This week's winner comes to us from alert listener Tim Sim. It is about the British Royals photo scandal. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write. I had a great first week in my new job is the official photographer for Kensington Palace. Now time to take a big sip of coffee and see what Twitter is saying about my work. We would have also accepted, did a little Photoshop job on Fiverr over the weekend and just got an email saying, I'm going to be beheaded.

Any lawyers out here? You perfectly segueed into our next segment. Congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, in the notebooked up, I want to talk to you about the Royals photo scandal. The background here is the Princess of Wales, aka Kate Middleton,

had abdominal surgery in January. She was in the hospital for almost two weeks. And then effectively, she vanished. There's been one TMZ photo of her in a car, but otherwise, there had been no pictures of her since January. Kensington Palace doesn't comment on many things. They commented a couple of times to reassure the public that she was doing okay. she might imagine a lot of conspiracy theories,

like anything you could imagine being said about Kate Middleton and the Royals was said the last two months. And then on Sunday, which was Mother's Day in the UK, as you might know from British people mentioning it after they won Oscars, an Instagram post went up

with Kate Middleton and her three kids. And immediately our junior photo editors on Twitter started finding weird things. Sleeve looked weird on her daughter. The tile they were standing on looked weird. And I have never seen this happen. It seems like it is extremely rare. But on Sunday for the Oscar ceremony, the AP, Reuters and Getty all pulled the image. They had sent the image out to their to their clients, to their subscribers, and they pulled

it. And the AP said at closer inspection, it appears that the source has manipulated the image. So confused. So confused. So if you're trying to head off conspiracy theories by providing a photo, then you provide a photo that the AP is no longer comfortable

sending around because it's been toyed with. And then we got this Monday morning before we started recording here. Kate Middleton on Twitter, quote, like many amateur photographers, is I do occasionally experiment with editing. I want to express my apologies for any confusion. The family photographed we shared yesterday caused.

I hope everyone's celebrating had a very happy Mother's Day. That's so weird. First of all, I'm not to, I don't object to them pulling the photo, but they've definitely run a lot of edited photos before. So this is the thing. They almost certainly have, but they do have rules about this, where you can only do certain things to manipulate an image.

I don't even, there was, I was reading something that I can't give you a reference here right now, but I don't even think you're allowed to like take off the red eye on an AP image. It has to be 90 whatever percent the image. Specifically for like their wire photos, I guess. Photos that they distribute because they are vouching for that photo, right? This is from the AP. This is the real thing.

Huh. It did seems it. It did seem again, who knows what's actually happening here, but it did seem like a very dramatic announcement to do that, like that they were actually advocating that something terrible had happened. Yeah. There are many, many theories out there. There's a Vogue theory that her face was on the cover of Vogue and this is the same face.

I don't know. I've sort of lost track here. I don't want to totally go down the conspiracy rabbit hole. But I will point people, if you're interested in this, There is a really good piece from Neiman Lab about royals reporting, if you want the press angle on this whole thing. I read this over the weekend. I don't know much about this world.

It's by Ellie Hall who covered the Royals for BuzzFeed News. She was the official royal correspondent for BuzzFeed News and talks about how the Royals distribute information and also withhold information. She says in this interestingly, instead of going on the record, royal press offices will give briefings and in some situations provide information to a core group of royals reporters with the caveat that these reporters won't say the information came from an official spokesperson phrases like quote this reporter understands or quote this news outlet

can confirm are very common in stories about the royal family we need a lot of more this reporter understands here in america but anyway I encourage people to read that. That's the world I did not know much about, and I learned a ton from that piece. We probably should have, by the way, reference the Royals Reporter beat, especially the American Royals reporter beat when we were trying to parse the advent of the Taylor Swift correspondent beat when that, you know, dedicated T. Swift reporter things started happening. I bet there's, I bet you could probably find a lot of similarities there. Not a lot of information. no development in public or any kind of photo is too small to report.

P piecing together things based on lots of clues. Yeah, and just general reliance on primary sources that are, you know, that have a very specific point of view. Last big topic for you, David. Good morning football. Yeah. Morning show on the NFL network. Peter Schrager.

Kyle Brandt, Nate Burleson was on there and used it as a launch pad, Kay Adams as well, Jamie Erdall and Jason McCordy, or the other two cast members now. It is moving. Here is Kyle Brandt on the show last week talking about what's going to happen to Good Morning Football. News about the program yesterday with just a dash of internet confusion, just a little doll up on top.

The news is that Good Morning Football is moving before the 2020. season around training camp. Good Morning Football goes west, like Fival, going to California several months from now. But contrary to some oddly worded tweets and ensuing confusion, good morning football is not ending. Good Morning Football, the show, the brand, is going to continue for a very long time. It's expanding. More, bigger, brighter. You don't end things that just passed 1800 episodes. You don't end things that have a trophy on the shelf that literally says best show and you don't end things that elicit the kind of reactions that were coming out yesterday when people are a little confused and tweeting things like you're the only thing

that gets me through my mornings and how am I supposed to start my day you start it with us so I like a good fival goes west reference as much as the next guy mm-hmm but that sure did leave a lot of questions unanswered I'm so confused first of all I love good morning football I'm a big fan of the show the personalities on the show I mean I just it's it's always it's always uh it's always in the queue over here

um it feels like I understood the initial confusion why was the why do we know the answers to what's happening are they all just moving to the west I mean it made a lot of sense when I first heard it it's just like okay well you go to LA you can probably get better guests and you know I mean those sorts of things always

these sorts of considerations always happen despite the fact that like moving coasts always seems like a weird pre-death-nell for just about every show. But I still don't understand why that explanation was so vague. So I think part of the explanation here is we've seen and perhaps even talked about on the podcast, some of the belt tightening at the NFL network over the last couple years in NFL media in particular. That show is filmed in New York.

NFL Network is based here in Los Angeles. They have a big studio right next to SoFi Stadium. So what happens is to do that show in New York, I think it's at S&Y Studios, you have to pay for the studio. Produced by Michael Davies and Embassy Row and that whole outfit, as opposed to being produced by NFL network people in Los Angeles. So I think part of this decision comes down to if you're trying to save money, we know that every media company on Earth is trying to save money.

right now. They look around and they point at the thing. And they go, oh, what if that were in Los Angeles? Yeah. And it were produced by us, the NFL network, rather than somebody else. Uh-huh. And produced in our studios rather than a studio we rent. I think that's part of it.

The talent question is fascinating to me. And I think it remains largely TBD of what's going to happen to everybody. You know, does everybody, want to come west. Does everybody come out west? Do people physically come out west or do the show in some kind of Zoom kind of thing? That's a huge question. They've got to figure out.

They mentioned the hiatus here. So the show is going to go on hiatus March 29th and come back in the summer sometime, which is a really long time to be off the air. Yes. I mean, can you imagine if like any ringer podcast went silent for four or five months? What kind of Reddit threads we'd get in that event? And now you're talking about a daily football television show that is going away.

Yeah, this is not just in season. It's on all the time. No, and the draft happens in that window as a bunch of people pointed out. The other part of this was interesting is, and you heard Brandt referred to it there, it's getting bigger, but it's getting bigger because Michael Davies, the aforementioned, is doing what he is what he's calling a syndicated show. So they're going to be on the air like they are now for a couple of hours from Los Angeles. And then he's going to do presumably with the same cast, though I don't totally know that,

a syndicated show that will not air on NFL network, but that will go out to, I don't know who. And I kept reading that word and all the stories. Syndicated version of Good Morning Football? Yes, or a syndicated extension of Good Morning Football, like two additional hours is what this is being billed at. I do not totally know what syndicated means in 2024. That is a word that I encountered back in the days of WWF superstars. Yes. I don't know where that would air.

Not saying it would air nowhere, but I don't totally understand where that would air. so that part is and remains pretty mysterious to me. But that's about where we are in terms of the show. Wow, it's like a mystery. I thought you were going to answer this question for me. I think the thing about it is that it's, the NFL networks invest in Good Morning Football. There will be a show called Good Morning Football in the morning.

Yeah, but it's not, I mean, listen, I don't want to be too precious about it. But this show, like so many that have come before it, is a it's successful in large part because it feels like a sort of pirate ship, right? I mean, that it's just sort of, it's a, they're just sort of unlikely hosts

sort of doing their own thing, you know? I mean, and, and that's not to say that they couldn't succeed wildly within the confines of, of, you know, the NFL production offices or whatever, but it does feel like just a show called Good Morning Football is not

there's I mean the show the show without this specific the specific contents of this show the people involved, the producers, everybody. It just seems it's a total, it's not the same show. Like what's the point? Is it they think the branding was so good? Or do they think like the show itself is what's working? Well, I would think all of it, all of the above. But look, there's going to be some work probably to make sure, you know, like I said, work to be done to figure out there's a talent, right? Do you get all four people to come to Los Angeles? If so, great, great news, right? But there's probably a scenario where one or more people wouldn't come to New York for whatever, or we'll come west to Los Angeles, like Fival before them. And then you got to figure that out. Like, what is the show, right? Yeah. I think that's a totally fair question. But that's, I think,

where the board is. And it's a little inconclusive because I don't think we know the answers to those questions. But it's weird that they would just go ahead, just cancel the show for four months or whatever, with all these balls still in the air. I guess that's what's odd to me. I can understand like, oh, we know we're going to have to move in some window, like physically move talent before the season starts. But, I mean, if you were going to fire everybody, not to, which there's no indication that they are, why would you not? We'll let them just keep broadcasting all offseason. It's all, it's all very odd. I think, if you start with the economic stuff, Right. This is the world we live in right now.

Oh yeah. That's not surprising at all. And if that were the whole story, I would totally buy it. I would understand it, not just buy it. And understand it. All right. Do we want to spend two seconds on Deadspin being sold, new Deadspin being sold right before we came on air? I'm not sure that this is really counts as news and it's incredibly sad to be saying that out loud. But sure, let's do it. Well, it's weird because the old media carnage we're used to was, here's this beloved publication, this thing we all love being sold or being mauled and manipulated in some way. And now it's like, here's the second generation of the thing we loved.

Yes. Being mauled or manipulated in some way. I feel like we had the same conversation about Sports Illustrated. Anyway, according to Sarah Fisher of Axios, it was sold to a European firm called lineup publishing. And this line from the memo from CEO Jim Spanfeller

stood out to me. While the new owners planned to be reverential to Deadspin's unique voice, what in the world does that mean here in 2024? Deadspins unique voice.

And anyway, they are not going to bring any of the staff over to new, new Deadspin. Holy Michael. Media piss test for you, David. Mark Robinson is the new GOP gubernatorial nominee in North Carolina.

Donald Trump loves him. How does he love him? Well, this is how he loved him. Oh, man. But you know, I heard him coming in on the plane. I was listening and I said to the people in the plane, watch this. This is Martin Luther King on steroids. Okay. Now, a review of Mark Robinson's past statements reveal that he is not, in fact, Martin Luther King on steroids. Thanks to Daniel P. Maloy, Chris Olson, and Andy Cliver for sending that along. Oh, my God. Never heard this one before in all of the press conferences we've watched over the years,

but Kyle Madsen and Daryl Dawson note that this first question, I guess this was the opening question of a press conference with Utah State basketball coach, Kayla Ard, went in a very, very interesting direction. And how do you plan to rebuild for next season? I'm not going to be rebuilding. I just coached my last game at Utah State. I spoke with Diana, and they're going in a different direction, and I respect her decision,

and I hope they get a really good coach in. I'm assuming that's going to be the last question. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Coach. There's a controversy in sports media, whether you should call a coach coach, a boy, that had an extra poignancy

when you've just been told the coach has been relieved of a job. Yeah. McRole. Only in journalism this week. This comes from Vince Tuss. friend of this podcast. It's from the New Yorker profile of Joe Biden. That posture was

Ecked Biden. E-C-H-T. Oh, yeah. I can't answer that correctly. Ect Biden? I don't know how to pronounce it, which means you're right. It's definitely only in journalism. It's an only in New Yorker work, really.

Also, Joseph Dorowski sends this. And only in journalism phrase, the report of any crime, that any crime rocked a sleepy suburb or sent, shockwaves through a sleepy suburb. That's an excellent one. Thank you, Joseph and Vince, for those. All right, it's time for a feature that rocks.

Every single listener of this podcast. It's time for David Shoemaker guesses the strained pun headline. Yeah. Last Monday's headline about a vehicle to bring you your Amazon packages was a small step for van, a giant leap for vanskind. It was really good. Today's headline comes to us from Neil. So in the verge, David, it is talking about the article that is in the verge is talking about

the Apple car, or I guess I should say the abandoned Apple car. Apple's long rumored driverless car project, also known as Project Titan has been shuttered. Okay, Project Titan is no more. What was the Verge's strain pun headline? Isn't there like a Titan has fallen? Titan is, uh, remember, the Titan. Oh, that is very good and could have been it, but alas. What is it? Titan AI, Titan. Clash of the, uh, rehash of the Titan. Wait, what'd you say? It's like Clash of the Titans,

but it's a, it's a driverless car, so it's not Clash of the Titans, right, right, right. Crash of the Titan, right. Crash of the Titan is correct. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis, production magic by Brian Waters. Coming up Thursday, the Washington Post. Kara Vote is going to be on the show. We're going to talk about the new Mac series, The Girls on the Bus, which is about campaign reporters. Cannot wait to talk to Kara, cannot wait to talk about that show. Then I announced this last Thursday, I want to announce it again. The Democratic National Conventions in Chicago from August 19th to 22nd. I will very likely be there. I would love to do a live podcast recording and or meetup with press box listeners.

If you're in Chicago land, DM me at the press box pod or email me, Brian.curtis at the ringer.com. Send me your contact info and I will put you on the exclusive guest list. Ooh. Which will probably not be all that exclusive, but please send me an email anyway. We'd love to see all of you. And then Monday, Shoemaker and I return with more lukewarm takes about the media.

See you then, David. See you later, Brian.