The Press Box - Our Media Apocalypse, NFL Championship Game TV Notes, and the Feel-Bad Presidential Election

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Bryan and David begin the episode discussing cuts that major publications have been making over the last two weeks, and what it means for the future of journalism (0:37). Then, they discuss the fun sounds from both the AFC and NFC championship games, including Phil Simms being the voice of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s on-field celebration (19:11). Later, they discuss the creative ways that political writers are describing the upcoming election (47:57). 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

Galaxy lights, Coachella, Lightning Bolt necklaces. Did you catch all the Scandival clues? Last March, one cheating scandal launched a reality TV investigation that generated hundreds of conspiracy theories, thousands of podcast episodes, and millions of dollars in revenue. I'm Jody Walker, host of an American Scandival. Ahead of the Vanderpump Rules premiere, relive the pop culture phenomenon that rocked a reality Nation starting January 23rd on Ring or Dish. David?

Yes. We got to begin by talking about what has happened to our profession over the last two weeks. Yeah. I don't think there's anything else to talk about. And rather than having a conversation on a 30,000 foot, here's what went wrong level. I'd love to have it on a human level. Yeah. And as a journalistic human, let me just begin by saying,

what's happening to our business, this business we love is fucking horrible. Yep. And in addition to that, it is fucking terrifying. Yeah. Just in the last two weeks, cuts at the LA Times, the Washington Post,

Sports Illustrated, business insider, Kande Nast coming. I mean, could go on and on and on. I mean, we've seen a lot of bad journalism news in our time. Yeah. We've never seen anything like this in a concentrated period. No.

I mean, you see in other fields where, like, somebody will, like in the tech industry, for instance, somebody, you know, Google makes cuts 11% of their workforce. and suddenly all these other tech giants are like, yeah, 11% is just what I was thinking. And there's a sort of domino effect. And it does feel like there's a little bit of a domino effect going on now, although these are much smaller enterprises and one would presume operating. I mean, they're not just looking for excuses to cut the staff, the head count. But in some cases, it feels like there's not much of another explanation.

I thought we could outline some of the particular ways this moment is horrible and terrifying. And the first one of those is that there are so many causes of what's happening right now. Taking a deep breath, and this is a necessarily partial list, there is the Internet. It seems pretty fundamental. There are unreliable billionaires, management mistakes, digital advertising. politicians making the media radioactive, the New York Times gobbling up all the subscriptions for itself. Out in Global Capital,

I saw Jay Rosen tweeting about this lack of relationship between journalists and the public that was once formed at the local level, we could go on and on. But sitting here at a desk, I think, you know, if it were one challenge to this industry, we could all join hands say, okay, let's do that. Let's figure a way out of this.

Or if there were one villain that you and I could point out and say, that's the person who is doing this to us. Yeah. That is the bad person here. But we can't do that. There are so many different things happening at once that it almost makes you feel even more helpless. Sure.

Helpless. I mean, I think helpless is the right word. You know, I mean, it's, there's so many things going on. I, I, I, you know, part of me wants to zoom out and say, I mean, you take a look at the whole thing and, and, you know, the, it's almost like journalism as a whole is, is, is, um, just a victim of the structure of our economy, you know, I mean, like you can, there's small scale successes and, some substack and you know i mean you can point at things like like defector and you know there's you know there's a lot of a lot of smaller scale startups that they're finding a ways to make it work but um traditional journalism doesn't fit into i mean you see this most kind of most clearly when a when a hedge fund buys a newspaper group or whatever we've seen this so many times it doesn't but but it

even in smaller scale instances, just traditional journalism doesn't fit neatly into our mass economy. And it's, you know, ridiculous to expect the staff of the LA Times to, you know, all walk out and start their own website or something. But that might be, in some sense, the only path forward. If there, if the financial side of journalism is going to be left up to the, I don't want to say whims, but to the decision making of sort of larger corporate. entities that aren't okay with breaking even, you know, and certainly aren't dedicated to the mission. Well, and the only cold water I'd pour on that is we've seen some of the, hey, let's start her own website. Let's make it a nonprofit. Yeah, it doesn't always work. It doesn't always work.

Sometimes the layoffs come there too. I was struck by the story I saw in the New York Times about Patrick soon, Sean, who is basically the rich guy who owns the LA Times. And the rich guy that people hope could save the LA Times. Sunshang allegedly, and he denies this, but allegedly involved himself in an LA Times story that was being reported about another wealthy person that Sunshang knows whose dog was accused of biting somebody at a park. And this was one of the events that preceded the resignation of Kevin Merida,

the editor of the LA Times. You know, when you and I talk about politics and we're like some, you know, at some point in the future, someone is going to be reading a book about this or perhaps be listening to a long form podcast about this and there'll be that incident that is so ridiculous they'll be like that couldn't have happened could it?

I'm like, oh my God, we got it now. The LA Times this formerly great newspaper is teetering on the brink and we are talking about a story of a dog bite. Yeah. I mean, let me suggest the headline Dogbite's newspaper.

Yeah. Or if that doesn't work, David, democracy dies in barkness. Oh, that's way better. There you. In case you need something. Yeah. History 10 years ago. I mean, listen, not for nothing.

The long-form podcast angle, and that obviously could be a piece of all these media empires that are, UrschwaMedia empire, the ones that are, you know, laying people off now. But that's taking a big bite out of it, too. I mean, long form is, and, you know, quote unquote, serious journalism, in-depth journalism has long been the playground of newspapers and the kind of journalistic establishment. And a lot of people are spending their time elsewhere now. And, I mean, that's just the latest iteration of the internet, as you spoke about it before. So that brings me to my next point.

And another specific feature of this era and specifically the last two weeks is that if you are. a journalist at a place like the LA Times and you're already competing with everything else. Everything that's free, you know, social media, podcasts, everything. You're trying to get people to subscribe to your website. Think of the sale you were trying to make right now. Because I saw LA Times writers being like, hey, if you're mad at what's happening here, don't cancel your subscription. We need you to keep your subscription.

In fact, we need lots more people like you to subscribe to the A times. Because that's the only way it's going to work. But dude, think about that. The sale you're trying to make, you're like, our bosses have laid off one third of our newsroom in the last year. This product is inferior to what it was a year ago. Now, please pay for it as opposed to listening to that free podcast that you like listening

to. Yeah. Pay us to do journalism. Like, that's, you are hawking a product your boss is made worse. but that's the only way it works, right? It doesn't work. If everybody's like, I hate what's happening at the L.A. Times cancel, it's going to get worse. Yep.

Yeah. So that's another position journalists find themselves in. Also, this idea that is haunting the profession right now is that we don't know if it's coming back, at least in the same form. You and I remember 2008, that was a horrible year for media, broadly, define with the recession. There's always a sense of the recession will end someday. We may not bounce all the way back, but things will stabilize. Yeah. Here. Now every time I read a story, it ends with the owner of the publication saying, we have a plan. Yeah. We have a plan to fix all

those things we talked about a second ago. Do you have a plan? What's the plan? Is the plan fixing 19 things at once and repairing a publication that was broken way before the last two weeks or way before the last year. And us at our desks looking at this and being like, these are the people that are going to save us?

This is the plan? Dude. I mean, that is scary and depressing and equal measures. Yeah, no. I mean, the plan just seems to be to cut down to what they see as an acceptable level.

in terms of salary and then see how it shakes out, figure it out from there, you know? Yeah. Which is not a plan. Fix the problem. See if the problem shakes itself out. It's not. We already know that. We got some small indignities too.

I saw this on the Twitter account of Brian Merchant, who was a tech columnist at the L.A. Times, who lost a job in the recent cuts. He opens a package at home. he thinks it's part of his severance package, or at least some forms about his severance package. He opens it up, and it is a certificate from the LA Times. A certificate. He compares it to a certificate in first grade of the student of the month award. It has his name.

I'm not making this up. And it says, with immense gratitude, we acknowledge your commitment to the Los Angeles Times. not sent an error before i mean this wasn't like supposed to be something that went to continuous employees this was literally the see you later this was apparently the see you later you lost your job in media but the least we can do is send you a certificate literally the least we can do thanking you for all the excellent work you did before we eliminated your position i was also struck by this there have been lots of media layoffs during your career in my career and And whenever they would happen, journalists would tell themselves a lie.

And I know this because people would text it to me. And the lie went like this. I didn't get laid off this time around. And the reason I didn't get laid off is that I'm good. I'm really, really good. And you and I both know that is self-serving bullshit. But that is a lie journalists could tell themselves previously. Yeah, I mean, it's a lie that many normal humans,

would tell themselves, right? You have to rationalize this sort of stuff. Sure. Sure, right? And the fact that I'm good at my job is going to save me from the forces that are preying on the industry. After the last two weeks, is any reporter still telling themselves that? I'm sure there's some, but no. I mean, isn't the realization that has come over every reporter, even some who might have indulged in that, that if you are a journalist and you still have a job right now, it's because you're lucky. Yep. It just is, dude. You and I were lucky enough. to get a call from Simmons in 2011. And then we were lucky enough to get another call from Simmons in 2016 when the ringer started.

We both work hard and try to do as good a job as we can. But we're lucky. Yeah. That's the reason. And I don't know if you follow this Jeff Perlman discourse because, of course, in the midst of this horrific story for journalism, we had, we paused to have a discourse about Jeff Pearlman. Basically, he was doing my advice to young journalists. And offers some very basic advice that you and I heard in many forms once upon a time,

which is work hard, make yourself indispensable, do things your bosses, don't even ask you to do, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In this case, start a podcast, do this, start a stub stack and direct readers back to your work and all this stuff. And people got really, really angry because they said, what if I did all that? What if I did all that extra work for my employers and it didn't matter? That's what's happening right now. Yeah.

What if it doesn't matter? And the young journalists are in some sense one of the biggest concerns from a really macro perspective, right? Because if someplace shuts down, even if everybody gets buyouts or gets, you know, good severance, it's the young journalists who are just going to walk away from the business, right? I mean, if you're 25 and this is all you ever wanted to do, but now you see how dire it is, I mean, you could look all around, you know, it's a terrible situation to be in, but you have plenty of time to reset, you know, in a way that the older generation doesn't. So, yeah, I mean, I think that there's a lot of concern and the reaction to that problem in peace was in some ways really warranted. it's interesting because I saw Jack Schaefer mentioned this in his column on Saturday, I think it was.

It is really hard to tell how many young people are going to look at this business. Either people that have already gotten in and dip their toes in it have their first couple of jobs or people that are in college or people that had an instinct to write and be in this world more broadly like you and I did before, you know, even we got to college. Yeah. They're going to look at this and be like, I don't think so. Yeah, I mean, if you're 16 and you have an exceptional creative mind or the best writer in your class or something like that, I mean, how many people are going to say, you know, you should write for the newspaper? You know? I mean, actually probably a substantial set of the people like above the age of 40 would say that because they, you know, think of writing and they think of a newspaper. But in terms of good advice, would anybody steer you in that direction?

I'm Sullen Trump, and I had this discussion on Thursday, like, what do you tell somebody that tells you they want to get in the media business? And there will be people that are like, I'm just a journalist. This is what I am. I have to do this. Now, maybe in a different form in 10 or 20 years, but this is what I have to do. But there's going to be a whole lot of people that we also want in the journalism business who do not, you know, arrive at their first day at college at age 18 with that kind of certitude. Who are going to be excellent journalists. Yep.

Really, really good people, right? and people we want in the profession who are writing and competing for jobs and all that stuff. We don't want them to just be like, eh. I mean, every business has its boom periods when they're sort of casting a really wide net, right? Where you're getting all kinds of really talented, bright people who are there because it sounded cool,

not just because it's something they always dreamed of doing or something their parents told them they should do. And that's certainly not where we are right now. no and where publications could take chances and be like let's hire this person and figure out what they do later yep or let's hire this person and let them learn the business because we think they're going to turn into something really amazing in three or four years when they've had some time to learn like you and I were lucky enough to anyway just to put a caper on it I just think you and I will probably make the big think case about what's happening now over the next few weeks

and come at this from all kinds of angles and stuff like that. And I think it's worth having that discussion. But there is also just a good time or this is a good time, I think, to remind people. What has happened over the last two weeks is horrible in a particularly human way. Tons of people have lost their jobs. They don't know if they'll ever get that job back, which might not have exactly been their dream job to begin with. There are financial consequences to that. and there is also just enormous consequences to their sense of self, for lack of a better term.

Like we were saying, I'm a journalist. This is the business I have chosen. This is the business I want to do. Is there still a spot for me in it? And the answer from the industry is a big shrug. Yeah. We don't know. We really don't know.

All right, David, deep breath. Coming up on today's show, let's do some audio and observations from Sundays. conference championship games. I want to talk to you about Greg Olson, Tony Romo, and dated cultural references. Plus, does Doc Rivers leaving ESPN have, as they like to say in the NBA, some upside?

There was a race on to describe just how dismal and awful this presidential election will be. We will check in on that. And finally, the death of the obituary. All that and much more on the press box. A part of the ringer podcast network. Hello, media consumers. Brian Curtis, David Shoebaker, and a very somber producer, Brian Waters here.

Sorry about the Ravens, Brian. David, let's start with some Sunday TV notes. First of all, we had one of the best pregame content windows in football history yesterday. Cadarius Tony, the Chiefs wide receivers said they were lying about his injuries. On Instagram, he wasn't an active for the game. And then there was that video of Travis Kelsey messing with Ravens kick. Justin Tucker, like taking his practice team and throwing it aside so that he and Mahomes could warm up, just messing with him. That was more interesting than anything that happened on

the official NFL pregame shows. Yeah. Just some amazing stuff. AFC title game was up first, Kansas City 17, Baltimore 10. It's on CBS with Jim Nance and Tony Romo on the call and Tracy Wolfson and Evan Washburn on the sidelines. I want to ask you about pop culture reference expiration dates. Okay. Because we had the announcers mentioned the 1970s version of the movie, The Longest Yard, and also Rocky 3, which came out in 1982. Where should we draw the line if we want to reference a movie during a football game?

Well, it's tempting to say they don't make them like they used to. but like you implied, there was a remake of the longest yard. I don't know. I feel like Rocky 3 is a little bit sacred, right? I mean, we're not going to have any more. At least here at the rigor. Scrappy Philadelphia versus Russian super soldier movies

that we can really compare things to. But yeah, yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe they should make a rule where it's like, like, you know, some movie podcasts have a thing where they only do movies that are available for streaming on some major platform, right?

When they do throwbacks, maybe that should be the NFL's rule. Make sure that whatever you reference is in like the top 10 on Spotify, I mean, on Netflix right now. So when they're doing show prep, Nancy Romo could just look at the Netflix homepage. Yeah, exactly. And be like, okay, bright, we can reference that.

Yeah. And reference this random 90s movie that somehow climbed into the top 10 this one. Yeah, what's better referencing the longest yard or referencing like, fooled me once, the latest British Harlan Coven thriller from Netflix? I don't actually know what the answer is. I don't either. And of course, here at the Ringer, we have carveouts of both the original longest yard

and the Rocky movies. Yes. So playing by different rules. Had a big Twitter discussion, as you might imagine, about Tony Romo. Yeah. This was the quote that got referenced the most. Lamar Jackson, Ravens QB, had just gotten the ball. stripped by Charles and Menehu.

The Chiefs recovered. It's a big moment in the game or seemingly a big moment. And here was Tony Romo talking about ball security. And that ball is out. Chief's ball in games like this, the ball matters more than any game. Chiefs set up inside the 40th.

The ball matters more than... Nancy's reaction was almost the worst part of that. Because when you're with somebody who says something in A and you expect the person next to them to say what do you mean? Like explain that? And he just like went on. As if Romo's just like a rambling

old grandpa or something who like no one even asked to clarify. I talked to a play by play announcer about this once. What happens when your partner makes a mistake on the air? Yeah. Or just kind of has a little verbal miscue like Romo did there. And they almost never

correct it. That's the rule. Unless it's something like the down is wrong and it would just like somebody watching would misunderstand what was about to happen, you don't acknowledge it at all. You just like, never mind. Yeah, of course. That make, I mean, I understand the logic there. But this, that was just such a weird statement that I would have liked to hear him explain. It seemed like there was like a, like a kernel of truth underneath everything there, right? Or at least of, that it would, there was a, he was thinking of something. But no, we just move on.

my eyebrows kind of went up, but I knew what he was talking about. Yeah. Ball security. It's important in the playoffs. This is the point we like to make during playoff games, especially after a turnover. I say this is one of America's foremost Romologists. I thought Tony Romo had a pretty good game on Sunday. Really?

And I thought he had a pretty good game the week before when the Chiefs played the bills. If you listen to his points that he made about the offense, they were good. Yeah, the Chief Spills game especially. I mean, yesterday maybe my memory is clouded by the discourse. But yeah, I mean, there's, he's definitely never as bad as people say he is. And in some points, especially it seems like in the past few weeks he can be pretty transcendent. so this this the discourse has come around an interesting way from romo is the golden god who is better than anything you know better than john madden ever was then people started poking at him

and poking at him all of which is very valid and i agreed with and finding holes in his game and somehow we've come around to tony romo is an absolute train wreck of an announcer yeah there's not middle ground yeah he's certainly not he's not he does get nervous late in games which romo the quarterback did also when he was playing for the Cowboys. He had a moment yesterday where he started a direct address to Lamar Jackson. He said, if Casey doesn't come after you, you can use your legs, Lamar. Yeah. I don't know that he can hear you in his headset, Tony right now.

But he is, the thing is, he does make good points. He's got holes in his game, I think, especially when he's talking about line play and stuff like that. He just is not interested in that at all. He is interested in quarterbacks number one, in receivers and dbs, kind of, but almost totally in quarterbacks. But in terms of like scheme and the way offenses lay out and the way a quarterback reads the field, he's really good. Yeah. And more importantly than any of that dude, he's got a really good sense of television.

He's very, very human, which announcers often have a problem being human. Yeah, for sure. So I might rank him number four among the big four. NFL announcers. But show me an analyst that you'd rather have other than those three guys than Tony Romo. Really? Martin Romo is good at TV.

He's a top guy, as I say in wrestling. Well, yes. And I agree about Romo. Of course, but when you compare it to the other people out there, I mean, it's a big world, right? Presumably there's better people out there. But, you know, there's, what is the pipeline

is pretty clogged? Let's talk about that in one second when we get to Greg Olson and Tom Brady. All right. In the next game. Romo and Nance before the half, we're talking about Patrick Mahomes playing with a chip on his shoulder. Wanting to prove all the doubters wrong in this game. This is two-time Super Bowl champion Patrick Mahomes. Uh-huh.

Two-time Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes, who we are now reminded has been to a Super Bowl four out of the last five years. Yeah. I have a theory about this. You know I love to talk about the doubters. and the haters, how even the elite athletes are in constant battle against them. Don't we think that when gambling became a bigger deal and people were talking about point spreads all the time, that this made the doubters storyline even more accessible? Oh, I like this argument. Go on.

Because Mahomes could just be like, hey, I looked at the line and they favored the Ravens. Yeah. And people ask them about this kind of stuff. they're like, you know, what do you think about the Ravens being favored? You're like, I don't know how to tell you this, but in every NFL game, there is one team that's a favorite and one team that's an underdog. And being an underdog on the road to the number one team in the AFC doesn't seem like that big a deal to me. Yeah. And by the way, I think they're early underdogs in the Super Bowl too.

Sorry, spoiler alert if you're listening to Bill and Sal this morning, you haven't listened to them yet. But the fact that we talk about that all the time now is yet another day to. a point for the doubter storyline. Yeah, for sure. Doubted us. Four and a half point dogs on the road, no respect. You disrespected us. It's like, well, that's not exactly how gambling lines work, but okay.

Yeah. We had a lot of Taylor Swift content. CBS went with a still shot of her while they were doing a promo for the Grammys. Oh, my gosh. Did you catch this? Yeah, I did. and there was a debate about what she said. People thought she said, go away, please,

because she was looking at a picture of herself on television while CBS was taking the shot. And then there were some other people that said, no, she didn't say that. After the Chiefs won, she went down to the field, big kiss and a big hug for Travis Kelsey. And if there's anyone, David, that I want to be the voice of sports intimacy,

it is CBS's Phil Sims. It's a job. No turnovers by. Kansas City. They got 66 yards in total offense until that play against Marquez Valdez Scaleland as you, Travis Kelsey. Hey, Taylor Swift.

To the victors go everything. Hey, hey, Phil, life is good, huh? Yeah, life is good. It is, but I'll say this. The two things I love there, the pregame show overlap. Yeah, of course. Nothing could be mildly funny

on a pregame show. It's always hilarious. And two, Phil really trying to pivot to his next sports point. Just the most famous entertainer in the world, kiss her boyfriend on television. But I've got a point about the Ravens. I need to get in here. Yeah, exactly.

So nice. Maybe we should just let this play. Anybody who thinks they're showing Taylor Swift too much, please note that Phil Sims was pivoting to a sports point. Rather than showing her reunite with Travis Kelsey on the field. We had a referee from the game whose voice was cracking like a 13 year old boy. God, this was hard to watch.

Listen to Sean Smith calling a penalty here. I can't believe you're doing it. Go on. Defense holding office number 76. 10-yard penalty is the second hour. Sorry, if there's anything wrong with Sean Smith, there's any kind of illness or anything going on there. I don't want to laugh, but that was really funny.

You have one moment as a ref where you were speaking to the public. Yeah. And your voice cracks. sad. I love watching football in 24 because I see commercials for shows that I don't watch and in some cases don't know exist. Yes. For instance, I know that Young Sheldon is a thing.

But I didn't realize we had gotten to the series finale of Young Sheldon. Oh, God, me neither. And that the promo for the series finale of Young Sheldon would be scored by Dolly Parton singing Let It Be. a young Sheldon the whole family should watch together, as you and I used to like to say. Oh, yeah, for sure. What a moment. TV history.

Can I ask you a totally off-subject question? Please. I thought about this when you were talking about Alf a few weeks ago. Do you think that the entire concept of pointing out that this is an episode of the whole family, episode of a show of the Fresh Prince or Facts of Life or Golden Girls, whatever, that the whole family should watch together? Do you think that was partly a message to the team? TV reviewers that we were talking about a couple weeks ago,

that this is an episode that they might want to cover. Hmm. Because no one's going to write about just whatever, you know, like season four, episode eight of Golden Girls. But if you get the signal, if they set up, you know, if they set up to send up the smoke signal that like one of Rose's friends contracts HIV in this episode, then this might be, as an editor or writer,

you might be like, this is something we should cover. This is an excuse to write about Ruh McClanahan and Betty White, the Arthur are in all my favorites. Right. And we're taking on the serious issues here in the sitcom. It's not just fun and games for the Golden Girls. No, I like that. I think that's a very good theory.

It had to be just a way to get attention like that. Sure. To just say, this is going to be different than the usual hijinks. We visit on that. We'll check out Young Shelton to see if that theory holds up. Game number two, David, San Francisco, 34, Detroit, 31. it was a Fox game, Kevin Burkhard, Greg Olson, Aaron Andrews, and Tom Rinaldi. This is probably the last game with Greg Olson as Fox's number one announcer.

He's done this job for a couple of years after Troy Aikman went to ESPN. And of course, the reason he would be leaving the job is that Tom Brady is coming to Fox. Yeah. This fall to announce games on the number one team. and Olson in this scenario would then go back to the number two team. Right. I will say this, talking to sources over the last couple of weeks, I believe that Fox believes that Tom Brady is going to be calling games for Fox this fall.

Okay, well, that's big. And that Tom Brady has been getting ready to call games on Fox's fault. 100% he has been getting ready. Now, is there some... Wiggle room in there because Tom Brady is a really famous person and a person who does not need jobs in the way conventional people need jobs. I guess so. But I think Fox believes Tom Brady is calling games this fall for them just to put that out there. That's big. To your point about Greg Olson and about how many people could do this job, I think you hit on exactly the fascinating point here because Greg Olson wasn't supposed to be a,

a number one announcer this fast and maybe wasn't supposed to be a number one announcer ever if the business had stayed where it was. You know, maybe somebody sees him on the number two team of Fox. He's like, I'd like to give him a shot. He's really good because he is really good. But the dominoes fell in such a way. Brady decided to play one more year of football. And then he decided to take one year away from broadcasting.

Exactly. Yeah. So Olson gets the number one job. And dude, it's like, oh, wow. Greg Olson is the number one announcer. Yeah, and he's good at it. That's what I mean. Like he's not only, yeah, he's not only like,

I can do this, but he's awesome at it. He was so good yesterday. And whatever compliments I want to give to Romo for the early game, Greg Olson was three times better in the late game. Absolutely. He was so on top of it. But it made me wonder what you brought up. It's like, are there lots of people who could do this job

who just never get to do it? Because it's kind of like the Supreme Court. there are four of them, I guess five if you can count Amazon. Mm-hmm. And the people do it forever. Yeah. And now they make huge money, so you can't just get rid of them. Instead of hiring this, you know, the heavy hitters, they should have just hired, you know,

a traditional play-by-play guy and then just have like a, like a Willy Wonka style contest to see who gets to be the color commentator. Just psychos, just cycling somebody new every quarter. until we decided are you opening a candy bar and that's how you get to be in the booth with Al I think it just got

it's a it's like a code that comes with your Amazon Prime subscription right and you just scan it and it's like your Whole Foods code and you see if you get to be on on football and only on football

only former NFL players get this code or could like you and I get this code in our email once in one day uh I think it's got to be a mix I think it should be, you know, ex-players, comedians, average shows. I don't know. Maybe you have to send in, or maybe if you submit a resume,

maybe you have to have a minimum of like, you know, 25 on-air calls into WFAN or something to get the, to get a look. I don't know if that's the group we want, to be honest. That's called WFAN 20 times. It's a pretty interesting cut of humanity. Oh, but it could be great. I will say with Fox it does feel like Fox is to

NFL color analysts what the Green Bay Packers are to quarterbacks at this point. Oh, they found another one. Oh, yeah. Funny how this works. Put somebody in there. They're great.

I guess we'll see what Tom Brady if he indeed shows up this fall if that street continues. I don't love David as a rule shots of fans celebrating at places other than in the stadium during a game. We have that classic sports bar.

Yeah, like, yeah, we're back in Minneapolis, baby, and this is great. Well, you make an exception for games that are sold out and fans have gathered in the parking lot to watch on screens. Is that at least okay? Oh, wait, so we're doing the parking lot, like, tailgate.

I didn't go inside. Like, there's the rare occasion where there's just so much interest that they, like, put, throw up screens in the parking lot. something and let people watch outside. Yeah. Yeah, you're talking about like the ones of Milwaukee when the Milwaukee Bucks were in the finals and there was that. What did they call that? Bucks Alley or. Yeah. That's okay, right? That counts as being in the stadium. Yeah, that's not bad. But I was just going to, I was going to praise this because I thought the Lions fans back at

Ford Field in Detroit. That was awesome. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that is cool. And he showed all those people and everybody's happening. It's Detroit. Oh, my God, we're going to get to the Super Bowl for the first time. Because showing up to Ford Field is still sort of. of a commitment, right? I mean, it shows a certain level. It's a stadium, so it's like the game, but it's also just, yeah, it shows a certain level of investment.

You know, showing up to a sports bar is probably not that much different than what those people would be doing if there weren't a game. Also, it was packed. I mean, sometimes, like, you and I could get on for a road game like that, 10,000 people in basically any stadium, that place was, that plays a lot of people in it. Mm-hmm.

To watch a game on the big screen. A huge play in the game in the third quarter, Niners are down 14. The Lions are just absolutely tasting that first ever Super Bowl. And Niners quarterback Brock Purdy drops back and it heaves it. It hits a Detroit defender in the face mask. And well, here's what happened. Here's Purdy with a lot of time, steps into one, watching deep, going for Brandon.

And I look, it is. Oh, he cornered up you. Is he in? He's down to the five. So many elements there that Kevin Burkart was trying to corral. Did he catch it? Is he down? What's the penalty?

Yeah. Absolutely incredible catch by Brandon Ayuk. And then, of course, after the game, Aaron Andrews has to ask him all about it. And this is a huge play. Tell me what happened and listen to Brandon Ayuk's answer. How about the fact you didn't give up on the ball after it hit the face in the helmet of the cornerback with the lions? Tell us all about that. before the game, a ladybug landed on my shoe.

Hey, y'all know what that means. So that's all I can say, because other than that, I don't know. Amazing. Just absolutely amazing stuff. Is that the most unexpected answer you've ever heard in a postgame interview? I don't know. But that's, but that was pretty spectacular. He also had some great content later where he took a video of himself watching SportsCenter from bed.

And they were doing the sports center top 10 countdown. And that catch was only number two. he was getting, I was like, wait, and he discovered it in real times, like, wait, I'm number two, what's number one? And it was Lamar Jackson, like, catching his own path. But he was just like, no, no, no, I should have been number one. Yeah. And he's right.

Probably so, yeah. Detroit losing big time storyline killer, dude. Chiefs and the 49ers, they're kind of known commodities at this point. Detroit would have been the sports writer storyline Wonderland, because we haven't had those guys in the Super Bowl. Edger got. But haven't had Dan Campbell,

haven't had the franchise. I mean, there was some of that Detroit season ticket holder they kept showing whenever the Lions had a home game, that guy would have gotten

19 more profiles. Now you're kind of figuring out how to tell a different story about very familiar people, though I suppose Brock Purdy will have his moment. Sure.

Also in that game, Dan Campbell went forward on fourth down twice in the second half and didn't get it. our friend Bill Oram, the sports writer, texted me that the headline here should be Campbell's Oops. Campbell's Oops. All right, coming up in 30 seconds, David,

is there a little upside to Doc Rivers exiting ESPN's number one NBA team for the Milwaukee Bucks job? But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always, always gratefully received. All right, couple of runners up here. When the Chiefs pass dropping wide receiver, Cadarius, Tony was listed as inactive for that game.

It was an overworked Twitter joke to write, this is a big blow for the Ravens, but I still think they have a shot. Thank you, Danny Eats World for that one. Congratulations Taylor Swift on making the Super Bowl in her first year in the NFL was also big. Yeah. Thank you to Nick Field for that one. And this week's runaway winner, David, came after the aforementioned play

where Lamar Jackson throws a pass. He catches it himself. It was an overwork Twitter joke to compare this to the time Jazele Bunchin said her husband couldn't both throw and catch the ball. Thank you to Adam Waltonbaugh. If you think one man can't call a game

and replace Greg Olson at the same time, we'll get ready. And congrats. You made the overall. work Twitter joke of the week. All right, the notebook dump. Let's talk to ESPN and NBA announcing. Yeah.

I don't if you heard about this. I don't if you saw any content at the ringer about this, but Doc Rivers is not going to be calling the NBA finals this year. Yeah, I'm dimly aware. You remember when they got rid of Jeff Van Gundy last summer and said, no, it's Doc Rivers, and then Doc Rivers made it to January? Yeah. Doc Rivers is out.

First of all, classic case of why NBA coaches make potentially problematic analysts. Yes. Because you're always announcing for your next job. It really doesn't happen quite this fast. Haven't finished setting up your cubicle yet, and you're already out the door. Yeah. Yeah. You know, ESPN was sending me some emails about two-factor authentication or whatever.

And it's, yeah, well, didn't get around to that. ESPN has some options here. They could take Richard Jefferson or JJ Redick and put them in the number one booth for the finals. Yeah. Playoffs. Or here's an idea, David. What if we don't have a three-person NBA booth?

Oh. Oh, I like where you're going with this. What if the three-person booth always felt a little crowded? Mm-hmm. But the networks remained absolutely tied to it, not just ESPN when they had Van Gundy and Mark Jackson, but Turner, remember, when they would get to the conference finals, they'd be like, not just Reggie Miller,

but Reggie Miller and Stan Van Gundy. Yeah. In the booth with Kevin Harlan. And you'd just be like, do we really need three? Yeah. So maybe just Mike Breed and Doris Burke would just be fine. We can see how that goes. It's a good question.

My guess is they won't go that way. And we'll probably use this as excuse to tinker even more. But, yeah, I mean, you're watching for the game. And the announcers matter a lot. But the good two-person booth can be way better than the best three-man booth, for sure. It's really interesting just how big basketball has gotten on the three-person booth. Because even the final four, it's Gran Hill and Bill Raftery. both of them

has been for a while Richard Dich also had an interesting thought he said what if Steve Kerr is not coaching in the finals which seems like a fairly good bet right now and you could take Steve Kerr and make him the second analyst call a lot of games

obviously good at it would be very interesting to hear him talk about anything it's an idea I think it's a great idea if you're not traditionally had, I mean, they'll bring, they'll bring, they'll bring, they, they'll bring, it used to be fairly common to bring in a recent, a coach who is out of the running into the studio show.

But did they ever done that? Was that, was there, was there, they did that in the booth? I mean, I guess not, because consistency is so valuable there. The only one I know is that there was an 80s Super Bowl where Joe Thaisman was still playing, and they put him in the booth for the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl. and it was like, you seem good at announcing. Here you go.

And he did the game. But I think it's pretty rare that you actually get to call the game an active player or coach. Sure. So Steve Kerr again comes in with lots of experience. I guess that wouldn't be too weird. I have been really interested, David, in how our political writers are describing the upcoming election,

which will almost certainly match Donald Trump against Joe Biden. It has become a thing. It has become de rigour, you might say, to put only in journalism. To add a mandatory sentence to the top of the article where you talk about how terrible the election is going to be. Yeah. This is from today's New York Times piece about Joe Biden's strategy. It was a really interesting story. They said the election that were, let me say it like this.

They described the election as likely to be an ugly. dispiriting and historically long slog to November between two unpopular nominees. Trust me. If you read stories about the election, you will see some version of that sentence in everyone. Yeah.

This election sucks. Yeah. This is going to be terrible. This is going to be terrible. So if you see, if readers see examples at the press box spot, political reporters preparing us, yes, for just how crappy this could be. This is a great genre, too.

It's like everybody who's got a beat. Everybody, like, there is, not everybody complains, but for every beat, there's going to be complainers. Oh, my God. It's for your consideration season or these movies, these studios won't stop sending me free DVDs of the movies that I have to watch. And it's never real. The people are never that upset.

Yeah. And it's always speaking of, like, in this time of journalism, if you're really upset, we, you know, some other people raised. to go, okay? Yeah. We find this election to be too much for you. Last topic for you, I call this the death of the obituary.

Oh. Fascinating. Great headline. Hey, we got it, right? We wrote the headline first. The headline in need of a piece. Fortunately, we have it, David. Andrew Kay and Stuart Thompson in the New York Times.

They wrote about a 19-year-old college dude named Mateo Sackman. He was out in New York City on New Year's Eve. He falls onto the side. subway tracks and he is killed by a train. Awful story. Here's what they write though, interestingly, because the internet started being littered with

stories about Mateo Sackman. And Kay and Thompson write, instead of answers, anybody searching for information was confronted by a blizzard of poorly written news articles, shady looking YouTube videos, and inaccurate obituaries. They go on to say that

others, meaning other stories, made an even more shocking claim. Mr. Sackman, they falsely reported had been stabbed to death in a Bronx subway station. In fact, according to a statement from his family, Mr. Sagman and a friend were fooling around on a platform at the East Broadway stop in Manhattan when he fell onto the tracks and was killed instantly by a train entering the station. So what's so fascinating about this Times article is it's not just about the phenomenon. They actually find an internet marketer in India who is creating these stories or overseeing the creation of these stories. And what happens is someone like this marketer sees a name trending.

Realizes there's very little public information to be found. And you know this. If there's a story, horrific story like this, there's going to be a couple of news articles that probably won't have a lot of detail, especially right after it happens. And they start churning out news articles and YouTube videos to fill the board. And they will look, again, according to this piece, maybe on LinkedIn to find a little bit of sketchy information about the person. And then use AI to turn out what amounts to a junk obituary. There's some dispute.

The marketer claims he's making lots of money by doing this. The writers quote people saying he's probably not making very much money doing this. I guess that's all relative, but sure. It's all relative. But also it's like anybody who is actually seeking information, about Mateo Sackman, this poor person who has died on the New York City subway tracks.

It's impossible. Gets wrong information. Yeah. And since this is not like a public figure, the only people really seeking out that information are people that are his friends and family, or at least foremost, his friends and family. But what a weird...

So strange. Place for journalism generally and the obituary specifically to wind up. Yeah. This sort of pink slime we see everywhere else, and now it becomes an obit. Not for a public figure, but for just a person.

Very, very strange. Anyway, read their piece in the Times. I encourage you to do that. Only in journalism this week, David comes from listener Rob Kinney, saw an article about Martha Stewart and she was described as the

Doyen of domesticity. I mean, I think that phrase has been used about her many times, but yes. Doyen, only in journalism. I remember as a kid reading an article, I think it was in Time magazine. It was about the whole late night wars that were going on in the 90s. And David Letterman was described as the dumped dofane of late night.

Never seen that word before. It turned out to be only in journalism. journalism. Yeah. Duyen and Dauphin, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. All right, it's time for a feature that never, ever, ever features a mispronunciation of any kind. It's time for David Shoemaker guesses

the strained pun headline. Yeah. Last Monday's headline about a memoir written by Hugh Hefner's widow was no more bunny business. Today's headline comes to us from Puck. It's a top of piece in which the ringer's very own Terra Paul Mary writes about the Trump campaign

and Republican National Committee chairwoman Rana McDaniel. Now, some in the Trump campaign may want to replace Ronna McDaniel at the RNC, David, and some may want to effectively put her somewhere down in the hierarchy to make her less effective or give her less agency. This campaign against Ronna. is being carried out quickly. I think that's all you need. What was Puck's strain pun headline?

Fast run of... I feel like you've given me way too much. And now I just can't even... I should be able to get this. Okay, like a demotion, like a... Um, um, quick, fast run, fast run of the...

Fast. Going after. Run for the exits. Run for the exits, you mean? Yeah. Just imagine the scene of the crash, David. Boom, it's a runaway train?

Getting there. The car being driven by the Trump campaign took off. They didn't stay. Oh, a hit in Rana. Hit and Rana. That's pretty good. I give you a lot of information. I'm not sure I gave you the right information.

I also considered a semaphore article about DeSantis dropping out that was called Don't Ron Ron. Wasn't sure if we'd ever quite get there. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Brian Waters. Speaking of Puck, David, come back here Thursday for Press Box Final Edition. When the guest host will be Puck's Teddy Schleifer.

Yeah. Gonna have a great time talking Silicon, Valley and the campaign and other fun stuff. And then Shoemaker and I return Monday of Super Bowl Week. Yeah. More lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.