The Press Box - Paramount Bends the Knee, the Great Gavin Newsom Debate, and the End of Netflix Announcer Sharing. Plus, Matthew Lee on Covering the Diddy Trial From the Southern District of New York Courthouse.

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel present both sides of an argument around Gavin Newsom's lawsuit against Fox News (1:29), reporters live tweeting Wednesday night's congressional session, Netflix's NFL announcer problem, and Paramount becoming the latest media company to settle a lawsuit with Donald Trump (21:53). Next, Joel is joined by Matthew Lee of the Inner City Press to discuss his coverage of the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial, stories from covering the Southern District of New York, how institutions treat new media, and more (40:54). Bryan and Joel then close the show with some weekend recommendations (1:15:35)! Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel AndersonGuest: Matthew LeeProducer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which

streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who'll never eat lunch in this town again? Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Oh, media consumers. Welcome to Press Box. You've got Brian Curtis. You've got Joel Anderson. You've got producer Kyle Crichton.

Coming up on a very big podcast. Some small, delicate tweets about the big beautiful bill. Netflix is cracking down on announcer sharing. Another media company has, wait for it. bent the knee to Donald Trump. And we talked to a reporter who was inside the courthouse at the Sean Combs trial. But first, let us go to a place where they've always got a clear majority. Here's Joel with J-School.

Yes, please stay tuned for J-School's upcoming fundraising effort since we lost all of our education funding for supporting D-E-I and CRT. So hopefully we can keep the doors open at the J-School. Brian, I, as always, listened with great interest to the Monday episode and was a great show, by the way. Thank you. But, you know, you and David discussed my former governor, Gavin Newsom during that show. And, of course, the reason he came up is because he filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News last week. He alleges that the network knowingly lied about a phone call. he had with President of Trump.

He's seeking $7,87 million in damages. The backstory here for listeners who still aren't familiar with the details, Newsom and the White House both agree that they both spoke late June 6th. Newsom says they never discussed Trump's plan to deploy the National Guard, which he announced the next day, and that is June 7th. On June 10th, when about 700 Marines show up in the L.A. area, Trump claimed that he spoke with Newsom about sending out the troops. Newsom immediately goes on the X and is like, hell no,

Like, not even a voicemail. We did not talk about that. According to Newsom's lawsuit later that evening, Fox's Jesse Waters' primetime show played a clip of Trump's statement about his call with Newsom, but left out Trump's comment that the call was, quote, a day ago. And so Waters goes on to say, why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? The segment included text under the bottom of the screen that said Gavin lied about Trump's call. So News later tells Politico in a statement, if Fox News wants to lie to the American people on Donald Trump's behalf. It should face consequences. Gotta, yada, yada.

So anyway, Newsom has said he'll drop the suit. If Waters apologizes to him on air and Fox retracts its claims, that's probably not going to happen. It seems like both sides are digging in, right? So, Brian, you said Monday that you didn't think Newsom's lawsuit is a good idea, right? And I want to make sure that I accurately reflect your argument here. You said that it mirrors Trump's aggressive approach to media, you know, includes lawsuits against ABC, CBS, and all these other people back and down. And that, like, that is sort of a bad precedent to double done on, right?

Yeah. Maybe just take out the sort of. Okay. Oh, okay. A strong, a strong version of that. Okay, great. So I hear that. Very much respected.

And even personally, I'm increasingly worried about, like, reports. and writing anything that could expose us to that kind of legal liability, right? Like in that sort of atmosphere, we're all sort of, you know, potential, we're all potential defendants, right? And I don't like what's happening in the case of Trump soon and CBS and ABC or Cash Patel attempting to sue CNN. I don't even think that reporters who make mistakes while reporting should necessarily have to worry about that sort of retaliation. But, but, man, I really do see a substantive difference between lawsuits where the disagreement is over a mistaken reporting or like a dispute over the presentation as opposed to intentional obstruction.

And like, and this is what, that's what happened here if we're to believe Newsom and his attorneys, right? So my take, and you see if you write me on the, I don't think it reflects well on the media to support reporters or organizations that knowingly and willingly distort or misrepresent facts to tell the story they want to tell. And I want to make it clear that I'm not saying that you're supporting Jesse Waters and Fox, right, or the way they go about putting another broadcast. But if an individual wants to discourage a news outlet from intentionally lying about them, this is what the courts are for, right? And again, it's not like these allegations against Fox News have come out of nowhere, right? No, obviously there's a long history here of Fox News. Right. And so remember, we learned this a couple

years ago about Fox News in the course of their fight against the Dominion voting systems, which eventually ended in a $788 million settlement for Dominion. This is some of the evidence that came up in court hearings and court documents, and it included, one, the CEO of Fox News, Suzanne Scott, discouraging fact-checking segments by the network's own reporters, which would have debunk their own lies about election fraud. Another point, even Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, were privately critical of people who lied about Dominion on Fox News, but were nonetheless publicly critical of reporters who tried to fact-check those lies.

Another point, Rupert Murdoch advocated going slow at confronting Fox News viewers with unwelcome news. In another instance related to January 6th, even Mitch McConnell was like, I don't think Fox News was responsible in the way that they reported that stuff, right? So, like, they have a history of this stuff. So, and if you go back to the Dominion thing, once the settlement was announced, even Fox had to cop the line to the public. Like their statement read, we acknowledge the court's rulings, the court's rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects Fox continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.

We are hopeful that our decision to resolve the dispute with Dominion amicably instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial allows the country to move forward from these issues. So they've moved forward, okay? Like, here we are. And while I doubt Newsom's case goes very far, given how much he loves Fox, too. I mean, like, that's the thing. I mean, Newsom loves Fox. Suing them takes away a valuable outlet for himself, right? But I think there's a real value in making clear that lying and promoting lies in the name

of news gathering should be something we all agree needs to be discouraged. Like, we're not all doing the same stuff. And so while the lines are already sort of drawn on this stuff, if you're a face, fan of Fox News, you probably already got a perception about how they go about their work and how their competitors go about theirs. Same with fans of MSNBC and Newsmax, CNN, OAN, so and so forth. I don't think that pretending that Fox News is doing the same thing that we're trying to do, that we're all in this together, is going to protect us from a tallyatory lawsuits from the Trump administration or like a wealthy conservative with an axe to grind. So for me, where I come from

long distance is like, if Newsom wants to hash this out in court, great. Or Fox could just apologize. A couple of counterpoints there. And I realize that standing up even indirectly for a Jesse Waters segment will win me no points with anybody, not even the crew that makes that magical television program appear on weeknights across America. I think when you say an individual, we're talking about different kinds of individuals here. And it's worth thinking about that. Gavin Newsom is a very, very public figure who is the governor of California.

He has 2.3 million Twitter followers. So he has ways of saying, hey, Fox News is not telling the truth about me. That's say a person who's not a public figure does not. When you talk about Dominion, the one thing the public knew about Dominion, most people that were watching Fox, was what people on Fox were saying about Dominion and its ability to process votes in a careful and honest way. So I do think that is a difference. Like Governor Newsom has methods of redress here that let us say an individual.

We talked about the Mary Kate Cornett thing with the McAfee Show and other media outlets, right? This is not that. So I think when you're saying individual, it's important. It's an important legal distinction, but it's just also important as we talk about it here to think about a public figure versus a private individual. Right. I guess my thing is if I want you to stop lying about me, right, even though I'm a public figure, and I do have, you know, 2.3 Twitter followers, I can use the power of the, you know, my platform, the bully pulpit of the governorship of California. And you have a penchant for lying. You don't stop. You like, you've been sued for this before, successfully sued. And you keep doing it in spite of that. It would, it would. point does a person, even if I have a lot of Twitter followers and a lot of political influence? At what point do you say, okay, enough? You know, that's, and that's sort of why I come from. And again, I understand that like, I'm, you know, I'm, I don't want to say,

some people will say biased. Some people will, I could just say that I have a bent here. Because, look, I mean, Fox News has the record here, right? They've, they've had the cop to doing this sort of stuff before. I take what you say with respect for sure. And I do think that like Gavin Newsom is different from dominion, right, or from us. But I also think that like you're just not going to get a lot of sympathy out of me if the people know that this is how you go about your business. So what do we think about the dollar figure? $787 million. Do we think Gavin Newsom was wronged, was defamed at a figure that equivalent to $787 million. Now, that's the thing. showman, right? Like, that's showmanship. Okay. So there's, there's a version of this where you sue them

for $1 because you say, look, I'm not, this is not about money. This is not about dangling a giant, you know, defamation suit over your head. This is about getting to truth. He's not, he's not doing that. And I heard Brian Stelter say on CNN, Brian, whose newsletter I read all the time, and who's been so great at calling out these various Donald Trump lawsuits, calling this, he was on Matt Bellany's podcast here at the ring, calling this performance art. Are we in favor? of lawsuits against media companies, even if the media company is Fox as performance art. I'm not. You know, I don't know that I'm for it, but I'm not against it.

And again, the lawsuit could go away of Fox apologizes. Or if they say, you know what, we were making that up. Right. I mean, like, it's the difference between I'm going to court potentially trying to seek an outrageous number, or I can get $0 and you can just copped on making that up, or intentionally misrepresenting the sequence of events. Again, I don't want to draw lines between people who are not the same people, but Donald Trump was suing CBS News for $20 billion.

Right. This is, we have, we have, we have some string here now on politicians suing for an absurd amount unless they get something that they want. And again, I just, again, I'm not equating. Does Gavin Newsom have a, guys, do just have a history of doing this, though? It's not like he's sued KQED. But that's the point, Joel. What you're saying is, hey, we want to be like Trump, but we want to be like the good Trump.

Right. I'm going to sue a media organization, but it's not going to be ABC News or NBC or the New York Times. It's going to be Fox News. It's going to be the one that you don't like, right? The one that has the history, the roll call of these kind of things. And again, I just think that's a very, very dangerous path to go down. What do you think will happen? do you think that Donald Trump will continue to, I mean, like, what, so what is the slippery slope here?

Because I feel like we're already slipped down that slope. Well, when somebody responded to that on Blue Sky and said, hey, look, you guys are talking about normalizing lawsuits like this. They've already been normalized by Donald Trump. I'd say they've been normalized largely by Donald Trump and his allies, yes. I mean, there's certainly been, this is not unique in American history, but there's been a lot of them, particularly by the current president of the United States. but this idea that's like, oh, we're Democrats, we can do that too. And sue for absurd amounts of money that are even, again, even if you accept what Gavin Newsom says, you accept what he says that the Jesse Waters team did, like $787 million.

We're just going to file that lawsuit and just be like, here we go, guys. And get, again, media people who are at least should be queasy about this to me, or at least look at this with a skeptical. to be like, oh, well, there we go. I mean, that old Fox News. I would, I would feel, I would feel a lot different if I thought that Fox News, that this was just a simple matter of like, oh, they made a mistake or they did not have a, they didn't have a hit.

Like, that's a thing. Like, if, like, if you sue News, Newsmax, right? Like, I don't watch. I don't watch Newsmax. Wait, what? Yeah. But maybe the Wall Street Journal. Maybe that's the better.

They don't have this history. And I'd be like, yeah, I would probably be in with you if, like, Wall Street Journal accused Gavin Newsome or something along these lines or whatever. But, like, that's not who this is. This is a known proven liar lying after they've paid a tremendous cost for the lying. And they're doing it again. And I'm just like, well, what are you supposed to? Wait, the entity here is you're talking about is Fox News. Yes, right.

Specific. This is not Jesse Waters or his producers. Right. But then, but see, again, that's a little broad brush to me. just to say like well it's on fox news so therefore and again i understand like i'm i'm not again i'm winning no points by by you know throwing these questions out in the world you i watched christie hook's hat and i'm like i'm all filling you today and then you're doing this but i watched that jesse water segment and you explained it very well he basically took off

the first part of a donald trump quote or trump was asked when was the last time you spoke to gavin newsom so essentially he changed it from a dispute of when did donald trump called Gavin Newsom to did Donald Trump call Gavin Newsom at all. Right, right. And then he said, well, there's a call log that says he called him at this day. And Gavin Newsom says, well, I wasn't saying that. I was saying that he wasn't calling me on this specific day because that relates to the protests in Los Angeles. Are we absolutely sure that is maliciousness rather than incompetence?

I would love to attribute it to incompetence. Are we sure? But are we sure that when those producers cut that clip, when Jesse Waters got the rundown for that night show, he was like, he knew in his head that that was not really what happened. Are we sure? If you're going to go on air and call the guy a liar and you clipped it exactly the way that is most favorable to your argument to that you could claim that he's a liar, I'm going to say that that's probably not a competence. But I hear what you're saying. Probably not. Again, an interesting, as an interesting thing to say about a news organization, even a news organization like Fox.

And we're talking about going to court, changing people's lives, you know, potentially chilling other reporting in the future. And I do want to come back to your point because you say, okay, here's Fox. This is what they do, right? This is, we have this track record. And I'm certainly not disputing anything like that of Dominion and what you see on that network on a nightly basis. I just will put this out there. That is the way that Donald Trump talks about the news organizations that he's suing. Yeah. Right. He's not saying, hey, CBS is a

bastion of probity, but in this case, they screwed up and defamed me. Right. He's saying, this is what these people do, right? This is what they do. This is what the fake news does. They are out to get me. So that is his stated opinion about these lawsuits about all these other media companies. So what we're saying is they're like, well, this is okay because we agree with Gavin Newsom's theory of the case about this news organization. But just so we know, that is the theory of everybody else's case about the news organizations that they are suing as well. I think that that is a good argument for dumb people. Right. Like if you're a dumb person and you can't tell the difference between a person that is a known liar and a person that is like,

And it is aggressively trying. And I'm saying for like a person that like can't tell the difference, right? Because you and I know the difference. But a person that is like, yeah, man, you know, Donald Trump, you know, he says the same thing. They say the same thing. You know, all the media is tied up on this together. But I feel like Donald Trump is someone of people that have in organizations that have not been shown or proven to intentionally obstinate. Right.

One one network has. And this is also a good opportunity to recommend our friend Josh Levine sees it on Fox News of Slow Burn, which gives significant insight into the founding of that network and its ethos. But I hear what you're saying, Brian. I think if it was anybody else, I think if this was, I'm trying to think of who would be a Jesse Singals substack. You know what I mean? I'd be like, I don't know that that is. To throw out a name.

That's just to throw out of name. I don't know that it's, you don't need to sue that guy. Like, I don't think that's necessary. But sometimes, man, you get fed up with people. And, you know, I know the number that the number that he's seeking makes it easier to undercut and to side with you on this because it is a sort of, it is a ridiculous number. But also, like, the other side is that is like, yo, man, I apologize as it's how it goes for. Can I add, can I can I, can I, even though you also, you're antagonizing me by wearing that longhorn shirt today anyway, by the way. So you knew what you knew we were going to argue today.

I knew we were going to argue today. But so I just want to, this is just a very quick thing because I don't want to linger on it too long. I texted you this the other day when it happened. So I think people that are sports fans know that Malik Beasley, the former Detroit Pistons Guard, is currently under federal investigation for gambling. And, you know, like he's coming off of a one year, $6 million deal with the Pistons. his future is up in the air. There's a lot of bad things going on with him.

And like there's more court records obtained by the Milwaukee Journey Sentinel found recently that he owes money to a barbershop and a dentist, like, and that they have sued him for not repaying loans. So he's down bad, right? And I don't mean to pile on this young man who's clearly going through a really difficult time. But I'm just going to throw this out there. there, okay? And you see if you ride with me. There are people for whom they are never in a good headline.

And not necessarily like, you know, this is a criminal matter. But, you know, sometimes it's just like, man, that guy's, I've never seen Malik Beasley in a good headline. And I was like, I was trying to come up with a list of people like this, like the boxer Ryan Garcia. Like if you see Ryan Garcia in a headline is like, oh, man, like nothing good. It's not about him, you know, delivering. meals to the poor or something like that.

He launched a new charter school in his neighborhood or something like that. It's always something crazy. Like Miles Bridges is another guy like that. So I was trying to think of a list of people. And people can help me to come up with the list of Malik Beasley's. Because this is not the only time Malik Beasley has been the subject of a headline. And I'm not going to go, I'm not going to revisit every single headline that he's ever been in. But I told somebody, I was like when I saw this story, Brian,

And I was like, so if I was just coming up, if somebody, you told me, hey, man, there's an NBA player and he's going to be investigated for gambling. Like, you know, he's, you know, the feds, the feds are on him for gambling. And I had to list five NBA players. He would have been among that five. You don't tell me any other information. I've been like, I don't know. League Beasley. I don't know.

House Bridges. I don't know. Somebody like that. I don't know. So anyway. So that's, that's, that was what I was thinking about in the Malik Beasley case this past week. Do we need a cousin of Bill's old Tyson zone for the Malik Beasley Zone? My Leak Beasley Zone was a great idea.

Where you just see the headline or you see the tweet and you're already wincing before you even read it? Yeah, I was just like, oh, there's just no chance of anything good is coming out of this man, this guy. But can he, can something could happen in his life, please? A few headlines for you from the Mike Johnson Zone. I don't know if you were on political Twitter last night. all of Twitter became political Twitter. It really did. Yeah.

Because congressional reporters were live tweeting the very, very, very long vote to get Trump's big, beautiful bill one step closer to passage. And Joel, I was weirdly reminded of the NFL draft combine tweets we see from our football reporter friends. Oh, yeah. Where the tweets themselves are a form of. of art. Oh, like they speak their own, their own language. Like, it really speaks to that specific group of folks. And it's like a, you know, yeah, terms of art that these people are fluent with, correct? Yeah. And something that you only find in journalism and in media Twitter specifically on an occasion like this. Like, they would just seem utterly absurd if divorced from these events

and kind of seem absurd even with these events. Let me give you a a few examples here. These all come in of what was called a rule vote. Speaker Mike Johnson was trying to get a few Republican holdouts into the Yague column. These were recalcitrant Republicans, if you prefer the only in journalism term. Recalcitrant. Good term, though.

Here's a few tweets from Jake Sherman over at Punch Bowl. It's 1.49 a.m. Speaker Mike Johnson just entered the House chamber. That's the end of the tweet. Some more from Jake. Nancy Pelosi just entered the House Chamber. chamber, 301 a.m. Mike Johnson is now taking a photo on the house floor of the holdouts.

Really wild stuff. The return of the live tweet, man. We're live tweeting through it. We're back. And what makes it better is that congressional reporters, for whatever reason, always render the names of their subjects in all caps. Well, I mean, that is very, that's a very sports thing, too, right? It is.

But do you, like, learn that with your internship or roll call? or something. Man, also, like, there's got, I guess the thing is we're all supposed to know that's the Johnson, right? Like, there's only one Johnson in Congress. That is our Johnson. That is our Johnson. Now, congressional reporters are talking to members of Congress in the hallways, of course, during episodes like this.

But when they're sitting in the gallery and the Congress people are not talking into a microphone, what they're really doing is studying body language. So here's a couple of tweets from Ben Jacobs of Politico. So Mike Johnson is still talking to David Valadal and shifting slightly uncomfortably back and forth as they talk. The convo just ended with Validau going into the cloakroom and Johnson walking away. So we don't know what was said, but we are looking to the body language for clues about where this bill is going or this rule vote. The uncomfortably does a lot of work. I mean, Johnson is a middle-aged man up at 2 o'clock in the morning.

uncomfortable. I mean, could just be physically. Like, would you, if you had to stand up and do stuff that late at night, wouldn't you kind of be shifting uncomfortably as well? I would. I'd be moving weight from one foot to the other. Here's another one. Tim Burchett, another congressman, just walked out of the cloak room and over to Tom Emmer. Birchett is strongly gesticulating. Emmer does not look happy. Follow up, their arms are now interlocking as Andy Ogles participates in the conversation. What did you, when you, they said interlocking, did you get the visage of a huddle? Like where somebody's standing by and it's kind of like you got your arm around the back of them or the smaller their back? Is that what you thought? Because that's what I, the vision I got. That's actually the happier vision than I got, I think, of Congress people locking arms.

But I'll go with that one. At least that's a sports angle to it. There was a weird subplot where Johnson could not find certain house members who were holding. out. Here's another tweet. This is from Melanie Zanona of NBC. Republicans are trying to locate Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, who delivered a surprising no vote on the Megabill rule, likely trying to flip him. I told a member I saw him bolt out of the chamber and leave the area. Smart, the member said. Oh, man. They wanted to let people know they were right in the center of things, man. I mean,

that's how you let people know that I'm, you know, that I am at the center. I've got sources. they acknowledge me, right? Yeah, and they're talking about other members of Congress. It's really good. Yeah, there was another moment where somebody pointed this out that J.D. Vance quoted a member of Congress on background in a tweet today. Like even J.D. Vance has worked in the using the rules of political reportage. I mean, man.

It's just, yeah. Did this remind you at all of the Kevin McCarthy deal from two and a half years ago? Yes. Very much right. Like I just were up through the night like oh man I can't believe

they're still at it man You know I can't believe Still doing this Oh man What's going to happen It's very It's supposed to be

Very dramatic We all know How this is going to end But You know You know about Netflix cracking down periodically

On password sharing Joel Yes I ask me How I know that person Had some Had some Up Close experience With that one

family has some experience with this, yeah. Well, now Netflix is going to crack down on announcer sharing. This is according to a report in front office sports by Ryan Glass-Speagel and Michael McCarthy. So there's going to be Christmas Day football on Netflix once again. And according to the report, Fox and ESPN, feeling a tad reluctant about letting their announcers appear on Netflix's coverage of football. And you remember last year There was that massive lineup of people Oh, man.

It was great. I remember the graphic. Yeah. The graphic was unbelievable. It looked like one of those old Christmas special, like a Dick Clark special, you know, Christmas extravaganza. You know. Mary Tyler Moore.

Yes, and these announcing dream teams that we never really got, you know, like Ian Eagle and JJ Watt, who actually are a team this year. And Greg Olson was in there. Yeah. It's funny because on the one hand, I feel, bad for our media friends, even if these media friends are not people who are really going to miss a huge check from Netflix. Yeah, I was wondering.

I was wondering about that. Yeah. You felt sorry because I was going to say, this is, this actually makes me mad. Have we talked about this before? No, please. Why don't you hire your own talent? You have enough money to do that. They do.

So there are lots of people who can do these jobs if they just, allow them. Well, so that's an interesting question, right? Netflix is not really a sports division yet. Right. So essentially, could you go out and find a football announcer? Yes. Right. And we're talking about somebody, right, when you say your own people, you're talking about somebody who is, who could call an NFL game on Christmas Day, but is not already an NFL announcer for a network. Yes. I refuse to believe that the pool of people who can do that are limited to the people who are currently on TV. Like, there are people who, have not had their contracts renewed. There are people that are up that could do it.

I know that there's a difficult job, but the only way to get people to do it is to create the pool of people, right? I'm trying to think who this would be. I mean, clearly what Netflix wants to do is they want to have stars. Right. They want to have, you know, the big network stars

so that when you watch a game on Netflix, it seems like a big network football game like you used to. Right. Do you think, I'm just trying to, like, I'm just, I'm trying to think of my friends who don't care about media at all, who just watch sports. And they're, they're, you know, it's Christmas and they're at home.

And they're like, yo man, the cowboys are about to play the dolphins. I mean, I mean, I just don't think that the world works like. You know what I mean? I know that there is that it's better to have bigger, bigger names and proven talents. But I'm always just sort of like flummoxed by the idea that like, hey man, like, create more jobs for people. Like, please. A lot of people can do this stuff if you give them the opportunity,

but that's just where I come from. It's funny because last year, when all those announcers were basically allowed to be loaned out to Netflix, I was a little surprised. Because I'm like, wait a say, Netflix is the bully that is coming to take your lunch money. And by lunch money, I mean coming to take your NFL rights. Right. The NFL rights are the reason these networks still,

exist. We just had an experiment about this with Turner Sports and Turner and TNT generally. If CBS loses the NFL rights in a couple of years to a streamer, what is CBS? What's left? That's wrong. So you're saying, hey, you were the big, you know, rich streamer who's going to, who can conceivably come and outbid us all if that's what the NFL wants in a couple of years. So we're going to loan our talent out to you and let them convince people and, you. And, you're going to whatever way that, hey, this is a legit place. It's going to sound really good, right? You have some experienced, you know, whatever you say about the same old people, these are experienced people they're going to make the broadcast sound really good. They're going to give the NFL another

reason to sell more games to Netflix and Amazon a couple of years. It's like, why would, why would anybody do that? I was, I've been, it used to be verbatant, right? Like, you just did not see that sort of collaboration across networks. It was really never. Yeah. I'm just kind of I guess obviously agents have gotten better, right? People have, and the top talent has a lot more. I mean, if you're among that group of talent now, you have a lot more leverage than people did, you know, 20 years ago. 100%.

Yeah, 100%. All right, let's talk about Donald Trump and lawsuits one more time. Oh, no. We just got back on a good, on a good time. I know. We were talking about football. We were happy, but we have some bending the knee news, oh, no, which is that Paramount has finally caved

Donald Trump. Speaking of anti-climatic, but yeah. If you remember this, Trump was suing Paramount, the parent company of CBS, over a 60 minutes episode. Kamala Harris went on 60 minutes. Last fall, she talked about Gaza. CBS used two different sound bites of her answer. Trump charged election interference and sued for $20 billion.

And I always, this may be the last time I get to recite all those facts here on this podcast, but I always like to recite them because they are absolutely absurd. Absolutely absurd. I always like to include the fact that Donald Trump refused to go on that episode of 60 minutes, just so we can square the circle there. Now, the backstory here is that Paramount wants to merge with Skydance media. And even though Paramount pushes back on this, the idea is, if you don't settle the lawsuit with Donald Trump, then Trump's FCC will not allow the merger. Seems fairly reasonable.

A fairly reasonable conclusion to draw. A fairly reasonable conclusion to draw. Also, it took me a minute to be like, oh, man, some collection of these organizations used to be Viacom. Like, I just, it took me a long time to just realize a Viacom no longer existed. There's a name we haven't heard in a while. Yeah. Paramount is going to pay $16 million to, that will go to Donald Trump's presidential library.

So, Brian, tell me this. I don't know why with this part of it seems most egregious. Did we have to know that? It's going to the library. Did Trump mandate that that detail become public, or is it just so there's not a perception that Trump is just pocketing this money? I think this is the way for everybody to,

especially the paramount, to say, we're just giving it to the library. Whatever fig leaf, and it's the smallest fig leaf, it's like a live oak, you know, like the tiniest little leaf you could ever imagine to say that we're not just paying off Donald's right. No, no, no, no, we're just, this is going to his presence. A lot of coloring books, man.

I'm sorry. That's the joke that I probably shouldn't have said. CBS and Paramount did not have to apologize for whatever that's worth. Because that would be humiliating. And when Bill Owens, the CBS, the 60 Minutes executive producer, resigned, you know, that was his issue. Like, he's like, I'm not going to apologize because we didn't do anything wrong. If you want to settle this at the corporate level, I guess that's up to you.

But as a journalist, I'm not going to be part of an apology. Right. To Donald Trump. Good for him. I mean, it's just, what's so discouraging? Really discourage. I mean, this is CBS, man. It's CBS.

But hey, Donald Trump and David Fulkinflik pointed this out in NPR is now four and oh against media organizations. It's awesome, too, by the way, but CBS News settles. ABC News settles, giving 15 million. to Donald Trump's library, plus a statement of regret. Washington Post, hey, no endorsement of Kamala Harris. Los Angeles Times, no endorsement of Kamala Harris. If you're Donald Trump, you're like, you know, the hit rate is, you know, what it is. But in these four cases, it's worked.

Can I ask you a question? So in a world where the president is clearly, you know, coalescing power, like he's the only, he's increasingly the only authority in America that matters, right? Like it affects the way that colleges are making decisions. It affects the way that nonprofits are conducting their business. Like they don't want to run a file of the Trump administration. So given that, this seems to be a fairly simple matter. Either you lose now or you really lose later, right?

Like, that's the fear. Right. Like, I mean, I know it's embarrassing, but I'm curious as to what people think the alternative is to be, at least in this moment right now, because there's not, it does not seem to be a lot of like restraint in terms of retaliation against institutions that have dug in against Trump, right? Yeah, and you're saying with Paramount, the lose later would be he holds up the merger. Paramount and CBS News as a consequence continue to shrink, continue to be in financial trouble. and that's and that and Bellany was pointing that on his podcast it's like this sucks like this just this sucks there's no other there's no other way to talk about it but is it worse to have him you know use the leverage of government to hold up the merger and then we know where those layoffs are going to start you know they would start you know CBS news right like that that's going to be the

place where if you're more to have you're going to have more cuts that's where they're going to be right Even worse, if you don't settle? Right. I mean, the thing is, like, the merger is going to be bad, too. Like, we don't really, you know, as people that work in media, the merger is going to be bad for us as well. Like, anybody that works in media or media-adjacent spaces. So it's like you, for people that are in this industry,

it's a loss no matter what happens. But it's like the perception of the loss and why the loss is happening is really the part of it that really gives it the other, that makes it hurt. Dude, 100%. I was thinking about this. I was like, you know, we talked about like the damage to CBS news, the damage to 60 minutes. I think I counterintuitively, I would almost argue publicly speaking, people who trust CBS News and 60 minutes are going to continue to trust them.

Right. I don't think they're going to see a corporate settlement and be like, I'll never believe that again. Now, would they be right to wonder, will CBS's new corporate parents potentially hold up or want to slow down a piece that's going to anger Donald Trump? You're absolutely right to wonder if that could happen going forward with CBS. There were some reports about that happening or at least allegedly happening previous to this. But you're absolutely right to wonder that. But in terms of that, if I'm CBS News, man, the much darker scenario is what's going to happen after this merger? What's going to be left?

Are our new corporate parents going to care about news? Even in the way that our previous corporate parents have cared about news. You've bent the knee. You're already down there, bro. You might as well. you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to go too deep into that. Keep your heart on your knees. But, yeah, it's just like, yeah, I mean, we see that right now that they clearly have a theory that the perception of being bought or that or that compromising at the expense of their reputation is worth it.

And so, like, why would that ethos not continue going forward, right? Joel, do you have a special guest for us? I do have a special guest for us, man. So the federal sex trafficking trial with Sean Ditty Combs finally came to an end Wednesday with Combs being acquitted on the most serious charges he was facing, racketeering conspiracy, and sex trafficking. However, Combs was convicted on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution and remained behind bars after being denied bailed Wednesday evening. The judge cited Combs' history of violence and passed illegal conduct while explaining, why he declined to release Combs as he awaits sentencing. Combs still faces up to 20 years in prison.

So do you know who's going to be at this hearing next week to address the scheduling of Combs' sentencing? Who's at? Our next guest, Matthew Lee of the Inner City Press, who's covered all weeks of the Diddy trial, bless his poor soul. Almost 20 years ago, Matthew Lee first came to prominence as a blogger at the United Nations. We broke a number of stories, including one about diplomats from Africa, selling positions on peacekeeping.

missions. If we have time, we'll circle back a bit about his relationship with the UN, but you might wonder how he went from covering the United Nations to Diddy. Well, Matthew was an independent journalist and attorney who covers the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, which is the federal court in Manhattan that was the site of the Diddy trial. Matthew posts most of his work at intercitypress.com, but also posts plenty of content on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube at the same handle. So, here's my interview with Matthew Lee of Intercity Press. Matthew, thanks so much for joining us today. Sure, so much.

I'm glad to be with you. Journalism is interesting. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Well, first, I mean, let's just kind of get started off with, like, the trial looks a little bit right here. So can you, do you mind taking us inside the courtroom yesterday? So, like, once the judge read the verdict, what was the scene there from Diddy and

his attorneys to the prosecution to the jurors? Yeah, they were, I mean, the contrast between the day before where they had sent out note saying that they had four verdicts, but they hadn't reached any decision on racketeering. He looked really depressed. I mean, I described him as catatonic. He, like, sat. He wasn't looking around. His lawyers looked very worried, too. They honestly didn't know because the jurors didn't say what the four verdicts were, just that they had decided on four. So then the next morning yesterday, at 10 a.m., there's a note, and it wasn't, the judge has his deputy asked the four person, you know, count one, racketeering, not guilty. Already there was people. He had

all of his family members that were behind him in the second row of the gallery. That was like the big one. But then people still expected the other four to be guilty, at least many did. They said sex trafficking Cassie, not guilty. Transportation for prostitution, Cassie, guilty. So there was kind of a little bit, but sex trafficking of the witness known as Jane, not guilty. Transportation for prostitution with regard to Jane, guilty. Everybody was, they portrayed this as a victory.

in the moment everyone, there was, there was applause. After the judge left, his family applauded inside the courtroom, which is almost never allowed. But it is what it is. And afterwards, you know, hours afterwards, after he was denied bail, his lawyers did a press kind of scaggle in front of the courthouse. And they were said, this is a huge victory. This is a credit to the truth. Almost as if he'd been found not guilty on all five. But it's true that the two that he was found guilty on were the lesser charges. Anyway, I didn't want to go on too long, but it was amazing turn of events. Well, yeah, I was going to, so I was going to ask you. So in your perception, you're an attorney, you know, you've worked in that field. Sure. Did you think that it was a victory for him, or is it more, a little bit more complicated than that? Okay. I definitely do. I think, I think, number one, the thing to mostly remember is that these federal prosecutors as a whole, but particularly in the Southern District of New York, they have like a 98% batting average. They don't bring, they, it's not that they, they just win. They win. Like, I've covered. trials like Robert Menendez trial. He thought he was going to be found not guilty. He was guilty on all 14 charges. His wife, guilty on all 11 charges. It's just, so it is a huge victory. Even to not to not be convicted of racketeering, just objectively, just viewing it as a kind of a

sporting contest is a victory. But to knock down the sex trafficking, again, the thing is that you'd mention Twitter. Like I put a lot of stuff on X. So I get a, what I like about that is I get a lot of responses. And there were sometimes during this trial where there were so many responses that it sort of broke the thread. Like, I don't understand how it works, but it became difficult for me to find where I was. And so somebody suggested stop the comments and it'll work better. And it did. But to me, it lost a lot of the flavor.

I really, I enjoy, there are many people that are, there were many pro-ditty people. Some people thought there were bots and, you know, paid off. But there were many people, very well-meaning people that are, I don't mean to be flipped, because they view this as a, as a real affront on the issues of domestic violence, on the issues of like, you know. So I don't want to describe it as a sporting match in the sense that it probably does have a residence, you know, beyond just Ditty's, you know, potential freedom not long from now. In the sense of like, real victims want to come forward, you know, what does it say about this type of behavior? You know, there was some really nasty testimony. So that said.

Yeah. Well, you, so you mentioned that the prosecutors essentially tried to break new ground with this prosecution. So for people that have not been following, what did you mean by that? Did you think that they had a strong case, at least at the outset? I think that they tried to break new ground in two ways. One way was not that far beyond, but it was a few steps beyond what they've done before in the sense that there's always this issue of consent. This would have been the sex trafficking charges.

The idea is that Sean Combs forced Cassie, who goes by her real name and Jane, who goes by a pseudonym, into these multiple sexual parts. freak off evenings by force or coercion. Now, force is pretty, with Cassie, it's pretty clear, at least in some, you know, you have the video of him beating her up in the intercontinental hotel. You have some testimony about, about violence incidents. With Jane, it's less clear. They basically tried to break ground by saying, for example, that saying he wouldn't pay for her house in Los Angeles unless she continued to do the hotel nights was coercion. Arguably it is, but I think, it seems to me that the jurors didn't buy that. It seemed to me that. It seemed to me that.

the jurors in the sense of, they didn't even ask for any testimony about Jane. And many people, even along the press corps and elsewhere watching the trial, for example, the text messages came out where she was like, oh, you didn't take me on the vacation to Turks and take Caicos, and you took Young Miami there. And it's like, okay, it's, it feels kind of catty. It feels kind of, it's hard to say. So their theory, this is where they tried to break new ground and I think it failed. they tried to say this was coercion by fraud, that he coerced her into sex by fraudulently saying

he would take her to a restaurant not in the hotel, but instead took her to Nobu in the hotel. And arguably there's a difference. And arguably everything is relative. And if you're used to a certain lifestyle, the difference between Nobu and Consta Sibriani is meaningful. But to the jury, it was not meaningful. And I don't think they should have, I think that Jane was not a good witness for them. I don't mean to, I think that there were too many, the pseudonym was a problem. Most people knew who she was.

At least, I don't know if on the jury, but she was described as the mother of the child of a major rival of Sean Combs. And it doesn't take much to figure out who she was. And I'm still not going to say her name, even after the trial. But I think the judge made a mistake by granting pseudonym to somebody that, that couldn't be, that to anyone that follows hip hop or whatever knew who she was. and they posted it online. So then the press core looks stupid and like there's somehow, you know, sellouts that they can't say what everyone knows.

Well, I was going to say, so like how difficult was it then, given that sort of, those sort of challenges, right? Because they're using a pseudonym, but a lot of people know. And I mean, there were a lot of other outlets and media outlets that were not,

user discretion that you've chosen to do. So like, what sort of environment is that like to report news on? Because that must make it very difficult. I mean, you're an independent journalist, so you've got to make a decision. Yeah, and I don't have a huge legal, I may be a lawyer, but I don't have a huge legal staff behind me. Right. I mean, I think now that it's over, I can, I'll say this out.

I face some actual threats from the prosecutors in court, and here's why. So there was a second witness that had a pseudonym. Her name is Mia. I know her name. I'm not going to say her name. I never said her name. There was a whole rigmarole about a video that she shot. First, it was easy to find out who she was because they said that she was the co-founder of one of Sean Combs' companies.

So you just Google that. And that she pitched a show to ABC about her experience as an intern or as a personal assistant. So you just Google that. So everyone knows who she is. But, okay, then there was this issue about the video. She recorded a video praising Sean Combs on his birthday saying, you're the greatest, you're the best, revolt. And there was a big dispute. The prosecutors didn't want the video shown at all to the jury.

They said it's irrelevant. The defense said it's relevant because it shows that she's not the way she appeared in court, which is very beaten down, traumatized. She's very upbeat and kind of sassy. So many of their filings were not put in the public docket. I even did a filing saying it should be. So we don't know. All I know is that they suddenly showed in court on the public screen her video with her face.

So I interpreted that to mean that the behind the scenes fighting in the undocumented filings had resulted in them putting it on the screen. So I didn't, you can't film in a federal courthouse. but people had sent me a YouTube version of this video because it's out there. So I put in my thread a link to that video. Well, prosecutor Emily Johnson went the next day in front of the court. Never called me up, by the way. They could have called me and said, hey, they made a mistake.

Please take down your tweet. I don't like to do it, but there have been times where they made a mistake and I was that way. But she went to the court and said, somebody has published the video of Mia has violated your rules. we want to provide you with the filing, they should be banned from the courtroom and even from the courthouse. And this is where I work even on other cases. Right, right. So I was ready to go to war on this. I was, it was, without getting, I probably could, but it was requested to me as an accommodation to take it down because they made a mistake. The defense

made a mistake showing the unredacted version of Mia. And I said, I acknowledged that, but I had no way to know it was a mistake because of all the secrecy. And if you'd asked me, I would have taken it down five minutes later just as an accommodation. I'm not a stickler on making people like, but to threaten me is a big, I think is a, is a, is a, and then they started threatening the streamers. They said these guys that were outside

the pro-ditty streamers were saying her name and they should be banned from the courthouse. I don't agree with that. Well, so, yeah, please, no, please, because I would love to know a little bit more about the streaming because the thing is there was mainstream media that covered it like NBC, New York Times, whatever. But there were a lot of,

of people, like yourself, independent journalists, and then other people that are not necessarily journalists, but people with an interest in the case that have followings that were doing that sort of stuff. So how did that sort of sort itself out? Like, where did, for instance, like, where did you sit during the trial? I'm sort of in between. I view, it's interesting. And this is, in a way, we can go, we'll go into the UN thing because I think it's part of this. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, what do you call it, in house media at the courthouse. I was accepted in. I have a pass. I can bring in my laptop. Okay. But I feel I sometimes, I'm not at odds with, because I had an experience in the UN in which the corporate media and the state media that covers the UN wants things a certain way.

And I didn't want it that way. And I ended up being thrown out of the UN, not just by the UN, but in large part by those same media. Those same media organizations didn't rally to my defense at all. In fact, they were like, it's better for us. He's out. So I do not want that to happen at the courthouse. So I don't, I'm going to be very careful how I say this. But I think that the mainstream media that was here had an outside firm.

I think it's Davis Wright and Tremaine. It's a big law firm. They called themselves the media coalition. They did some filings. Nobody asked me what I thought of it. I did my own filing. But they didn't defend the streamers at all. They view the streamers as not media.

And I think, okay, there's a difference between ABC News and some guy with the YouTube channel. Okay. But how much of a difference? And also, if you believe in freedom of expression, I don't see the difference. I think if you let, if you start letting a judge throw a streamer out of the courtroom, it's not going to be, they just think it'll never happen to them. That's the difference. They feel the judge is never going to throw the New York Times out. So who cares if some guy who drove here all night from Chicago to rant a pro-day, they're not just ranchers either. Again, there's a whole range. We call them streamers. Some of them are better informed than the people that are inside the court, you know, that they're with the mainstream media because they know the participants. Right. Well, how does it work like literally? Like when you're in the court house or the court. room. Where are you sitting? Where's everybody else? There's a certain number of seats set aside for the quote, in-house media. I'm always a little uncomfortable to be like, it sounds like you're kind of like the court

jester. You know, you're like, I don't like it, but it does get you into the courtroom. So you don't, I feel bad. I know a journalist that came from California that had to like pay a line sitter $250 and may have ended up in the overflow room. So I definitely, I'm uncomfortable with this kind of privilege, but I'll definitely, I'll take it in terms of reporting. But I also try to use, I guess, I'm saying this, and I've used it even in meetings that we have with judges about the media coalition to try to advocate that more people should be allowed in, that this idea of distinguishing between sort of irresponsible new media and super responsible old media is an anachronism and is not,

you know, with all due respect to everyone involved, you know, to me journalism is taking information that it's hard to get, whether it's because they, you can't bring in your electronics or because there's only so many seats or because you have to do a for-air request or and making it available to a wider group of people that are interested in it but either don't have the time or the access to get it. This to me is, right? And so whoever does that, to me, is a journalist. I don't care if they're doing it on a cell phone or they're doing it in the New York Times

or anything. And so, and I don't, that's not the definition that's being used, certainly at the U.N., but even in the court system. So how many, about how many people are sitting in the court room? There was a lot. They had four overflow courtrooms. This was a, this was a, this was a, yes, because the courtrooms are not huge. You know, there's some courthouses where they have a ceremonial courtroom that'll seat like 500 people.

These seat maybe at most 100. Yeah, they had, at some days, they had four. Like when Cassie was testifying, there was also a day when Kanye West came. That was like a madhouse. They didn't let Kanye West into the courthouse. They put the courtroom. They put him in an overflow. He left in a huff.

He was like, I didn't come down here to be looking at a TV screen. Yeah, I bet he did. It was a huge, yeah, this was big. And in fact, yesterday was so, was so, there were so many people from, that came to the, I guess they caught wind of the verdict and then there was going to be a bail hearing at five o'clock. So outside the courthouse, they had to close off a street that's across the street from us because people were just spilling into the street and blocking traffic. So they, they penned people over there.

The whole line of Worst Street was a bunch of tents saying NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox. You know, and today it's all being dismantled. It's like the circus left town. It's like, you know, it's like almost like you want to see like, you know, elephant excrement and peanuts left on the house. It's just like, you know, the facade is gone. The interest in being in that space is nil now, you know? Yeah.

So I've covered trials in the past and I know that like it kind of can work a couple of ways, right? Like either the media core is really congenial, very collaborative. We're all in this together. You know, the judge is making things difficult. It's all at one time. or, you know, I can't pull my phone out in the courtroom or whatever, right? Or was it, like, more competitive and everybody's sort of doing their own thing and, like, how did you feel that it broke down? And again, I actually, there's one thing I know I'm going to be politically correct.

I want to go back and say, with regard to Emily Johnson, the prosecutor that apparently threatened me, that I don't think it was ill-spirited. I think she feels that she was defending the privacy of a sexual abuse victim. So I understand. I think she should have been more aware that threatening a media without even talking. to them to see if there was an accommodation is not good, but I don't think she did it to be leveling. Same thing on the media here. There is a lot of collegiality. I mean, we're playing board games in here. Sometimes people ask me to do a filing because their corporate media can't move fast enough. They'll say like, hey, this thing just happened. I'm going to have to ask my editor

who's going to ask the general counsel and it's going to take two days. Can you just do it? I'm happy to do it. So we do work together. And especially in a trial like this, there's not a lot of like exclusives you're going to get. Right. Because the jurors are anonymous and you're not supposed to talk to them. You get in trouble if you talk to them coming out of the courtroom. So nobody's going to get it. But what I do see sometimes is a split between the, the, the, either the in-house media

or the sort of corporate established media and the streamers. There's always this concern that the streaming, I'm going to call them streamers, but it could be bloggers, you could call them tweeters, whatever you want to call them. It's that this is somehow going to screw it up for the real media, that if they're come in and they publish the name, then no one's going to be in anymore. And there's always, so there's a lot of, and I understand that. I understand that you, we've fought for a lot of access. And so you don't want somebody to just come in and blow it up for the hell who's only here for one day. But I also think you should be, you have to be aware. It's not, also, sometimes people forget

the rights of the press are for the public. It's basically a public right. I constantly find, when I write letters to the, to the court, I say the public and, and, you know, by, by implication, to press. It's not like a press right. The public has a right to know. We may be the ones trying to assert that right, but it's not. So when you have the press putting down the public, I never like that. Like, oh, these people don't know anything or these commenters or, you know, somebody wrote to me and criticized my article. Who the hell are they? I like, I read everything that I get because it's not like that's who I'm serving, but yeah, like, that's what you're doing it for. Right. Well, it is curious, because, like, you've covered courts for a long time there.

And you mentioned a Robert Menendez trial, for instance. So had you ever seen this sort of an atmosphere around a trial at the courthouse before? There was the Trump trial. There was the Trump E. Jean Carroll. It was a civil case here in federal court. And there was a lot of it was. But again, there was the Galane Maxwell trial, which was a sex trafficking trial, basically the madame of Jeffrey Epstein. What I think was unique about this trial is that the defendant had a lot of supporters.

I mean, I don't know if you took a poll around the country. It's got them this, which is a nonprofit publication here in New York, highly respected. They wrote a story how everyone in Harlem hates Diddy. Could be true. I mean, I don't know. Maybe they got off the train and they found some people that hate Diddy. I'm sure there's not people wildly cheering for Diddy either. He's an extremely rich guy that hasn't done anything for Harlem in a long time.

But I know that I know the people that wrote to me pro-Diddy, I don't think they're all robots. I don't think they're all paid. I think it's almost, it's like OJ or something. There are people that say like, okay, he might have done wrong, but are white entertainers prosecuted as racketeers, or is this somehow a unique racial thing? So I think there was a lot. I think that this was unique in my experience. And I actually kind of like it because I hate these trials where it's just a cartoon.

You know, the person in the dock is somebody that everyone despises. Galane Maxwell, Robert Menendez. At the end, maybe had a few Cubans, you know, Cuban America. and right-wingers that liked him, but he didn't have many people. Sam Bankman-Fried, everyone was ripped off, nobody supported him. So it's refreshing.

And I understand, a lot of people didn't like the defense lawyers because they were like, they're just in it for the money. But it must be refreshing for them, too, because they always defend people that have no supporters. And in this case, they had people,

there were people cheering yesterday, and said, whoa, Alexander Shapiro, great appeal, Jason Driscoll, who's like this young lawyer who argued some evidentiary issue. Yeah, Jason!

So I'm sure this is going to power them for years, you know. Were you torn between, like, I want to, you know, focus on the proceedings here, the core proceedings, and the scene around? Because I saw as many videos, like, for instance, like, one of Dittie's former bodyguards, Eugene Deal, who's, like, legendary in the YouTube space, right? And, like, you're saying getting into it with people outside the courtroom or whatever. So, like, in a way, that's news to a lot of people. Oh, totally, totally. I would have done it. If I hadn't had the ability to be to, the way I viewed it is like, even there was a lot of big media

here, they didn't really try to cover it live. Now, some did, and I don't, I don't, mostly I'm the only one doing kind of live coverage of this and the state court, because most people, they send reporters, they listen to the whole day in the courtroom, and then they go down and write a story. Now, I think they realized that there was a hunger for more here. So the Washington Post, my understanding, I don't know if it was behind a paywall or not. I haven't paid for that. But I think they had a live blog.

Sometimes AP had a live. blog. But there's still, and this is, and I'm not putting them down. This is where I decided to focus on this. Even those live blogs are basically the journalist summaries of what's happening. The prosecutor just presented some really strong evidence. And, you know, I just do the dialogue. I just try to capture, like, but also who's moving around the courtroom. Just, it's a different style of reporting. And I think people get a kick out of it. And I didn't see anyone else doing it. And I think it also allows, it allows a lot of these, these more commentary to people that are not at the courthouse. Maybe they're not even in New York.

I kept getting calls that someone's doing a whole YouTube show based on my tweets. I should sue them. I should ask for money. No, I mean, that's fine. I have no problem with that, you know. But there are people literally, even some teeth like, you know, putting up like a screen. I mean, again, I'm not trying to toot my horn. I think it's because nobody does it that way.

And I don't know why they don't. I'm not sure why a journalist summary of what's happening is better than just a dialogue and some physical description of what's happening. So was this something that you decided upon that was unique for the Diddy trial because of the characters and everything, but this is the way you typically did it down. I'll try to do this because I do want to say something to you

about the UN. When I first came to the courthouse, it was 2018, so it has been a while. And it was to cover some UN corruption cases. I was covering the UN strongly. I was already kind of under fire there. Suddenly, it was rare, but there was a case about UN corruption.

So I started coming. down to the courthouse. At that time, I was already had like a curfew to get back into the UN, so I was always running back and forth. But at that time, I couldn't bring my electronics in. I wasn't an in-hap. I even asked, I remember I came here to cover this trial, and there were some other people covering it, and then I would see them disappear. I would see them having phones, and then I would see them get on this side elevator. And I remember asking, like, what's going on? And they said, well, there's a press room, you know, but don't worry, this is not for you. One, you're not your, you're kind of a blogger.

And number two, and this was the more serious thing, no matter how serious, no matter how you much you're into one trial, to be an in-house media, at least at the Southern District of New York, you have to cover, like, more than one case. You have to, like, cover the courthouse. They're not giving you space just to cover ditty because, so they're, so like the New York law journalist here, that some of them don't use it all the time. I use it all the time because it's a freaking goldmine. They told me, you have to cover six cases.

I write about six cases every day now. Actually, I write 10. I read 10 stories a day about SDNY because it's not difficult. There's so much information here. Like literally, I left a break. There was a 20-minute break in the Ditty trial, and I went upstairs, and there was a case about the government of Turkey suing a Bank of America to get information about its political opponent. And they were saying, and it's like, nobody's there.

Even Bloomberg is not there. So it's just, I could write 20 stories a day if I had time, honestly. Well, I was going to say, like, I mean, what is that like? Because, I mean, that's a, I mean, it is, I mean, it is sort of a gold line for you. It's incredible. It's so fun. And especially, here's the other benefit of being here is that without, and I'm grateful for it, I don't think I'm having to hide anything. We have, you know, Pacer charges you money. This is the government system to read federal court files. It's only 10 cents a page, but I would probably spend $300 a day. It's like a drug habit because you need to read. You need to read. And it's 10 cents a page. It adds up. As an in-house map, we have a, we have a PACER terminal in the press room. I pretty much sat up there and I'm like, I look, every day there's about 2,000 files. in STNY. I don't open them all up, but I do take a look at them all. Because you just scroll over it and you say, this is the way you discuss, you say, wait a second, this is a case of, you know, like, you know, Capital One, redlining and, you know, predatory lending or like some weird,

Charles Oakley. It's like the number of cases here are unbelievable. And you can always discover something new, you know? That's amazing. Well, so let me ask you a question. So you mentioned, because it seems like you have kind of a back and forth with your readers and your followers. So Like, are they telling you, like, what did they seem to want to know the most about? Like, or would it, would, what got the most feedback? They'll say, like, how's he look? I mean, sometimes I don't really like to give, though. They'll say, like, what's he wearing today?

I don't really care about that. He was wearing pretty much a yellow v.nex sweater. He tried to look. But I think it is interesting. They'll ask, like, this is all the part. Like, it's true. I'm a lawyer. So it's like, these days, I'm mostly a journalist.

But I do put ESQ next to my name when I do a filing. It does get a little further. But the, you know, they'll ask, like, what's a Rule 29 motion? or like, why is this happening? I really enjoy that because I think without being a kind of Pollyanna, at least these courts, they're better than I thought they were. The judges are fairer. There are exceptions, and there are definitely some people that probably should have already

retired, and there are definitely some people that are still carrying the political baggage that got them originally nominated. But I think something a lot of people don't realize is these federal judges are for life. They do know that. But I would say 70% of their time is. spent on drug crimes and supervised release proceedings about people that serve five years and then get out and fail a urine test or like get into found shoplifting or or some kind of domestic violence and they have to bring them in and read them the riot act and threaten to jail

them and they get really close to these I mean it's it's the amount of and then you see these judges that that you think are like they're dealing with these like highfaluting cases and they're spending an hour asking like like, well, how did this? How did this thing happen? And then what's going to be different this time? And they're almost playing social worker. So it's, it's, I like to, it's hard to explain that, but all the legal, like, why things are done the way they are. I like to explain it. And often it's, it's, it's trying to take away the conspiracy theory. You have people saying like, oh, this is BS, you know, this is totally, this judge is totally anti-ditty. And it's like, no, there's a reason that he did this.

And, and then I'll try to play up, like, look, he's going the other way. Like, I feel like this judge, I didn't think he was transparent enough, but he's very, you can't say he aired on one side or the other at all. So I've got a few more questions for you, but I'm going to follow up on something that somebody asked you. Don't be offended when I won't. I won't. Because we didn't get any, there's no cameras in there. We didn't get to see what Diddy looked like. I've never seen Diddy with gray hair, for instance, right? Yeah, I don't mean. How did, how did Did he look? Like, I mean, because I, he looked so different than I can't, when I saw like the news coverage of, they go back to these old ones where he, He's looking very sharp.

He's got an earring on, great hairdo. He's in front of the red carpet. He's with Cassie. A lot of those are old footage. I think even if he dressed himself up, he's still a little, he's not quite as sleek as he once was. But he went out of his way. People said it's because he was not allowed to dye his hair in MDC.

But I'll bet you his lawyers told him the more harmless you can look, the better. And he looked freaking harmless. He looked a little bit chubby, not chubby, but a little bit different. And definitely had his hair was white. He looked, some people would say he looked like Urkel. He was like he had on a little sweater. He looked like a, you could see he could have like a little protractor. He definitely did not look like the Sean Combe.

So old. And I think it did help. I mean, inevitably, because you're telling the jurors, this man is an animal. He, you know, he broke four doors at Jane's house. He, you know, supposedly he dangled a woman off the balcony, 17 stories above the Los Angeles street. This was sort of disproved. But if so, he's an incredible bodybuilder.

And then you look at him and you say, what? So it was a studied look. It'll be curious to me what he does. Now, I think people, he tried to get out yesterday. Right. Maybe wrongly. I think there was a chance he could have gotten out. Because if he'd initially only been charged with these two transportation for prosecution charges,

I don't think he would have been put in jail pending trial. I don't think that happens on those charges. Those are not crimes of violence. They're kind of pimping charges. basically. That's what, you know, and there's a history of the law. It goes back. It has racial elements to it. But he would never be here. Jack Johnson Man Act stuff. Absolutely. Absolutely. And they're going to breathe. I think they may, I tried to ask them yesterday if they're going to appeal on that ground. I think they might. And they, because it's a fun. And this is also not even a conventional

pimping case. He's not like he didn't take Cassie and charge people money to have sex with her. He paid people money to have sex with her. I mean, it's, it's a crazy, I could see some appeals judges saying that's not what this law was for. I bet. What did you know of Diddy before this evening got says? You've mentioned academics, you've mentioned Cassie.

Like this is very, this is very hip-hop, like if I read this on, you know, double Excel or vibe or whatever. Yeah. I'll be honest with you. Well, I did, I'm a Bronx side.

So I know I, but I haven't, I'm not a huge, one of the first big trials I covered, once I became an in-house journalist here, through the root of the, of covering, UN corruption was Takashi 69. There was this Brooklyn gang trial in which Takashi 69 was the cooperating

witness. And that, I'll be honest, I started to get, because no one at that time was even trying to go live with it. And I think a lot of the corporate and mainstream media here were like, who's Takashi 69? But I started live tweeting it and it went huge. Like people were writing to me and saying like, whoa. And also, that was, it was a really wild case, right? Because he wasn't, he wasn't the defendant. He was with the government. They were having to hide him from this gang. The nine-tray bloods, I think they were, from Brooklyn. They were trying to kill him.

They had him sleep in the prosecutor's office and, like, come across a walkway to the courthouse. He was so, he had been, his biological father had never seen him, but now that he knew he had money, the father came to his sentencing and said, I am your father. And Jakati-69 said, I don't want to know you. It was, like, incredible, you know? And, and in fact, I think, I don't want to say it, but Scotia 69 has responded to the tweets, because nobody else was covering it. So it went big in that speed. And that's how I sort of,

I think that's how like academics and like complex and Excel and hot new hip hop, all of these things started following me. And now one of, I also cover crypto. So there's, I know there's a same kind of small world around, there's like coin desk and towing telegraph and, you know, crypto,

cryptopedia, like all of these places use inner city press because they're specialized media. They don't have anybody in the courthouse, but I'm interested in this crypto cases. And I'm, there's a, there was a, there was a, There was a recent, a drill rapper, you may never, you may have heard of or not called KFlock. I don't know.

I had not heard of him. That is something. Yeah, that's a little bit even beyond. Check it out. He's a Bronx base. He's from the Bronx. So maybe that's why. I hadn't heard of him actually until his trial.

I have to admit that his fans that like what I did that were probably, will not like to hear that. But it's real like he was, you know, he's like 21. He's, his fellow musicians are the residents of the same building in the Bronx. And they basically filmed themselves smoking blunts and showing. guns that may or may not be real in front of their building and going, you know, da-t-ta-da, I'm going to kill that. But it is good. It's definitely art. I consider it an art form. Anyway, he was recently convicted of racketeering and murder. And a killing took place because they are a gang. They're a gang, but he's a musician. And it was different than Takashi 6-9. It was like there was an

existing gang that sort of brought him in as sort of like the court jester to, to, you know, sing their praises. Whereas Kevin Perez, the real name, he was, these were the people that he grew up with. I mean, I think having been in the Bronx, it's not, you don't have to be an immoral or bad person to end up in a bad situation. It's very, in fact, it's very difficult not to, I have to say. So, but still in all, somebody ended up dead and, and he's in jail and he's going to probably, they're trying to get 16 years, he's going to try to get eight. It's a real shame. But I covered that and again, But that's a smaller, even XXL and Complex didn't really cover. They were like, what are you doing here?

And I was like, this, and the killer to me about that case is that they were using his lyrics and his YouTube songs against him at trial. They were saying this song means this song is an admission. He was saying, I'm going to get, you know. And I think like, I personally, as a First Amendment proponent and a musician too, by the way, I don't think that you should use, I think they should go out of their way to use D.N. and witnesses. I don't think that you,

and as they say, you know, look at Johnny Cash, look at like all of these Western songs. People, you know, you shouldn't be using people's lyrics against them

if you can try. I believe. I would love to go down this road with you because I did at some point because I did a whole season on the Tupac Biggie Murder's narrative podcast. Sure.

And one of the, one of the, there was a murder case in Texas that used Tupac's lyrics. It's part of the, it's part of the trial or whatever. So this is, yeah,

this is a very long, history of people doing this book about it. I actually did a book about the K-Flock one, booklet. I mean, I put it on, on Amazon, you can find it, but it's called a courthouse rap. And it's basically about the way they you, I really like it. He still hasn't been sentenced, but it's a, I don't want to say that's a pro bono project, because it's not, it doesn't have the same resonance. Like, what happens to me is that sometimes Diddy think a lot of people came interested, their thanks for covering it. Now I'm tweeting to them about the UN. They don't care about. I mean, a lot of the people that began following for Diddy are like,

But some are willing to go along. Sometimes their politics are different. They want you, as with anything, like I didn't try to say, I'm not pro-ditty or anti-ditty. I'm just covering the trial. And honestly, I'm covering the thing in Congress today about the big beautiful bill. I mean, I have my own views, but I don't, I don't think that in reporting on it, you should, you should let your view, then there's no reason to report. Then you just, then you just be a streamer, you know, I mean, or as they say, go out and say, this bill is terrible, it's going to kill people. to me it was fascinating that last night there were five Republican nose and somehow by four in the morning there was only one like I want to know now maybe it's corruption it could be but it's also like very smart politics like I don't know what Mike Johnson did and I'm sorry to we've gone down this road but it's just it I mean and that's the way I'll cover the UN too I'm not pro I'm not anti UN I just I'm not pro UN I just want to know like how did this happen and since they they fail so often they overpromise and under deliver so often the coverage is going to end up being negative but

That's not my problem, you know. Well, look, and I ran much longer than I'm trying to. But no, no, no, but this is great. No, I'm so glad that we got to do this because this is amazing. So this is Matthew Lee of Inner City Press. I hope nobody talks to you about baby oil or ditty or anything else again for a long while. I think it's going to be. As early as Tuesday, there's going to be some baby oil.

There's a hearing on whether he can get an expedited sentencing. So I'm expecting some serious loob, loob talk on Tuesday. Okay. Well, we'll be following. And so, anyway, thanks so much, Matthew, for spending time with this hit, press box. Definitely. Thanks a lot. All right, Joe, before we go, let's quickly do weekend blurbs. What is your non-log rolling weekend blurb?

So, you know, this is a holiday weekend for us, right? Like, we've got a little bit of time. You're going to do anything fun, by the way? Yeah, there's a parade that I'm going to be not marching in, but attending tomorrow. Oh, good for you. Okay. In Pasadena? Yeah.

Oh, man. Good shit. Okay. Macaroid salad? I can keep going. Man, look at you, man. Well, yeah, I don't, my kids are not, they're not ready for that sort of fun. So I'll just be trying to survive. But, you know, we're in a really interesting moment. And often when I'm trying to find inspiration for work or just trying to think through things that are going through me, I revisit work that has really moved me. And so I found myself as I was unpacking boxes in my house still. because we're still at that stage. That's like the last thing that we've failed to quite finish up is unpacking our boxes

full of books. One of the books I pulled out and I think it was meant to be, it was Kismet, is one of my favorite books and it's called The Warmth of Other Suns

is written by Isabel Workerson. And it's one of those books that came out more than a decade ago. It won so many awards. So it's a very well-known book. But the book itself is about the great migration, which is when many, many of black Americans from the

South moved north and west in search of a better life. And this happened from World War I to about 1970, right? And my parents, in a way manner speaking, were part of that migration. They moved from Pine Bluff, Arkansas to Houston. And the way that I'll say this is my mom always said, I said, why did you, you know, you had family that moved to California from Arkansas. Like, why did you move to Houston? And she said, well, Houston was as far north as we could get south. So it was really interesting way of putting it. But anyway, so anyway, there's this, these unforgettable characters, Ida May Gladney, a sharecropper's wife, she left from Mississippi to Chicago, George Starling. He was a train porter. He left from Florida for Harlem.

and Robert Foster, a surgeon from my mother's original hometown, Monroe, Louisiana, and he moved out to L.A., like California. And she just talks about their lives, making the trip out to these places, like what they had to endure to get there. And once they got there, what their lives were like. And it's not like they had found some sort of paradise when they got to the other side. Like, you know, many of the same problems existed in the places that they wound up. But anyway, a lot of this stuff is just really hit me. in the last few days as we sort of go through this really intense news moment in our lives. And I found it to be really, not soothing, but to find that book at this moment really, really hit me in a certain place.

And so I've been reading through it again to pick you back up. It's one of the few books that I read that I cried at the end of, so I'm preparing myself to do that again. So anyway, the warmth of other sons, if you find yourselves interested, please pick it up. It's a great, great book. And I've wanted to meet Isabel Wilkerson ever since that book came out in 2011, never had the chance to tell her how much it impacted me. But if anybody knows her and hears these words, please share them with her. You used a phrase they're finding books. And I believe that myself, not just finding books in bookstores, but putting them on your shelf and letting yourself find them years and years later when you're meant to read them.

and I had the same experience with my weekend blurb. It's a book called A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by a travel writer named Eric Newby. It's published in 1958. I bought it when I was in England. I think it cost two pounds on one of those, you know, corrals that had like tons and tons of old paperbacks on it. I love travel books. I bought it. I picked it up and started to read it a couple weeks ago like 100 pages into it.

So this is a partial blurb, Joel, just, you know, making sure that we just in case I can change my mind here. Okay. Yeah, you may get through it and you do like that. It didn't end up quite the way I expected. But basically the author and his friend are walking through all these places that would later become news in Afghanistan like Kandahar and Kabul in a ill-fated attempt to climb a mountain to take that short walk in the Hindu Kush.

Book is very, very funny. I love travel books because they feel like they transport me to places that I would love to go in a, you know, in a world where I could just pick up and leave at any time. So my blurb is a short walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby. Brian, you just moved me. Like, I'm going to start. You know, you were actually moving. You were talking about crying at the end of the warmth of other sun.

So let's put this. I'm a little softy. So that's a travel book. That sounds good. And especially as somebody who wouldn't mind getting away every now and again. So, yeah, I'm going to take your lead on that. He is Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis.

Produce a Magic by Kyle Crichton. Coming up Monday, Shoemaker and I are going to revisit David Foster Wallace's great story about Roger Federer. We invite you to revisit it along with us. There's a gift link pinned to both the press box social media accounts right now, Twitter and Blue Sky. Also, one of the best reporters on the politics beat or any beat, the Wall Street Journal's Josh Dawsey's going to join me to talk about his new book about the 2024 election. That's Monday. Joel, I'll see you back here next Thursday with more lukewarm takes about that. media. Can't wait, man.