The Press Box - Presidential Debate Strategizing, the NBA Rights Endgame, and New Yorker Editor Succession With Semafor’s Max Tani

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

Hello media consumers! On the Final Edition, Bryan is joined by Max Tani, media editor at Semafor, to discuss the following: Biden and Trump agree to two presidential debates on CNN and ABC (01:33) What to make of the NBA media rights negotiations (19:13) JJ Redick: podcaster and coach? (28:20) The succession plan for The New Yorker’s next editor (35:31) Joe Kahn and the young reporters at NYT (44:23) Covering the media beat (48:15) Then, David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Max Tani Producer: Eduardo Ocampo 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 will never eat lunch in this town again? Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Press Box. Brian Curtis of the Ringer here along with producer Eduardo Ocampo. Coming up on today's pod, we're going to talk about the presidential debates, the final hit piece generating days of the NBA rights negotiations,

the New Yorker editor succession, Joe Kahn, and the young reporters at the New York Times, and life on the media beat. All of this with today's guest, he is Max Taney, the newly titled media editor at Semaphore, a terrific writer and Scoop Meister, a primary source for this podcast. Please consider this an extended edition of Max's view.

Max, welcome to the press box. Thanks for having me, Brian. I really appreciate it. And the wind-up is great. Makes me feel good. I'm glad to be here. I appreciate that. Shall we start with presidential debates in the way they were rolled out yesterday?

Yeah, very strange situation, but really interesting when Stimmon. I thought the NFL was going to have the most staged schedule release of the day. Turns out we were wrong because we got news there are going to be two presidential debates, one on CNN, June 27th, a second on ABC on September 10th. it all happened very quickly, starting with a Biden-Klin Eastwood-style tweet. What did you make of the debate rollout? It was really strange. Well, first of all, I was kicking myself a little bit because I was talking to a colleague about a week ago who covers the Trump campaign.

And they said to me, you know, what's going to happen? Why can't they just go around the presidential debate commission? And are there any networks that have reached out to campaigns to try to, you know, see if they can just set up something kind of independently? Because we've been hearing some murmurings about frustration on both sides with the official debate commission, which has run these debates since the 80s. And I thought to myself, oh, that's a really interesting question. Like, that's something I should probably look into and promptly forgot about it until yesterday morning when I saw the news. I know. And this is this is why you write things down.

put it into a calendar when you have a good idea or something like that. But I, so, so clearly this was something that had been discussed somewhat beforehand. And the Washington Post reported that the campaigns had been in discussions about potentially doing this for at least a few weeks. And they had bonded over the mutual disdain and frustration with the debate commission, especially from last time. And so this didn't just all come out of nowhere. There were definitely the groundwork had been laid. But it was interesting how quickly the both campaigns agreed to the terms. And I know for a fact that CNN was not planning, Warner was, didn't know that this was going to happen.

And it was actually really nice timing for them because they were able to announce it at their upfronts, which is the advertising presentation that happens every year. in New York for advertisers, they were able to say, you know, this is a unique offering that we have. So very, very strange rollout, not totally planned, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, brain to say that he would be willing to debate Trump, which he hadn't quite said. So then as you say, they start thinking, how are we going to do this? How are we going to work around this debate commission? And I was reading the Politico piece that Stephen Shepard and a couple of other writers put out today about this. And they were saying that the complaints the campaigns have about the debate commission

are from the Trump end, that they're part of a massive conspiracy against me. They're cheating me, et cetera. His complaint about every walk of American life. And for Biden, it was that they allowed Trump to interrupt him a lot during the 2020 debates, during one of those debates, which of course made Trump lose the debate because he was interrupting Biden the whole time. But for whatever reason, that was okay. And then it also allows them to set these very unique terms, which we can talk about too. I think that's a little bit of spin from the Biden camp, somewhat. I think that's true. But I ultimately think their main issue seems to have been the audience and they didn't like the fact that Trump worked to the refs. And there was obviously, of course, still a little bit

of trauma from what they felt like, you know, Trump exposed Biden to COVID because Trump got was diagnosed with her, you know, he tested positive for, for, he wasn't diagnosed. He tested positive for COVID-19 right after the debate, right? And he definitely, he'd expose. Biden in 2020. So I think there was still a lot of, you know, a lot of complaints. But I do think a little bit of this was spin from the Biden camp because they wanted to be able to, I think, and I think their main issue was they wanted to be able to move up the dates earlier than what the presidential debate commission had proposed. And they wanted to get rid of the audience. And both aims, they were able to accomplish both aims, which leaves one wondering why,

exactly Trump agreed to do this because, I mean, for the fact that he's the art of the deal guy, remember, I'm so good at negotiating. Like, you know, Biden walked away from that getting everything that he wanted. So I don't know. It's an interesting, interesting situation. Yeah, there's a good tweet from Matt Zitlin. He said, pretty clever the Biden campaign to get the Trump campaign to say anywhere, any place, and then get them to agree to fewer debates farther away from election day and at least one of them only being aired on cable. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And I do, it did also make me wonder why, and if they had factored in the fact that this was going to be watched by fewer people, the CNN debate that is. The ABC debate, I believe that they said that they're going to simulcast it across all the broadcast networks.

So that'll look and feel like a traditional presidential debate. But the CNN debate, which is the one that's in June in about six weeks, that debate is right, is only going to be on CNN. And so presumably, even though a lot of people are going to tune in for it, as they did for the primary debates, it won't get the same kind of massive broadcast number, ratings number that the previous ones did. And the Biden campaign obviously knew that. So it makes one thing, did they want fewer people to watch? I don't know. It's very, the decisions around it from from both ends in some ways are perplexing to me. But maybe that maybe I'm just not playing the 3D chess that those folks are. are paid to do. I'm confused by it too because I learn from political pundits I see on TV that if you're behind in the election like Biden is, you want to debate and you want to debate more. And if you're ahead in the election like Trump is, you're in no hurry to debate if you want to debate at all. Right. I think what it comes down to, and this is something that I've both talked to officials from

the campaigns about, but also kind of heard anecdotally and some of it is some of it's been reported. part of it is, and there was an axiostory from my former reporter reporting partner, Alex Thompson, who used to, you know, we worked together at Politico and the White House beat, he reported this week that basically Biden doesn't believe the polls. He doesn't believe the bad polls. He believes, and he talked about this a little bit, I believe, on Howard Stern as well, in which he said, he basically said, modern polling is broken. He's bought into the idea that the modern polling is completely broken, and that, you know, it's really hard to reach people nowadays because they're all on cell phones. You used to be able to reach people more on the landline.

And so it's skewing the polls, which is a popular theory in kind of, you know, liberal, Twitter and certain parts of certain parts of the media. And it's an interesting, it's an interesting kind of debate. So, so Biden doesn't believe the polls. So, you know, and the Biden team doesn't totally think that those are, that they're losing as badly as the polls would suggest. So maybe that's part of the thing that's shaping the debate strategy. From the Trump side, I know that they just believe that Biden, that putting them up on stage together will draw the contrast that Trump wants, which is, you know, yeah, we're both really old guys, but he is, they actually believe all the stuff that's reported, you know, about his mental acuity and they don't think that he's all the way there and they think he's going to stumble and look bad and Trump's just going to walk all over him in the debate and that'll be that. So I think that those are the things that are kind of that are driving some of the some of the kind of counterintuitive strategies. But I think you're right, Brian, though, it seems risky.

The interesting question you bring up is about team Biden and believing the polls that show them behind. Because this first surfaced, at least for me, when Evan Osnosed wrote the Oval Office profile of Biden and the New Yorker, and he had a comment to that effect in there. It's been kind of an unanswered journalistic question. He was, as you say to Alex, tackled it a little bit yesterday. But on the one hand, okay, so on the one hand, we're saying they don't believe those polls. They have this common liberal refrain. Hey, the polls are broken, cell phones, et cetera, et cetera. On the other hand, they are now asking for like the earliest debate we have ever seen.

Right. To put them on stage together so they can remind people that they're running against Donald Trump. Yeah. That's a great point. I mean, on the one hand, you're saying this, but, you know, and I just, to me, it's so hard to untangle. And I trust Alex is reporting because he's plugged into Biden as anybody. But it's so hard to untangle how much of I don't believe the polls is I really don't believe the polls or this is what all losing campaigns have said since the beginning of time. I think that's probably, that's a great point.

I think it's probably a little bit of both, which is, and I pick up on this too in some of the conversations that I have people, which is, you know, they would really like the polls to show them winning right now. And obviously, it's embarrassing and alarming for them to have polls that show them show them, show them. show them losing a lot. I do think they think the race is closer and it'll become closer. But yeah, there is a little bit of cognitive dissidents there between kind of what Biden is saying publicly and some of the strategy. I do know, and this is something that they believe for a while, they are hoping, and I think they're going to get this from June, people just really believe, the Biden campaign believes that people still think that are not, or are in disbelief that it's a rematch, right? The Biden campaign thinks people don't really understand that it's going to be Trump versus,

it really is going to be Donald Trump versus Joe Biden again on the ballot come November. People think it's going to be, you know, maybe there'll be a replacement at the convention for Joe Biden. Maybe Donald Trump will go to jail or something like that, you know, and the reality is that, And the message the Biden campaign wants to get across. And I think they will be able to get across in June no matter what happens. These are the two guys who are going to be on the ballots. And so I think they hope that the sooner that people remember the coalition that elected Biden remembers that, the better it is for them, you know, electorally. Maybe that'll help reset the election.

Things Biden and Trump agreed on. No RFK in the debate because he is this. unpredictable element that both campaigns worry could hurt them in some way. And number two, as you mentioned, throwing the commission on presidential debates into the trash can. This is the commission, by the way, that when they proposed the debates for this year, one of them was scheduled against Monday night football. Like, that to me was automatically disqualifying. You want people to watch the debates, right? Yeah. No, absolutely. And you can you can really even tell it's a very old-fashioned, you know, a group of folks. And you can kind of

see that even, I went on the website yesterday just to kind of like, you know, I was looking for contact information for someone from there. And I was like, I know. And I was like, nobody's, this has not been updated in four years. It still got all this stuff from 2020 on it. It was, I can see why the campaigns on both sides probably felt like maybe this is antiquated. And the reality is it only exists to kind of mediate, you know, mediate the campaigns. And if they can come to terms and agreement immediately on their own, then, you know, then there's, there really actually is known for the commission. So the RFK point is, is interesting, though, because, and that's one of the most, that's,

that is the true wildcard of this cycle that didn't really, one of the true wildcards of this cycle that didn't exist in, in 2020, right? is that both campaigns are obviously concerned about what impact RFK will have on, you know, on the election. And it's really, I'm particularly interested in RK. And I think he's, I think he's relevant to this show because in some, he's a third party candidate. And third party candidates don't have party infrastructure. So you really have to run, they really have to run their campaign in the media. So if there's a reason why you feel like you're seeing all kinds of RFK stuff all over the place,

despite the fact that he's not pulling particularly highly, it's a successful campaign strategy that he's running. Because he doesn't have this institutional kind of infrastructure, he has to run all of his campaign through the media and getting media attention. And so I'm particularly interested in that factor and how it's going to play out. Yeah, we heard Trump, you know, thought, okay, he'll hurt Biden, but then he started doing a bunch of Fox News hits and talking about vaccines and stuff. And then it's like, uh-oh, that's our base that you're horning in on with your media strategy.

To me, it seems incredibly obvious that he, to me, it seems incredibly obvious that he is someone who would draw mostly from Donald Trump's supporters. And I think that is the, and it's interesting that the Democrats have been kind of so, so intent on kind of heading him off. They hired, you know, a veteran political operative, Liz Smith, who I actually saw last night. And I was asking, I put this exact thing to her. I said, I am surprised that they have you, you know, running this, you know, essentially this, you know, opposition campaign to, to RFK because to me, it seems like he's

pulling from, mostly from, you know, your opponent. And you might want to, you might want to have him in the race. And, you know, she obviously had a very different perspective. Her perspective is we know that he pulls from Trump people, but we just don't want any of the people who, you know, possibly voted for us last time to have, you know, but who might otherwise like Trump to have any excuse not to vote for us essentially again this time. And to think that by voting for RFK, that's, they're not actually voting for Trump, you know, but, but they don't have to vote, you know, they want the Biden, the,

Liz wants the binary choice essentially. Can we talk about CNN and ABC, the two networks that got the debates? So we hear over and over again, it's impossible to be a neutral media entity in 24. Is this CNN and ABC successfully pitching themselves as neutral media entities to both campaigns? That's a really interesting question. I have been surprised by the amount that the Trump campaign has been willing to play ball with CNN this campaign cycle. And I think it shows an evolution in their thinking. I mean, you know, you wouldn't believe it if you just, if you were one of the very few people who pays attention to what Donald Trump is saying on truth social. You know, you see the same thing that he always said, fake news, CNN, blah, blah, blah. But in reality, you know, listeners of the

show will remember that Donald Trump famously, you know, did a presidential town hall hosted by Caitlin Collins on CNN, which is not something that he, I believe, did during the 2020, you know, re-election cycle. And he's been more willing to play ball again this time. It's the culmination of CNN's efforts. And it's to kind of pull back from the Jeff Zucker era of full opposition to Donald Trump. And I think they've been quite successful in doing so. And that's the combined efforts of both Chris Licks, you know, the former president of the network who obviously got fired, but also Mark Thompson, who has kind of continued some of that and has kind of not made, turned CNN back into what it was under Zucker, which was this total, you know, which was

just a resistant, you know, like, mostly oppositional towards Trump. The ABC question is, is, is interesting and it's, and it's quite, it's quite different. I don't know exactly what it says about ABC. It's amazing that they were able to nail to get this, given the fact that their network president just resigned, I believe it was last week or the week before. And their Washington Bureau Chief, who also is involved in a lot of this stuff, also just went over to be a business executive at Politico. So it was amazing that they were able to get it and nail it down. And, you know, kudos to that team over there. I don't know what it, I don't know what it says about the Trump campaigns thinking about or the Biden campaigns thinking about ABC.

Other than that, actually, David Muir is one of the only network anchors who had gotten an interview with President Joe Biden before this year, I believe. He got one in either 2022 or 2022. It was very rare even at the time. So Biden campaign likes it. So maybe a known quantity to them. And like Evan Osnoses in print. By the way, that second presidential debate will be the Tuesday after opening week

of NFL season. So what a week of content. Yeah. But smartly not on, you know, smartly not during an NFL game thing. God. Not opposite the Chiefs game, which would have been the presidential debate commission's idea of good programming. Let's talk about the NBA because you have given yourself the title of Semaphore Senior NBA Podcast correspondent.

Not sure if Ben's going to let you put that on the business cards. Yeah. It's not necessarily the most coveted title. Not a lot of competition, not a lot of competition internally for that role. Benji's a Knicks fan. That's true. There's some people out there. That's true.

I want to start by checking in on the NBA rights negotiations. We have talked about this a ton on this podcast. It feels we have entered the period where there's a lot of thinking, including from my boss, that NBC is going to win and beat out Turner, which is to say Warner Brothers Discovery. There seems to be this big race to write the meanest thing you can about David Zazlav, following the right the meanest thing you can about Zaz, period from all the Hollywood stuff that preceded it.

What do you make of the rights negotiations? that they stand now. The thing that's really interesting, and Brian, I feel like, you know, I've kept up on this by listening to you and listening to Bellany and Bill Simmons, you know, talk about this and seeing the kind of various reports. Luckily, it doesn't have as many twists and turns as the Paramount saga, but it is a little bit difficult to kind of keep up. But I guess what I make of it is, my main takeaway is if you're a fan of the NBA, there's only

one thing that matters and that's inside what happens to inside the NBA and it does seem like Zazlov's camp and some folks on that side and just people who pay attention to this stuff have are rightfully putting out that you know because Ernie wouldn't be coming back you know even if they were somehow able to get you know all jack Kenny and charles you know over to NBC that it obviously wouldn't be the same show and so that wouldn't be able to be you know kind of kind of recreated I'm I mean look warder brothers continue to say that they think that they have a shot at it, even though I know Bill Simmons reported or said that it seems like it's likely a done deal and that's going to be NBC. And that and does,

and it's, you know, even if you're just taking a step back and look at this objectively, like the number that they offered would be something that would be very, very difficult for, for Warner to, you know, to match. So, I mean, it really, if I was betting on it, I would say it seems like the momentum is in NBC's favor. But, uh, but, yeah, as you mentioned, you know, Zaz is doing everything that he can to, uh, you know, show that he's a big fan of the, of the league. You know, he's got, uh, he's sit at the, he's sitting court's side, uh, every possible opportunity, uh, you know, appearing on the broadcast in the, in Knicks hats. He's got the inside the NBA guys out there talking incredibly candidly, uh, you know, about

leaving. And I think that's got fans, um, uh, very upset. And so it'll be. really interesting to see the question that I have and I'm curious if you have an answer to it, Brian is do you think that Adam Silver cares about what fans think about losing inside the NBA, which is something that if you're a fan, you objectively, most people objectively love, or do you think it's just the dollar amount? It's a terrific question. I think he's certainly, you know, he's savvy about the media. He may be our most media savvy commissioner in sports, which is not, you know, with Gary Bettman and Roger Goodell, not a super close race. But, you know, I think he would be sensitive to losing them.

My own take is that Charles Barkley is going to go somewhere, maybe two different places for a ton of money, and that whatever we miss about inside the NBA, which will be considerable, it's an awesome show, will be mitigated a lot by the fact that it's going to be Charles Barkley doing pregame, halftime, and post game. Yeah. But is it just, is it just Charles? Like, is that the only thing that we, because I mean, Charles is amazing and the show wouldn't be the same without Charles. I don't know if you've watched this, Brian, but, you know, sometimes I, you know, I watch the inside the NBA when, when Ernie's not on when it's Shaq and Adam Lefco. Or sometimes I'll watch when Shaq and Chuck aren't on when they had the other night they had Vince Carter and Dremond on. And just the, all the individual parts are just, they just don't add up to the whole. And I kind of feel that, you know, even if we got Charles, he had his own podcast, you know, he had another podcast or hosted somewhere else. I don't know. I still feel like can they, is that close to recapturing the magic? I'm not sure.

A ton of it would be lost because they are genuinely friends, which you can always tell on TV when people are real friends or TV friends. And TV friends sometimes works. But they actually are friends. And there's actually this great sort of element to the show where Charles Barkley can be the supernova supernova the show, but also is very differential to the other guys. He is not Stephen A. Smith to put a fine point on it. Like he is happy to share the mic. He's happy to sort of be a part of an ensemble. So yeah, something will be lost, but I do think he is the supernova. And so if you put him somewhere else, maybe you put him and Kenny somewhere else. Some of that at least would be

mitigated a tad. Can I ask you a question actually because you wrote about this today? This is what happens when we have media reporters on the show. They ask me a question. Wait a second. Ben Moller tried to pull this and we banned him for life. So you go ahead. One question. I want to ask, I'm curious what you think, as, you know, since you wrote this piece this week, looking at the, what NBC's history of, you know, its brief ownership of NBA broadcast rights, how do you think it's going to.

to be different from what Turner is doing. What did you learn about the way that they broadcast last time that you think will be different from what they're doing besides Roundball Rock, which I know you've talked about on the show. Which we'll be back. We're assured John Tesh is available to license his song back to NBC. I think the biggest and most telling change is what Adam Silver and others have hinted in all the reports we've read is they no longer want as many NBA games on cable. and they want more NBA games on broadcast television.

We've all lived long enough for the weight of everything to go from broadcast TV to cable and then now back to broadcast, which is fascinating because I was looking up, you know, the end of the NBA on NBC was in 2002. And David Stern, then commissioner, came out and said, I don't want as many games on free TV anymore. I want them on cable. And ESPN was proposing we are going to take games, not put them on ABC, see, we're going to put them on ESPN.

And that's what they wanted because that was the way of the future. That's where everything was going. It's a little bit like streaming now. We want as much to be in that world as much as we can. Well, now we see the cable bundle cracking up. So as they weigh these two proposals between NBC and Turner's, I guess, as yet, as yet fictional proposal, they think even if Turner were to match the money or to come up with more money, those games are going to be on T&T. and in 2024 is that as valuable to us as putting stuff on network television.

It's just fascinating, right? Like we've come back around to the abacus. You know, we was like, what can we do to watch people? And again, that's been a great successful strategy for the NFL and now the NBA is trying the same thing. It would be really interesting, you know, and maybe this is a topic for the town. But I feel, I wonder if, you know, there were these talks that were. reported last year by Sarah Fisher between Warner, you know, about a possible merger with Paramount. And I wonder if it would have strengthened, you know, and obviously they didn't want to do it for,

for numerous reasons. I wonder if something like that, though, if Zazlov knew how strong they were going to, NBC was going to come in with this, you know, this big offer for basketball. I wonder for the NBA. I wonder if he would have considered. possibly, you know, a deal, some sort of other deal with, with Paramount, you know, to get the NBA, you know, both on T&T and on CBS. Because that's one of the reasons why Disney, ESPN, you know, ABC continues to, you know, be an obvious, you know, one of the reasons why they've secured the rights, right? Because they're able to offer this traditional broadcast network partnership. Anyway, something.

Totally. That's how they got the Super Bowl for ESPN because they can stick the actual Super Bowl on ABC and put Monday Night Football in the cable bundle. It makes total sense, and I think you're right. I mean, going back to Ebersol in the 90s, like the great part about the NBA in terms of programming is it kind of picks up when your NFL programming ends and takes you to the summer, and then we start talking about the NFL again. Yep.

It's perfectly in that schedule if you want sports all year round. I want to talk to you about player podcasts or maybe ex-player podcasts, because JJ Reddick's name has come up as a possible coach of your Los Angeles Lakers. Oh, boy. He's on the number one team at ESPN. He has two different pods. And we were talking the other day. Could he keep up those podcasts in any form

if he were coach of the Lakers? Well, Eudanus Haslam on ESPN has weighed in on that. I'm going to go ahead and say it. If it's JJ, it's going to be a cynical locker room. You're going to see guys that are going to say is coach going to do a podcast after the game with LeBron. You're going to have a cynical locker room with guys that are going to side out everything JJ says

because they're going to wonder, Is it JJ's message or LeBron's message? All right. Can you coach LeBron and podcast with LeBron? It's actually, this is really interesting because I hadn't really thought, I kind of figured he would do like a Doc Rivers thing. And as soon as he, you know, got to being a coach, he'd be like, all right, my media, the media stuff is done, obviously,

because I'm a coach now. I didn't really consider the fact that he could probably keep doing his shows. I mean, coaching LeBron and then doing a YouTube streaming, you know, show in which they would talk about, you know, the breakdown

the other game, you know, the last games or whatever. That would be, as a consumer of content, that is just objectively, that would just be, you know, awesome. As someone who was a fan of basketball, that would be amazing and strange. I just kind of assumed that they would put that stuff, you know, they would put that stuff on hiatus.

But, but I mean, it's a, Hazlm brings up a really good point, which is, I mean, if you look at it, right? Like, all of these players have podcasts that are active during the season. In fact, they seem to do them for partially because they have so much time on their hands, right, being in between games and whatnot. I, I think I would personally be, as a fan, And in consumer, I would love if JJ became a, became coach of the Lakers, but only so that he could,

you know, continue doing his podcast. And we could get even more kind of insights into what's going on, kind of behind the scenes. Only so he could. You know, coaching the Lakers is your secondary concern. Honestly, I don't, he's got no experience, right? He coached his son's like high school team here in Brooklyn, right? So like, I kind of feel like maybe that's not, maybe he's like slightly underqualified. And especially because, you know, one of the complaints that the Lakers had,

you know, reportedly this year players had was they felt like Darvinham didn't, you know, wasn't doing things that seemed like he obviously should have been doing, like hauling timeouts at the right time and just the players didn't trust him and some of the play calls he had. And so, you know, I don't know why you would want to bring in someone who has even less experience than Darvinham. But, but, but, but, but I, you know, from a, from a, from, a content perspective, JJ is the obvious choice. Do you think he'll continue doing his podcast

and his one of two podcasts? What could he do one and not do the other one? Probably stop doing the LeBron one, but keep doing the old man in the three. Well, like you, I'd want LeBron to have an outlet for being passive aggressive. What's the verbal equivalent of an hourglass emoji? Get that on the podcast. I mean, him interviews. Shoemaker had a good idea where he said, well, he could interview old players instead of current players. Like, because he's kind of hard to imagine him interviewing Luca and then coaching against Luca. Like, tell me all your secrets. Right. Let me drop a defense to stop you. We do weirdly have an example of this this week. Doug Gottlieb, who's on Fox Sports Radio, took the head coaching job at the University of Wisconsin

Green Bay. Okay. He is also going to continue his national Fox radio show from three to five Eastern. So not only is he doing a pod, he's doing like sports radio on the clock. every day. That is, that's really, really interesting. Like, I, there's part of me which thinks I want to be kind of a crotchety, you know, old guy here and say, like, you know, you should like focus on your actual job instead of like creating, you know, content for, you know, for us. But also like, that's just irresistible, right? Like, it's just the ability to have something. If we were really able to have someone who is inside the locker and making the call.

I mean, is he going to be like the other, it just, it feels like there's too many, there's, there's too many issues with it that you, that you can come up with, that you can think of, right? Like, okay, if JJ is still doing the podcast, like, he's going to get, you know, is he going to talk about, like, players on his own team or in trade rumors? Like, is he going to talk about the stuff that they still need? I just feels to be like, if he takes the job, that stuff all goes on hiatus and, and, you know, and he leaves the podcasting up to, up to the players.

I think it I think it would have to But it's interesting that we're in a period of time when that is such a big deal When there's so much money involved in those things that you would at least have to weigh Coaching an NBA team and keeping up your podcast I mean the LeBron pod that they're doing is I mean it's it's fantastic if you watch I mean if you look at the stats on it like it's performing really really well And I've been really interested in these player hosted podcasts and, you know, for a while, obviously, but it seems like mostly they had been

relegated for the first few years that they kind of existed. They were really relegated to like kind of the B players or like, Draymond was the was the basic example, but it's like Jeff Teague has a podcast, right? Like, and like Michael Porter Jr. has a podcast and stuff. And like these are really good players, but they're not more solid, good players. But they're not like, you know, the most famous people in the world. When, you know, LeBron James is doing a podcast, his own podcast, and he's on there talking for 20 minutes about all the things that he did wrong and all the things that, you know, the other team that the Nuggets did right.

That's just, it's fascinating. It's kind of completely, it's completely unprecedented. I felt the same way about, you know, Paul George. It's just, to me, it's really, really, it's a really, really cool and interesting and bizarre moment where, you know, we don't have to. just wait until some interview that gets done on ESPN. These guys are literally they are losing one day and then they are hopping to get on the pod the next day.

In the case of Pat Bev, I mean, he's doing it the same night. It's crazy. So anyway, I'm going to be doing it. I subscribe to my podcast or I won't talk to you and then recording a podcast. He is committed. He's committed to the pod. I'd also say to your list,

Draymond Green, not only doing a pod and doing it for Colin Coward at the volume, but then winning the title the year he had the pot. Like that was a big. That was sort of that moment. We're like, okay, you know, now this is really paying off in a very direct way. I want to talk about a few of your recent pieces, New Yorker succession, Max. David Remnick has been the editor since 1998. You went out looking for the post-Remnick succession plan.

What did you find out about possible next editors of the New Yorker? Well, this kind of all came about because I was talking to a few people and, you know, they mentioned to, they asked the question to me, like, who's going to replace David Remnick when he leaves the New Yorker? I reacted and I thought, why would David Rebnik leave the New Yorker? And then I took a look and I realized, oh, he's been, he's been editing the New Yorker for almost 30 years since he was 37 years old. He's 64. And he's by far besides Anna Wintourne, and he's been, he's been editing the New Yorker for almost 30 years. And he's been editing the New Yorker for almost 30 years. He's, he's been editing the New Yorker. I believe the longest tenured editor in currently, who's editing a major national publication. They're not that many of those places kind of left to edit, but he's kind of one of the people who's doing it. And so I started kind of asking around, and I realized that while he had recently re-upped his contract with magazine publisher Condon asked, he had begun talking to folks about who would possibly be a good replacement for him kind of at the magazine. And there are a few in kind of internal

names of folks who are already editing, you know, editing sections of the magazine who already kind of make trains run. But historically, the New Yorker is also in Condonast and its, it's, its parent company, advance and the Newhouse family that owns the company. They've always looked they've often swung for the fences and they've taken risks. Before he was the editor of the New Yorker, David Remnick was not an editor. He was a writer. The last thing I believe he had edited was his high school newspaper. And he got hired to be the editor-in-chief of one of our great American magazines,

if not the greatest American magazine that we have. And he worked out spectacularly. And so I also reported that they could look at some, you know, really big writers who and stars who are not necessarily currently there or in charge publication. You know, people like Ezra Klein came to mind or Jalani Cobb, who is now the dean of Columbia J-School, but also, you know, has written, you know, plenty for the New Yorker over the years. So there's kind of the establishment-y types. You're Nick Thompson, who was the editor-in-chief of Wired, who now is the CEO of the Atlantic. His name came up a lot in conversations. And then there's the kind of offbeat reporting stars, you know, who could possibly take up the job.

My hunch, though, is that it's going to be something that shapes up over the next year and a half, because next year is the 100th year anniversary of the New Yorker. So when Remnick's contract is up, it's close to his 30th anniversary. It really lines up quite well for something. So I think we can expect a change at some point. The question I had reading your list was, do we think Kande would want a words person or would they want a entrepreneurial digital type who wouldn't offend the words people at the magazine?

You know, that's a really, really great question. And it's also something I thought about in reporting this because I was talking to a number of people who were, you know, who suggested a few people such as like the editor-in-chief of the Paris Review and the executive editor of Ford Policy kind of came up as, and those were, and both folks in those cases were former New Yorker editors. And I think those, there's some candidates like that who do fall into the words kind of category. But I think ideally they really want someone who can do both. And that's really one of the major challenges that they face. And it's one of the unique parts of being the editor-in-chief of the New Yorker is you, because they

don't actually have a publisher and the CEO, the CEO, the CEO of Condi Nass, the editor-in-chief acts in this case as both. And I think one of the things that Remnick is really proud of is that the New Yorker was losing money when he took over it. And now it doesn't lose money. And it's, you know, one of the most successful parts of the company. And it certainly is their most subscribed to, you know, publication at Condi. So I really strongly think that, especially given the trajectory of Condé Nast, I really think that they're going to look for someone with some serious kind of, who understands business and who can, who can operate that. But obviously, you don't want someone who is going I'll lose the spirit of the magazine or, you know, its unique kind of style.

And that's one of the reasons why it's so hard to conceive of anyone who could replace Remnick. And that was something that came up a lot, too. I reached out to a lot of people at the New Yorker and asked them who would be good at it. And I think everybody who I talked to was like, it is pretty difficult to conceive of someone who is capable of doing all the things that David Remnick is capable of doing. That's why, to me, I mean, look, I, you know, this was, this, I don't, know if this is necessarily the frontrunner choice, but I really think it will end up being someone like Nick Thompson or like Ezra Klein who have done both. That's interesting. Now,

you threw a lot of chum in the water when you published your piece. There were a lot of names in there. Did anyone try to add or remove their name from the list after your story came out? No one tried to remove their name list. I think that people, and I certainly had a few people who workloaded to me as like, well, why don't you, you know, what would, I talked to a few New Yorker staffers who, who had individual people who they would have liked to see on the list. And, and as I ran them by Condé and by, you know, the comms people and top people up there, I got a lot of chuckles at some of the, at some of the names. But, you know, some of whom have, may or may not have appeared on, on your podcast at some point. They won't say who they are.

Interesting. Yeah. But I think that everybody who I reached out to, if their name had been mentioned, they were quite flattered. One of the other things that I forgot to note originally is that, you know, and I mentioned this in the lead of my story, every year as part of a Condé kind of corporate safety strategy effort, Condé makes all of the top people in top positions, both on the editorial side and business side, make a list of people. people who could conceivably take their job if something goes wrong, if they're hit by a bus, or if they're canceled for some sort of reason. And so Remnick does put together a list every year of five or six people who could theoretically take his job. And while I'm not exactly sure who's on that list, I think some of the names that I mentioned may or may not have appeared

on there. So I think we tried to have both to have fun with it and conceive of some interesting people, but also we, I didn't mention anybody who didn't come up more than once. It's very disturbing to see you and Dylan Byers throwing elbows at each other on Twitter after this piece. We would quote you guys both here on the press box. That was like seeing Dad and Dad fight. Dylan is, yeah, Dylan wrote a thing in his newsletter, basically saying that that while what I reported essentially was interesting, you know, that a lot of the names

that I mentioned were preposterous. And shit stirring was, I believe, the phrase that was not. I think that that's partially true. But at the same time, I think my feeling about what Dylan wrote is that he lacks some of the understanding maybe of the history of the New Yorker. That it's not just the people who he mentioned as possible candidates were the safe internal choices. And I think that that's fine. Those names that he mentioned were also ones that we put on our list. But I think that he, what he was forgetting about is the fact that the New Yorker and Vanity, I mean, the New Yorker and Condonast in general have a history of putting people in charge who might not necessarily have the most experience, but might have great potential to do something different.

I mean, Tina Brown was one of those people and Remnick was one. And Bob Gottlieb was too in his day, you know, bringing him out of publishing and giving him the New Yorker. That was a thing. We'll do this one quickly. You have a new piece out about the New York Times. You say Times reporters are circulating a draft of a letter to Joe Conn, criticizing the paper's top editor over comments they said were dismissive of young reporters. Those comments were made to your boss, Ben Smith, and also to the Wall Street Journal.

So do we think Joe Con was trying to send a message to his staff in those interviews, and now his staff is trying to send a message to Khan? I think somewhat. Yeah, but I think he also believes it. I think that what Joe Khan was saying in some of his comments, and he was remarkably candid both in an interview with us, with our editor-in-chief Ben Smith earlier this month, and with the journal last month,

you know, he was remarkably candid about the ways in which he's been thinking about the times and how it's changed in the two years since he took over. And I think that, I do think it was a message to his employees. And I think that in general, he is feeling more comfortable talking about the ways in which, you know, journalism should be, should be done in America. And I mean, one point here that I think is important is, like, historically, the person who is the executive editor of the New York Times often is a leader, you know, in journalism in the way that it's done and what, you know, the proper ways of thinking about it are. And I think Joe was pretty cautious in his first year. But now moving into his second year, he's, I think, feeling more comfortable to speak his mind on some of these things. And I think he's feeling also like, you know, the business, the times is doing better than ever.

And, you know, the culture, he, I think, feels like is better than it was during the peak of kind of the internal turmoil. So I think he's feeling, I think he's feeling a bit biasty. And obviously, I think he was partially communicating with his own staff, but I think he was also trying to set the agenda for, you know, for journalism across the board. So when I read this, I see the business of the Times is doing better. And the business of the not times portion of journalism is not doing better. So if an editor was ever going to have a leverage over his employees, it's right now. 100%. I think that's totally true.

I think he feels like, and I think we've seen this kind of general. Generally, five or six years ago, when all of these different newsrooms were unionizing, and it was, you know, kind of digital media had kind of, digital news had kind of peaked, but was clearly starting to show some signs of, you know, of some serious underlying issues like BuzzFeed and Vice and others. I think that there were, there was a lot of, I think that a lot of managers and a lot of these companies were a little bit on their back feet because, you know, a lot of, there was a lot of frustration and unease among staff. And I think that resulted in a lot of, a lot of frustration with management. And it resulted in a bunch of these newsrooms organizing and

speaking out and being very openly critical of leadership. I think what I see now in my reporting and in talking to people is much more people in journalism and in media are much, much more, I think, realistic about what they can expect of our kind of industry and the state that we're in, the dire kind of state that we're in. And I think that they also understand how I think people are paying more, rank and file people are paying more attention to the business. And I think that, and I think that what that's meant is in some ways that's that's emboldened some of these newsroom, some of these newsroom leaders feel like they can act more with, with impunity, particularly if you're in the Times case and you're coming at it from a position of strength.

A couple quick ones for you about your career before we go. What do you like about the media beat? I like talking to folks like you. I like talking to journalists. I like, I love, I think media people are inquisitive, interesting kind of characters who, you know, I've covered many beats and it's media, covering me. media is it's the easiest to get people to respond to your emails and phone calls. People just love to, people can't help themselves. And I love. Interesting, inquisitive, vain. Yes, exactly.

Crazy and sometimes egotistical, but also sometimes, it's also in a lot of cases, doing some really important cool stuff. And, you know, fundamentally at the end of the day, I think most people in, in our industry are interested in, you know, seeking the truth and, you know, in holding folks accountable. And I think it's a and I think that that's an admirable mission and I think that most people are driven by those aims and and often have a sense of have a sense of kind of you know righteousness and and you know want kind of justice in whatever way that looks like to them and so I've been able to it's you know I've been able to get some interesting stories by you know by by by playing on some of those things and by being willing to listen and so I think it's really really fun and

Plus, you get to dip your toe in all kinds of different stories, both entertainment, you know, politics, technology, you know, business. And I'm sure there's other things. But the media crosses a bunch of, crosses many different beats. And so it's fun to get to kind of play in a lot of different beats. I asked us to Ben Mullen earlier this year when the messenger was going down. What does it like to cover the media when our profession is in the dire straits that, you mentioned. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's something I've thought a lot about and, and I've gotten asked about a few times. I think that, and I could ask you the same question, but I feel like

it can obviously be quite pressing and sad, full stop. I have started to kind of try and think about things differently, which is to try and focus on, and I think maybe you'll pick up, people have picked up on this a little bit in our newsletter. We don't just want to write about when things are bad because it's just, it would depress me and it makes me sad and I can't spend my whole life, you know, eight or nine hours a day, you know, thinking about the decline of journalism. It's just too dark. I'll spend some other day doing that. But, you know, there is a lot of stuff in media that is working. And, you know, despite the fact that a lot of regional newspapers, you know, are, I've closed, a lot of the networks and, uh, or, and magazines are kind of

shells or are shells of what they used to be are hauled out, there have been budget cuts and whatnot. There's a lot of stuff that is still working. If you look at how many cool podcasts there are an interesting podcast there are out there, you know, YouTube shows, um, independent, uh, you know, media newsletters. I still feel like I go through the day and I haven't read or listened to a quarter of the kind of things that I want to I want to read and listen to. And I still feel like there's there are a lot of people doing cool and interesting things in media despite all of the kind of darkness. And so we try to focus on, I try to focus also equally or, you know, at least try to focus

as much as I can on on those success stories and what's working well and the ways in which media is changing in some ways for the better and cooler, newer ways. last one for you and I saw you tweeting about this and immediately I perked up Anthony Blankin went to Kiev where he performed rocking in the free world both on guitar and singing and you were as I would be just absolutely struck maybe that's the word by the way the New York Times journalism machine processes a story like this this was their headline secretary of state Anthony Blinken played guitar while in Ukraine strumming along to a song with a quote, free world, end quote, message.

I actually, I did think of you because I know you mentioned on a recent episode, my former boss, Sam Stein's joke about the, about the times in their headline with Stormy Daniels or fake headline with Stormy Daniels. And I, yes, I did read both the, they had two different web headline versions that were just confusing. Confusing. Honestly, it was like, I, I, I, you couldn't, yeah, you couldn't create a better version of a example of a New York Times headline confusion than that. But it's fun. It is. It's when they take a fun thing and then feed it into the machine and it comes out rendered.

There was one, there was a front page story the other day about the Chucky Cheese, animatronic house band being retired. And I wrote this down because this is the way they rendered that. The band of robot puppets has been a mainstay at the colorful pizzerie. arcade chain where children run amok and play games for prizes in between bites of pizza slices. That is the most formal rendering of a Chucky Cheese that has ever been rendered in this world. Also, the Kendrick Lamar Drake Beef, that was an amazing story. I don't know if you read The New York Times' version of that, exactly what you want,

where you want to read this. There was a whole thing about a much anticipated head-to-head between the two of them. I loved it so much. ways these are examples that make it make one wonder, why is it that the only thing that has been able to survive and do well in media? Why is the only large institution that's managed to do well? Why is it the times when you open up an article and it has stuff like this where it's like, nobody talks like this? Nobody writes like this. And yet it's the one thing that seems to be, you know, objectively doing well and is healthy in media.

But so clearly, clearly somebody wants to read, Rocking in the Free World, described as rocking strummed with free world notes. It's working. What can we say? Well done, Joe Kahn. All right, Max, Danny. Read him at Semaphore Watch as he prays for the Lakers to regain relevance. Max, thank you for coming on the press box. Thank you so much, Brian. All right, it's time for the second edition of David Shoemaker guesses the strained pun headline. Yeah.

Monday's headline about a fight at a Disney park was the scrappiest place on earth. Today's headline comes from our friend, the pie god. It's from the Seattle Times. Interesting political story out of Washington State, David. There's a guy named Bob Ferguson, who is the state attorney. General and is running for governor of Washington. Well, a conservative activists played a very funny prank and convinced two other Bob Ferguson's to enter the Democratic primary.

The activist tells Claire Whitacombe, if I had started a little bit earlier, I would have been able to have six Bob Ferguson's. I contacted about 12. I just ran out of time. So on election night, David, there will be three Bob Ferguson's on the ballot. Three Bob's. What was the Seattle Times's strained pun headline? Was our football coach? Was Coach Ferguson a Bob? It feels like he was a Bob. I think he was a Ray. Oh, Ferguson on the street. I like how you were just sorting through Fort Worth, Texas,

middle-aged guy names of that era. Bob Ferguson just sounded so familiar. That's why this is such a good prank, I guess, because there's so many Bob Ferguson's out there. All right. So this is in Seattle. There's one real Bob Ferguson or one Bob Ferguson really running for office and then three more on the ballot. On election night, there will be three. It's going to be a Bob a, wait, Bobba, Battle of the Bob's. Three, it's going to be a three bob. A three bob race, A three, a three, no, a three bobby problem. No, a three bob evening of election day. Three Bob.

Eve, a three, I have no idea what the pun I'm going for here. Three Bob Knight. Oh, like three dog night. Three Bob Knight. Yes. Oh, Bob, yeah, okay. And Bob Knight. That's like, that's going on a lot of different directions.

I think three Bobby, I think the three Bobby problem is a better one. People watch that show on Netflix, right? That would definitely be the ringer headline, three Bobby problem. Yeah. Because we wind up covering the Washington governor's race. That is the press box. I'm Brian Curtis,

production magic by Eduardo Ocampo. Okay, a quick scheduling note. The next time you're going to hear the press box is going to be Tuesday. That is Tuesday, May 21st. I'm going to be at the Santa Fe International literary festival this weekend. On stage interviewing a couple of really cool people. One is my former Grantland teammate. And New Yorker staff writer, Hua Sue, he's got a new book out. Well, not a new book anymore because it's already won the Pulitzer Prize. He's got a fantastic memoir

out called Stay True, which is just a wonderful book. I cannot wait to talk to him. I'm going to also talk to Anthony Dorr, the author of Cloud Cuckoo Land and All the Light We Cannot see two books I really, really admired as well. And I'm going to snag a special interview for this podcast. You'll be hearing that in the next week or so. That is coming up next Thursday. Sheel Capodian of the ringer, of our NFL programming, of Philly is going to be here. I cannot wait to talk to Sheel. We will see you again. Tuesday, May 21st, when Shoemaker and I will have more lukewarm takes about the media. Have a fantastic week.