The Press Box - Solidarity With Stephen A., The Washington Post’s Latest Reboot, and Gustavo Arellano on Covering the L.A. Protests

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and David discuss another Washington Post "reboot," this time for its opinion section (0:41). They go on to offer some low-hanging fruit for ESPN's lackluster NBA Finals coverage and discuss Stephen A. Smith, who was seen playing solitaire during Game 4; a noticeable shift in the norms of Washington, D.C., reporting; and more (10:41). Finally, Gustavo Arellano of the L.A. Times discusses covering recent protests across the greater Los Angeles area, what the national media is missing, Trump vs. California, and more (38:38). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline! Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David ShoemakerGuest: Gustavo ArellanoProducer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Folks, it's Jay Kyle Mann from The Ringer, and as always, basketball is so freaking, freaking good. It's so good, in fact, that the Ringer's NBA draft show is finally back just in time for a ramp up to June. We've got you covered every week as we take an in-depth look at who's got next for the NBA's future. We'll talk the rising and falling stocks of the best and the brightest prospects in the 2025 NBA draft class. From Cooper Flag to Dylan Harper, the VJ Edgecom, and more. tap in with me on the Ringer NBA Draft Show every Wednesday and make sure that you follow, subscribe, and hit us with those five-star ratings. David? Yes.

We have yet another reboot over at the Washington Post. Oh, do tell. Jeff Bezos is pushing volume up, volume down, and then holding the power button. I might be mixing up my tech moguls there. Right. But you remember that the post opinion section, Bezos decreed would be devoted to free markets and personal liberties. Yes.

He's finally found an editor to carry out those marching orders. Adam O'Neill, the Washington correspondent for the economist, was introed as Bezos' new guy in opinions. And O'Neill made a video introducing himself. Here's some of his plans for the section. Our goal is to create the most dynamic and interesting opinion section in America. We want to use technology to improve our journalism while we host robust debates about the most important issues facing this country and the world. So a nice helping of only in journalism there with robust. Yeah.

But so far sounds pretty good. Yeah. Everybody wants a dynamic opinion section. Mm-hmm. Which is editories for must read. Let's see what else Mr. O'Neill has in mind. We're also going to be stalwart advocates of free markets and personal liberties. We'll be unapologetically patriotic too.

Our philosophy will be rooted in fundamental optimism about the future of this country. Okay, now I'm departing the subway car here. He's going for a triple word score on that one. That was great. Yeah, stalwart was quite a word there. But is it possible to have a dynamic opinion section that is, unapologetically patriotic? That's a good question.

You know, unapologetically patriotic is the sort of thing you say whether or not, it could mean a bunch of different things. I was going to say whether or not you mean it, but I guess that would be incorrect. But yeah, that does seem to be sort of at loggerheads with the notion of being really dynamic. Loggerheads, listen to you. You sound like Adam O'Neill introducing his new opinion section. Yeah, there's a reason Haxaw Jim Duggan was not the W.W.E. champion, but was in the midcard. Well, Hogan did wave the flag around when it suited him.

Well, that's true. But patriotism to me, first of all, what is patriotism? As he well knows. But patriotism doesn't seem to me to be something that would be particularly interesting to read about day after day. It could be entertaining in its own way. But yeah, it could be. Haxsaw had his moments. I feel there's two ways this can go. Best case scenario, this turns into something like the weekly standard. Minus the invasion of Iraq content. Yeah. But it turns out you find all these interesting young libertarian-ish, conservative-ish writers

to come in and with that mandate be interesting. Yes. The worst case scenario is you say, here Mr. Bezos is another serving of personal liberties, economic freedom, and unwavering patriotism porridge. Mm-hmm. That pleases him but isn't interesting to readers at all. Correct. And I honestly don't know which way it's going to go.

In terms of being interesting? Yeah, because it feels like to do choice. Number one, you're going to have to bring in a lot of people and maybe get rid of some people. Yeah. That submit columns and then they get killed because they don't fall under the guidelines. Right. God, there's so much to talk about here. There's a long tradition, as you well know and no better than me, of Washington opinion sections

and just generally thought leader type periodicals that are more invested in. the reaction from the other people in Washington and the degree to which people in power agree with you than selling issues of a magazine or a newspaper, right? So that's got to be part of the calculus that, you know, this unabashed patriotism will speak to the people in the White House and will potentially get them to listen to other things they have to say. It can't be, I mean, the idea about letting people go that you mentioned cannot be a small part of this equation unless, you know, maybe Bezos has done the math and he said, yeah, that really the previous rounds of firings and editorial changes and, and, you know, front office interference

did its number on us, but it's, you know, we're as far down as we're going to get and it can't hurt us anymore or something to that effect. I would assume that they're going to be a little bit more cautious about that. But who knows? Who knows? Also, it feels like a job where managing up is going to be of paramount importance. Again, can you convince your bosses that you're executing what they want you to do, but do an interesting job in the meantime of it? Yeah. Have your own vision for it, or are you just carrying out orders?

Exactly. It's really the question. I mean, listen, you mentioned some of the conservative periodicals. Obviously, there's places like the bulwark now, which is sort of, you know, pieces of the old national review. And if you were a national review reader, you know, prior to the Trump years, that is in some sense what they were doing sort of on their blog and even on their homepage

and in the magazine on a pretty regular basis, just finding the, you know, the ideological angle that would fit with the day, whether or not it was the most important news. They've always found something to sort of editorialize about. And it was interesting reading.

It was for the most part good reading. It also, I mean, it definitely at some points felt sort of beside the point, but it's not implausible, right? And this probably is a move in that direction. Since O'Neill is from the economists, listener Tommy Halverson asks us, what do we think about the economist's no byline policy in the age of substack and podcasts? I honestly don't know the answer to this. I assume that economists writers are retweeting their own work and claiming and laying claim to it, right?

I mean, that's not out of bounds. It's just editorial standard of we're not typing bylines into the printed page. Yes. I think it's pretty easy to identify them if you know, but I didn't know who Adam O'Neill, Washington correspondent for the economist was. Right. Until he was announced for this job. By the way, one of the missing pieces of information here with this move at the Washington Post and all the other moves is what are they doing? Who were they going after? And Lockland Cartwright had a really interesting report in Breaker where he would, was, or he had the notes from inside a Washington Post meeting. And the Washington Post is chasing these readers, according to their head of audience, Brian Flaherty,

whom they call confidence strivers. Confidence strivers. I'll read to you from Cartwright's report. Flaherty described them as an, quote, avant-garde group who are, quote, achievers and explorers and, quote, tech-savvy and have a high consumption of media, a much wider one than their current audience and are willing to pay for it,

particularly using flexible payment methods. Cartwright continues, Flaherty acknowledge their current subscriber base, that means the posts, is 80% liberal, while confidence strivers are mostly independence, and there's an even mix between those who identify as conservatives and those who identify as liberals. So this may be the story they are telling themselves.

When they make all these moves, that you and I have cast as self-defeating and idiotic. Oh, no, but there's this group of people, these confidence strivers out there, ready to whip out their credit cards and use Apple Pay to buy the Washington Post. But they're not... By issues of the Washington Post.

Just subscribed it. Yeah. Jeff Bezzi has bought the Washington Post. Yeah. I mean, it just seems like, obviously, I assume they created the term confidence drivers for the purposes of making this pitch.

It's new to me. Yeah, this is just a, I mean, ideological leanings aside, this is just a new way of saying, like, like all the streamers have done before them, where our target audience are the people that can pay $99 a month on a bank card and forget that they're paying it, right? I do like the flexible payments idea, which has taken too long to come to newspapers.

How many times do you, find that article in Cleveland or Dayton or places outside of Ohio and say, I just want to read this article. Yeah. I will pay you the amount of money you ask, but I will not pay you to subscribe to your newspaper. Yeah, nor will I take one free week because that just always ends up backfiring. All right, coming up on the podcast, we got a bunch of NBA finals notes. You can't tell the players apart with ESPN's pregame show. The Scott Foster conspiracy theories, Richard Jefferson still isn't listening to his broadcast partner and my attempt to buy an NBA relic

plus media headlines and LA Times columnist Gustavo Ariano joins us to talk about the protests. All that much more on the press box. A part of the ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker and producer Kyle Crichton here. David, Game 5 of the finals is tonight. Series tied 2-2.

it's oh so close to being 3-1 Pacers, but we are at 2-2. I don't come here to bag on ESPN's pregame show. Well, that much. But I think all the bagging that we have done has helped us land on an important point about covering the NBA. Logan Murdoch was on the podcast on Thursday. Logan, of course, ringer writer, ringer podcaster, one of our great friends here.

And he made what I thought was a really good point. Which is ESPN does not have those very basic pregame player profiles. Yeah. That were part of the NBA on NBC back in the old days. Here's Logan. NBC does a great job of fluff, right? I was reading Dick Ebersaw's book last year. And it was all about the storytelling element of the Olympics

and just every one of their properties that they've ever had. have and it all comes down to storytelling. There's no fluff pieces on these players. And I'm saying this is a journalist, right? I'm just saying this like we can, me, Joel and Brian, we can write like the critical angle. I'm talking about from a league partner.

There is no fluff. It's like do you care? Meanwhile, I turn on these same programs to watch the NFL and it is all fluff, you know, from the league partners. And it helps you out. Like, I didn't know Jaden Daniels that well going

into this NFL season. I learned so much about him just on the pregame show. Whether it's Amazon, whether it's NFL countdown, we just don't have that right now. We don't have that care on the NBA side, and it's really frustrating.

Yeah, no, it's totally true. I mean, it feels like, you know, there's times where I just kind of stop myself and ask if I'm being overly critical because this is part of the job and because more importantly, maybe this is the media age that we live in now. But,

especially for a league in which the players themselves are so easily identifiable, you know, in a league where fans are more attached to players than they are to teams, you know, where players have commercials throughout the broadcasts and elsewhere, you know, like it just seems kind of wild that they don't go in more on those sorts of identification pieces. It's interesting watching the pregame show before game four. we always talk about yeah that you know Stephen A is arguing and big perk is arguing and Bob Myers is kind of there and sometimes also arguing but that pregame show if you listen to it is very statistically sound Malika Andrews even Stephen A clearly the research department has done a lot of

work there and they've got like the right numbers at their fingertips there's a there's a level of soundness that I think would if you looked it and compared to pregame shows the past it wasn't there. It's almost just not doing the simplest possible thing. Yes. So before game four, if you and I had been sitting in a newspaper sports office, we would have looked at each other and said, who is Benedict Matherin? Yeah. Remind us who this guy is again.

And you and I could almost make the classic TV pregame profile of Benedict Matherin. Okay, we get Adam Silver calling his. name with the six pick in the 2022 NBA draft and then if there was like a Greg Doyle column in the indie star about how Benedict Matherin was disappointing we put the headline up and then you know you have a couple of sound bites from him

something from Carlisle maybe at a press conference and then you just remind people like who is this guy? Yeah what's his deal? I would argue you could do that for Jalen Williams Andrew Demhardt, Aaron Neesmith, Obey Topin, the Canadian guys generally speaking.

You could do that with all of them and it would be interesting for all of them. And again, this is not for like quote unquote casuals or normies or other people. This is for me. I didn't remember Benedict Matherin's story. Yep.

Ken Bud Sothman, another one of our listeners, makes a great point where he's like, the funny thing is these stories, they're actually on ESPN's website. Yeah. Have you

found yourself looking over at the Pacers bench at Rick Carlyle and you see Jenny Busek, their assistant coach? Because I have and I found myself wondering, hey, what's her story? In fact, Ramona Shelburne wrote it for ESPN.com. It even had a produced television piece with it. Shelburne also wrote a big story about Tyrese Halliburton and Caitlin Clark's friendship. If there's anything that has ever been perfect for a pregame show, the friendship between the NBA man of the moment and Caitlin freaking Clark. Let's go. Like that is really interesting.

Somehow we don't get that as part of just, again, introducing them, giving you a few facts to just put in your mind basic stuff that will make the finals more interesting. Now, I've been saying this, assuming that ESPN and the other partners can get access to these players. Yeah. Maybe that's not the case. but I know from those NFL pregame shows, Aaron Andrews gets those interviews with like the quarterback that seemed like they last two questions, maybe three.

Can we not get three questions? Yeah. Is Benedict Matherin that, you know, behind such a high wall that we cannot get to them before game four of the finals? Is it possible that they're just listening to the other side, like the previous iteration of the critique, which is these shows are just too long?

And they're like, We just want to make this as streamlined as possible. Because even if that's the case, now is when you say, no, this is exactly when you blow it out, especially when there's two teams that don't have the highest, you know, Q rating as some of the others in the league. You know, I think you sort of rest on your laurels to some extent. Maybe they were, you know, maybe all the planning meetings that went into this. They're just saying, well, you know, we're definitely going to have Jason Tatum in there. We're definitely going to have the Celtics or the, the, the, the, the, you know, even the Lakers or something. someone to carry us through this, the push.

And this is what, you know, when you hear about, this is what the networks are dreading, these two small market teams. I mean, yes, they're two small market teams, but Oklahoma City has probably been talked about more by basketball media than any other team over the past three years. And Indiana, this is the thing that I don't get is like, Indiana is a layup.

This is where basketball was born. No pun intended. Sorry, about the layup thing. But, like, this is where basketball was born. Like, this is one of those, you know, small college programs. it always makes it to the final four. This is how you pitch it, right?

It's like this is, they get the James Naismith superpowers, you know? Let's just, this is so easy to write this. And, and, you know, yeah, it's a small market team, but it's a huge team and it's a huge story. And it does a huge player. And two of the best coaches in the league that we barely know, comparatively speaking, you know,

you and I have been living with Rick Carla in our lives for a long time. But like this is, it's, But he's he's absolutely brilliant just the way we've been watching it before our eyes. It's sort of crazy that this is the, you know, that it's only come this far. Yeah. And again, I think it's sometimes just not doing the simple thing. It's not going back to step one and being like, who is this guy? Yeah.

Who are both coaches? I would have taken pregame profiles of either one of them. Yeah. Speaking of the pregame show, are we pretty complete with the Bob Myers experiment? How long has he been on TV? Two years or three? Is this number three? At least two.

It may be three. Because I feel I was watching the other day and I had that exact thought. But then there was also the feeling that he's just sort of like baked in the proceedings. Like he's just, I feel like it's like 1989. And just the people on TV are the people who just, you know, made friends with the networks when they were, did an open casting call and they're never going to lose their jobs. It feels it is, it's a very, he is a very interesting figure in there. Wouldn't you just prefer Brian Winhorse in that seat? Yeah.

Because then at least you could get some reporting. Yeah. Also, Bob Myers just interrupts like crazy, which just drives me completely nuts as a television viewer. He's always stepping on people. And I'm like, I know that everything's about franchise building and, you know, draft picks and all this stuff.

But like, man, I just, I don't need a GM on here unless he is the most interesting man in the world. Mm-hmm. Would you make it the Scott Foster talk that was all over Twitter? Oh, my gosh. the referee, aka the extender. It was funny.

It was his first game that he's worked in the finals and the officiating has been like roundly praised up till the point that he like entered the chat room. And now he's just the sole focus of everything. I mean, it's gotten to the point where it's like not even backhanded. It's just sort of implied, right? If you say his name, it's an insult to him into the, you know, the league that puts him in these positions.

And again, I saw Rick Carlisle came out and defended him, which is just such a Rick Carlisle sort of like heel move to do. But like, but it was, you know, it's, it's just such a black guy for the league. I mean, the only real excuse for it is if it's like a misdirection play, but I don't know what you'd be misdirecting from. You know, you're trying to get people to watch because they're offended by the Scott Foster's actions.

I mean, I'm sure the answer is because of his seniority, he is obligated to this role or something. But, you know, they kept them away from up until that one game. And it seemed like that was that they were really pushing in the right direction there. Rick Carlele coming to someone's defense has been a weird sub theme with these finals. Yeah, it's true. He came to Doris Burke's defense. We have a Richard Jefferson is not listening to Doris Update.

Go on. This is from game four second quarter. Aaron Wiggins of the Thunder is going to the basket. he gets foul and Burt notes on the replay that Tyrese Halliburton gave Wiggins a little shove in the lower back. Now listen to Richard Jefferson

and his take on the same report. Wiggins plays off the catch into the corner, has to split and you could see enough contact on the lower body. There's also that push from Halliburton in the back right at the end. Those are the things that the referees

catch that can make a pair off balance, So that's actually the same point. Yeah, well, just in case they didn't hear it the first time. Notice also the thing that my partner just said. Biggest tweet of Game 4 of the finals, David, Stephen A playing solitaire. Oh, my God. While he was watching the game. It's great work by him.

I came to Stephen A's defense on Twitter, which earned me a quote tweet from Jason Whitlock. Oh, amazing. Guys, when you come to Stephen A's defense, just understand what you're getting into. But I would defend Stephen A for this. Go on. Not because he was doing something other than watching the NBA finals or had something else on his phone. I was just like, do we really want an audit of everything sports writers are doing in the press box during a game? Of no way.

When you were at WrestleMania this year was one. 100% of your attention on the events in the ring. No. Of course not. I was down on the floor and I was moving right and I was talking to some people. But being in the press box, Lord knows how many times I've just distracted accidentally. You know, oh, it's a quick time out.

I'll pop open whatever the solitaire fill in is here. And the next thing you know you've missed three minutes, five minutes of the actual thing. You're like, oh, goddamn an idiot. You slap yourself for it. But, I mean, that's happened. Come on. we're all addicted to our phones. Yeah.

And somebody came to me and was like, actually the problem was that it was solitaire. It just feels a little like, here's the game your mom or dad plays on their laptop. If it had been Candy Crush or anything else, we would have forgiven it. But Solitaire, really? No, I think the only problem with that is that it's a little bit harder

to come up with the punchline. Stephen A. Smith and Candy Crush, I think, would have gone even more viral. And listen, Stephen A's 57. I mean, none of us here are spring chicken. but he's probably in the solitaire demographic, at least just in the very, the very Gen Xe end of it. We know right that play-by-play announcers text people during commercials of games.

Yeah. I've seen this with my own eyes standing in a press box. Here we go to commercial. First thing that comes out of the phones. Yeah. And they're not texting a statistician. They're texting their significant others. Yep.

Their pals. Some play-by-play announcers, even text people while they're calling. game. Yeah. I'd also love to do a workplace audit of non-media professionals. So that big day at work, can I see your search history? Yeah. Can I inspect your DMs, your text messages, just to make sure that 100% of your attention was on your job? Oh, yeah. How did you feel if you came home and your wife's like, how was your day? Like, oh my God, it was a brutal day at work. And she was just like, let me check. Oh, Brian, on eBay shopping for old newspaper treasures, I see. It's pretty brutal.

David, I'd like to use this occasion to start our solidarity with Stephen A contest. Okay. We have a lot of reporters who listen to this podcast. I ask them, what is the strangest behavior you've seen or have indulged in yourself in a press box? We will also accept any media scenario where your eyes are supposed to be on the person you're covering. Yeah. Send those stories to me, Brian.Curtis at the ringer.com. We will read the best of them on this podcast and maybe even send you a new press box button. This is our solidarity for Stephen A contest. I repeat.

They don't have to send it through like proton mail or anything in case they don't want to put their name attached to what they've done or seen. These should not be that secretive. It's a pretty good press box stories out there. You don't have to identify the guilty party necessarily. Okay. Just want to know what you've seen. Just describe them physically in a kind of general way. Yeah, exactly.

Describe them, maybe give us the first part of their Twitter handle. What their name rhymes with, that sort of thing. Last finals note for you. You know I like a good estate sale. Oh, my God. Do you really? I've been going to estate sales left and right. We're just talking about this, though.

Pressbox, Realheads, will remember me describing my trip to Alex Trebex estate sale. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. I totally forgot. Well, David, there was a Bill Walton estate sale. Oh, my God. On Thursday. Yeah.

Meaning a Bill Walton online auction. And dude, this was not like, here's some stuff Bill Walton owned. These were the crown jewels. Yeah. The UCLA championship ring. The Celtics championship ring. His high school varsity letter jacket. Oh, my gosh.

Like a handwritten note he had written to Kevin McAil. If you're asking, did I send Bill a note about this auction? Yes, I did. But so I'm looking at this and I'm like, these are some pretty high dollar items here. Yeah. You know, every wealthy UCLA alum, every wealthy Celtics fan, they're going to be in on this. I can't wait for the turn. Go ahead.

Here's the turn. Lot number 264 was Bill Walton's NBA on NBA. network Blazer. And I was like, holy crap, do I want that? And the auction

house said, we think this is going to go for $200 to $400. Right. Now, I would pay $200 for that. I would pay $300

for the network blazer. I'd pay $400 for the network blazer. Yeah. $500. I probably need to have a conversation with Christine.

Yes. even just kind of a heads up. Hey, if you look at the credit card statements this month, this is what I was doing. You might see something odd, yeah. So I get on the auction. I had to register because you got to prove to them that you can buy this stuff.

This was a long run to item number 264. We finally get there, dude, and I start bidding. And I had the lead for a short period during this option. then we got to the have a conversation with Christine line and I was like who my hand was kind of hovering over the mouse then it went to 600 yeah and remember there are premiums here so like add at least $200 to that yeah it finally went for $700 sheesh and your pal did not buy the bill Walton NBA on NBC blazer I would assume not because otherwise you'd be sitting there on this podcast wearing it draped over your shoulder there's like a Harry Potter robe just hanging off your arms. Holding a candle in front of me like I was going through Hogwarts at night.

Oh my God. Dude, I wanted that so bad. And you know this is a collector of all kinds of stuff or I might say hoarder to describe both of us. As soon as you lose out on something, you start thinking what else could I buy? Yeah. And they had like Bill Walton NBA on NBC media passes.

They had his handwritten notes. Yeah, you've already spent the 500 dollars in your head. So now it's just like you got to cash in your Chucky Cheese chips or whatever. Totally. And so I'm sitting there and I'm kind of dejected. Then like it comes up and it's the Bill Walton CBS Network Blazer and I'm like

I don't even remember Bill Waltz on CBS. Is that a college basketball run? Or the NBA late in the 80s? I really don't know. But I'm like, okay, there's time to close the browser window. No. You didn't get anything? I didn't get anything. Dang.

$700. Well, that's probably the Probably the best for you. Bad for me for not being able to go, Terrible deal. The announcement of what you got. His Celtics Championship ring went for more than $81,000. Wow.

Those are the kind of waters I was swimming in. I got some headlines for you, David. All right. Let's do it. Terry Moran, ABC News correspondent. We were talking about his ejection from ABC after he had the late-night tweet about Stephen Miller and Trump. Was it interesting to you that Terry Baran's contract was up?

Yeah, that was important information that was omitted from the first round of reporting. And I haven't read in any of the articles whether he thought ABC was going to renew the contract or not. But if you're going to Acosta yourself, that's important information I want to know. Yeah. It's like, where did this tweet come out of the blue with this guy who spent nearly three decades doing network news? Yeah. You're lining up your next gig. I mean, if someone, if it had been on the other side of the political spectrum,

it would have been just very obvious on its face, right? It's just like, oh, what's he angling for a O-A-N job or something? And, you know, this is just the flip side of that, I guess. Far more importantly, we have news today from Brian Stelter over at CNN. He says, Voice of America. Remember Voice of America? Mm-hmm. That Donald Trump and Elon Musk were trying to put into the garbage can.

Yeah. Voice of America's Persian language operations are back up and running as the U.S. government tries to beam information into Iran amid the widening conflict between Israel and Iran. Dozens of VOA staffers were suddenly called back to work on Friday, including all of those who had previously worked on Farsi language program. So there you go. Unbelievable. Not such a relic after all. With the exception of all the people whose lives were lost because of the USAID cuts. and everything else. I mean, there's a, some of these are going to end up just working so contrary to the

entire, in a good way, contrary to the entire purpose of Doge and that it's actually, people actually get to see in real time what the purpose of all these things that they destroyed were, right? I mean, this is, this is sort of the lesson that everybody was presuming the whole way through. Vanity Fair has a new editor. His name is Mark Wuducci. He's 36 years old. He worked for Anna Winfurt. tour. Here's what struck me about this story. I read about Radica Jones leaving Vanity Fair. I read about the hunt for the next editor of Vanity Fair.

With very few exceptions, I never read about Vanity Fair, the magazine or website. Radica Jones, David, was there for seven years. I remember, yeah. And you hear me complain all the time about how the media beats become the media job change beat. Can we spend like 10 seconds talking about what Radica Jones's vanity fair was like? It's a good point. What she did, what she did do. We spend more time talking about what the new regime is going to be like than what it's actually like in real time. Yes. Everything is either about to happen or is ending, but nothing ever happens in media coverage. And I read Dylan Byers

write about her in Puck. So God bless Dylan Byers, but man, I can't think of another piece I read about vanity fair. Got two more for you here. Annie Carney, New York Times congressional a's, was writing about Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is, you know, the Washington, D.C. representative in the U.S. House. She's a non-voting representative. She is going to be 88 years old this week, and there's been some questions about her ability to do her job. All of these very much in the post-Biden news media environment. listen to a couple of passages from Carney's profile. These days in one-on-one meetings, according to people who have attended them with her,

Ms. Norton often converses in vague five-word sentences. I'm not sure how we landed on five words there, but I will continue. One person who met with her recently described being shell-shocked by her ability to get through a regular conversation without turning to her staff to fill in blanks. Annie Carney in the New York Times continues. Ms. Norton is unable to function independently, instead relying on a small group of AIDS, friends and family members to help her through.

This feels very post-bide to me. Yes. Like a massive course correction. Just again, not listening necessarily to just a reporting there, but the tone that is written in. Yeah. And I assume this is very, very well-sourced, but the certainty with which she is writing those words,

Ms. Norton is unable to function independently. It's like the media has learned something. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure a lot of the Biden coverage or lack thereof was driven by the perception of a norm or a standard on the editorial floor. And once that was changed, universally decried, I don't even know what the actual nature of some of those shifts are inside each individual newsroom. But once that's out the window, then yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's reporters who have been ready to tell stories like this for a long time. You also sent me a note, Don Winslow, unretired. Oh, yeah. Everybody's favorite crime novelist hung it up three years ago. Has it been that long? It's been that long.

He wrote a trilogy of books, so they had come out since his retirement. But he retired essentially to focus on politics. Well, he is back with a short story collection coming out this fall. We're happy to have Don Winslow back? well i like reading don winslow yeah i don't know how i feel about the writer the writer's like pro wrestling style fake retirement but you know i mean i guess it was he was so compelled by his political uh activism during the election that he wanted to dedicate all the time for that and i appreciate the taking a stand and taking a you know walking away from his lucrative job such as it

was that or at least doing it in such a way is to make the point even louder You know, he is still a volume tweeter. I told you about, I saw that, I saw his own tweet announcing his unretirement and then subsequently told you about it and couldn't find the tweet in which he unretired because it was so buried. I went back and back and back and back until my internet browser couldn't take it anymore. But he basically said, I mean, if you had to guess what the tweet would say, you would get it. you would be 99% right. He basically was just like,

I thought I was going to walk away for good. It was like the tagline in one of his novels. I thought I was done with the life, but this story wouldn't let me go. They drag you back in. Yeah. I just don't believe you can retire easily as a writer. No.

I think it's hard. Like writing is cool because you can do it forever. And especially someone is doing it at such a high level as him. I knew the juices would start flowing again. Well, especially someone who's talking about volume, someone who writes as much as he does. Yeah, usually your entire life is built around the routines that allow for that sort of productivity, you know?

I mean, it's just, and yeah, everything you see, every thing you experience in life is good. It probably gives you some idea of a thing to write about. Stephen King just published another 400-page book. I mean, that's incredible. Writers never retire. All right, coming up in 30 seconds, David, a U.S. senator was thrown to the ground.

columnist Gustavo O'Rejano joins us to talk about that and other images from the L.A. protests. But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Senior nominees to add the press box pod where they are always gratefully received. Among the many tweeted pictures from the no kings protest, David, on Saturday, were a handful of signs from Sacramento. It was an overwork Twitter joke to write,

the USA and the NBA playoffs agree, no kings. Thanks to listeners Peter Jewett and Be So. If you prefer the USA and Deerrin Fox agree, congrats. You made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. All right, David, let us bring in a good friend of this podcast. Gustavar Ariano is a columnist at the L.A. Times.

a Pulitzer finalist. He is a Southern California food knower, and he is Orange County's very own. Gustavo, welcome back to the press box. Graziez, as always, for having me. All right, so one of the images from the protests and the aftermath that I will not forget here in Los Angeles, a U.S. senator, Alex Padilla,

showing up at a news briefing held by Christy Noem, the Homeland Security Secretary, and being wrestled to the ground, and apparently later put in handcuffs, What went through your mind when you first saw that image? I was not surprised because the Trump administration is about humiliating people, dissidents especially. And the Trump administration cares not about Mexicans. And far from it, from it, wants to domaas.

Domar is, in Spanish, means subjugate, really dominate. And it doesn't matter if the Mexican is this tall, brown, deep voice Mexican that everyone in American politics, especially in D.C. knows, like Alex Medea, to them it was just another Mexican and he needed to be made an example of. Of course, they thought that he would not resist, that he would go off meekly into the night.

Oh, that's not Alex Padilla at all, even though he's a soft-spoken person. And now they're trying to make him out to be like a modern-day Pancho Villa going after a poor white woman. Nah, he's Emiliano Zapata, real G. It's funny, you talk about a lot of the, before we came on,

I mentioned some of the identities that are at play in the scale of these protests, obviously the protests at their core are to protest the Trump administration and their deportation policies, but then there's been this really direct antagonism by the Trump administration

towards the state of California. Do you feel like that has raised the temperature and to what degree do you think are there more people coming out now as Californians than as Americans? People are coming out of disgust. with government overreach. And look, Trump has been salivating for this fight

specifically about Los Angeles. He's not going against San Francisco. He's not going against San Diego because who could possibly be against San Diego? No one cares about San Diego except San Diego. No, Los Angeles. Because, I mean, he himself before, like, what was that? Maybe 10 days ago, he put out this social media post

saying that he's going to liberate Los Angeles from the migrant invasion. Yeah, those are fighting. words. Those are absolute fighting words. And it's not just in Los Angeles, by the way, like I'm based here in Santana, California, for years, the largest city in the United States with all Latino City Council. And you have the National Guard right in the middle or right at the edge of Cayet Cuadro, which is the historical Latino corridor. So now people are going out, not just to protest against Trump's deportation policies, but to protest against a National Guard. And also to just

say, hey, it's not so much a California identity at this point. It's just like, we're going to stand against tyranny, and you're not going to scare us, no matter how many board, natural guards there might be out there. Put aside the L.A. Times' coverage for a second, Gustavo. What do you make of the way the protests have been covered nationally? You know, I have been so focused on just covering and helping out my colleagues and doing my own columnas that I pop in every once in a while.

Like, obviously on the right-wing media sphere, oh, it's an invasion. All of Los Angeles is on lockdown. And I hate to say, this is spilling over even to more mainstream media outlets. I came out on WNYC's legendary Brian Lairor show, been an institution forever. And as he introduces me,

he says that Los Angeles is under, the city of Los Angeles is under curfew. And I immediately corrected him. I don't like to be that person, but I had to. And I said, no, actually, it's one square mile out of a city that's over 500 square miles.

So we're talking about a quarter of, quarter of a percent of Los Angeles is under a curfew that I personally think is overreach at this point. We're almost a night four. So these myths, and these are predisposed myths, by the way, because everyone wants to hate Los Angeles. Even in my Orange County, people hate L.A. I mean, politicians now run on the campaign slogan, no L.A. and O.C. But that's why it's so important for people to listen to people who are actually in Los Angeles, actually doing the research and saying, the line that I keep saying, except for one night,

which would have been a Sunday night where you had the five Waymo cars set on fire before all of that, it didn't even rise up to the level of a Dodgers loss in the National League Championship series and how fans reacted. In the midst of all this,

Donald Trump has now gone on truth social and said, sort of walked back his deportation policy as it applies to farmers, of people in the hotel industry, et cetera. How do you read that? And how has that been received in California? That's actually going to be the subject of my upcoming column.

So I will not address that much more, except to then note that just on this past Sunday, he said, oh, what's going on in Los Angeles? I'm going to spread it now to all sanctuary cities. And he specifically called out Chicago and New York and said that, oh, gosh, the Democrats are four men and women's sports. and trans rights and all of this stuff. We all see this as him being in the problem with Trump above all is that he does not stand for anything.

So obviously someone got into his ear and told them, hey, by the way, your mass deportations, they're screwing over the economy and especially a very important segment. So that is in opposition to people like Stephen Miller, his Iago, saying, oh, you have to do fire and brimstone on all these illegal alien savages and all that. The hope is that saner people get into Trump's head like they did in the first administration. Sadly, saner people do not seem to be a part of this current administration. And the few sane, the few adults in the room, you could basically put out your stopwatch and click on it and say, all right, how long until they're gone?

Because that's sadly what's going to happen. Yeah, it's interesting too. You think, okay, farms, hotels, restaurants. Does that apply to the Garmin District in Los Angeles? Is that applied to a Home Depot in Orange County? Why those distinctions and why not other distinctions? But that's just my question. Yeah, no, because those are three, you know, hospitality, agriculture,

and the restaurant industry, those are three of the top five industries that employ undocumented immigrants. Agriculture, that's how we all eat. Hospitality, lesser extent, but, you know, that's important as well. also restaurants. It's literally going to how we enjoy life in this United States. And then I said three of the top five, another big one in their construction. When you start laying, you know, when you start deporting your, your, your, your tie, your dry walleros, your people who do lumber, the people who set concrete and all of that, all of a sudden, like, you can't build homes. All of a

sudden, it gets very, very complicated. Again, deportations, it's easy to say we're going to get rid of all the invaders. But then after, and then, like, after that, there's going to be this glorious economic boom. But the facts just don't meter that out. But that's, you'll see that in my column. I want to ask you this, too, Gustavo, because I think a lot of America has consumed these protests through images on social media or images on TV news. You mentioned Santa Ana.

You actually covered a protest one week ago. What was that like? Oh, it was, it was interesting because when I showed up, there was about 120 people. they were trying to block ice vans, ostensibly holding people that they had nabbed off the streets from going into a federal building. So they were trying to block them off.

And then here comes just an array. I mean, these were agencies whose police I had never even seen before. It's like an alphabet soup of agencies. I saw DHS, ERO, this, this and that. And they would come out in cosplay. That's what it really was, cosplaying, like, oh, we're going to be Call of Duty.

And they had their little formations coming up and pushing people off, throwing, you know, shooting pepperballs on the ground, getting people later on it escalates to tear gas. And I thought, all right, well, this is it. There you go, whatever. The protests kept growing and growing up till probably 500, 600 people. And it was peaceful, it was civil disobedience for the most part.

And then as the night turns, because it's Southern California, you have people start firing fireworks at police officers. And I'm sorry, when you start doing that, Don't be offended when the cops start cracking down on you. And that's not really what happened. There's been a lot, you know, you really haven't seen anything too, too bad. But the more things like that happen, yeah, then those are the images that start spreading around the country.

And of course, what everyone wants to talk about, people waving the flags, the foreign countries. And really, we're not talking about foreign countries. We're talking about the Mexican flag. It's funny, those driving around Alhambra on Saturday, and I saw half Mexican, half Mexican, USA flag flying from the car. I was like, yeah, that's kind of a cool thing I've seen. I want to ask you this too, for your job as a columnist,

you cover all kinds of things in Southern California. Are columns about the protests hard to write? Are they easy to write? I mean, it depends because on the street, you just interview people. You also, I think, you know, not to get all meta, but the best columnist also set, like, set the scene, not just the people that you interview

and what you're seeing around you, like people protesting the signs and all that, but also really put into place. And my fellow columnist, Anita Chabry, Steve Lopez, like we've all been on duty. Even Dylan Hernandez, who covers the daughters,

like calling out the daughters for being mealy-mouthed, whereas, you know, Angel City and L-AFC are putting out statements in favor or standing with all these protesters. So when I was in Santana, one of the things that I noted, like people try to make it out to be,

oh, these violent people are in T for Communists, paid antagonists and all that. No, it was just, normal people. One guy who was blowing a vooosela, just burr. And he's wearing like a gabban, like a poncho with an image of the Azte god that's our Gwatl. I'm like, this is so Santana.

So I go up to him and I say like, hey, like, why are you here? It's like, it's my first ever protest. I'm actually for Trump deporting violent criminals, but this is not that we got to stand up for our community. Then I'm looking around. It's all these people like, mostly in their like 20, like 20. but also early 30s, and they're wearing t-shirts of all these beloved Santana Chicano Institution, Suavecito, which is, you know, hair grooming product.

Bryce Harper is a big fan of Suavisito. The female alternative Suavecita, you have San Ana High School where a lot of these people come from, TKO Boxing Club, legendary boxing club year. It is such a community affair that to try to dismiss it as a bunch of radicals, you're just not paying attention. You're not doing that reporting that you're supposed to do. All right. You're going to want to read Gustavo Arellano's column in the LA Times.

Colonel Ariano, thanks once again for coming on the press box. I am a Kentucky colonel, so no stolen valor, but thanks. All right, it's time for America's favorite feature. It's time for David's Shoemaker guesses, the strained pun headline. Yeah. Last Monday's headline about AI befouling America's newspapers was slop the presses. Today's headline comes to us from alert listener Chris Sullivan. It's from the New York Post.

You remember, David, the Knicks for a while were shopping for coaches, head coaches, that already had other jobs. One of those coaches was Jason Kidd, the coach of your Dallas Mavericks. Now, at this point, it seemed that Jason Kidd was an actual possibility, that Jason Kidd might actually be available. What was the New York Post? Strain pun headline. Not kidding. Not no kidding. Oh, but he's available.

He's available. He's in the mix, you might say. He's an option. No. Realistic. What would it be? He's in the mix. He's in the mix.

It could happen. It is in the carts in what do we think of an 80s 90s music group here kid in kid in play

okay there we go in play yeah we would have also accepted the New York post headline kid pro quo to show his mutual interest with the Nix which

he's got to be the new NICS coach just for the headlines just because they got the tabloid industry going strong out there it can go with just about anything. Yeah. Our friends who do the wood every day, they get a lot of possibilities there.

He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. But Xim Magic by Kyle Crichton. Programming note, Thursday is Juneteen. So Joel Anderson and I are going to be coming to you on Friday. We're chasing some very, very fun guests for that show. Hope you'll come and join us. Shoemaker, I will see you soon with more lukewarm takes about the media.

See you later, Brian.