The Press Box - The Fall of Ozy and the Return of Jon Stewart

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

Bryan and David talk through the timeline of Ozy Media and touch on what led to its collapse (5:25) before discussing how the return of Jon Stewart and his new Apple TV+ show could be received in the modern media landscape (29:02). Plus: "Only in Journalism" Words, Overworked Twitter Jokes of the Week, and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's me, Brian Curtis, host of the press box. And I'm his co-host, David Shoemaker. And we wanted to get together today to tell you about one of our favorite podcasts on the network, the ringer wrestling show. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, David, you can't talk about your own podcast as one of your favorites. Let me do the rest of this. The ringer wrestling show is your guide for all things pro wrestling. And this month, they're talking about all your favorite weekly wrestling shows, plus pay-per-views. You can find the ringer wrestling show on Spotify or where.

ever you get your podcast. I think that's right. Hey, everybody, Brian here. David and I recorded today's press box before the Facebook outage that sparked a million overworked Twitter jokes. The best I saw was this. God help us if there's a photogenic sunset tonight. Congrats if you made that one too.

Here's today's show. David, if there's anything I hate, it's when people say, I had the weirdest dream last night. And then proceed to explain a dream to you that makes absolutely no sense at all. Mm-hmm. With that said, I had the weirdest dream last Thursday night. Well, go right ahead and tell me about it. You and I and some unnamed other guys were on some kind of guys weekend. Wait, wait, guys that you're not naming for the sake of the audience,

who they are, or just literally they didn't have names in the story? Yes, they were faceless and fuzzy in the dream. Okay. I don't know who they are. And we all went to a haunted house. Okay. I'm not talking about one of those big industrial haunted houses that they push like a thousand people through per night this time of year. More like a haunted B&B.

We were staying there in some kind of hotel accommodation. And I guess instead of just pancakes for breakfast, you got to be scared out of your wits off. So it was advertised as a haunted B&B, not like we found ourselves in a, in a B&B that turned out to be haunted. No, they had like two-way mirrors or something like that. Yeah, this sounds great. We knew what we were getting into. Okay.

And we're sitting in the lobby of the haunted B&B, and I am so annoyed because I have a column to finish. Not sure what it was about, probably about the media, but I had my laptop on my lap, and I was typing, and I was so annoyed because you were going to get to go upstairs and enjoy the haunted house, and I had to finish a column.

Now, some point in the dream, I either finish it or just put it aside. And the rest of the dream is just crazy inchoate. Brian gets chased by a crab monster, something like that. Just absolutely terrifying. And I woke up in bed in an absolute cold sweat. I mean, a literal cold sweat completely just, just out of my mind, discombobulated. And this is how messed up my mind is, David, at this point in life. I did not take any sort of relief from the fact that monsters are not real.

The first thing I thought was, I'm not on deadline, am I? Oh, the real monster of the story. The real monster at the end of the book. That's right. It was the deadline we knew all along. I mean, it was really that 10 seconds kind of lying there looking at the ceiling. Like, oh, wait, I'm not a deadline. It's Friday.

I'm okay. Already recorded my podcast. nothing was haunting my dreams. That's when you know you've been in journalism way too long. I guess that's the old I didn't study for the test dream. Yeah. Just updated for ringer writer job. Yeah, I stopped having that I didn't study for the test dream.

Dang. Right? Like in my, I mean, it wasn't until my late 30s, mid 30s, late 30s, and then it just vanished and then it became all work stress dreams.

Yeah. Didn't get that art done. haven't studied up for the mass man show today. Yeah, not a lot of stress there weirdly. I don't know what they are anymore. Coming up on this podcast, we have the fall of the media company, Ozzy. And the time Ozzie tried to get me to be their lead sports writer.

Also, John Stewart is back with a new show. Why did he get thrust out of the liberal TV host pantheon? All that more on the press box. A part of the ringer. Podcast Network. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, producer Erica Servantes here. Bit of housekeeping, David, before we dive in. I put up an interview on Friday with Eric Schlosser about the 20th anniversary of his book, Fast Food Nation.

Really cool interview. I loved in particular learning how he got inside a slaughterhouse for one of the books most memorable scenes by posing as a worker. Did not know that. Not sure anybody knew that. I want to make these classic book revisits into a little series. So I asked listeners, can you help me? Can you come up with a name for the interviews where we revisit classic books? And listeners tweet Rose and Pep suggested the pun, press books.

Press books. You asked for it. That's the leader in the clubhouse. If anybody can do better at the press box pot. All right, let's talk about the fall of Aussie media. One of the wilder media stories I've ever seen, even though I'm not sure exactly what Aussie media was even at this point? Started a week ago Friday with a typically excellent column by Ben Smith in New York Times,

who has since written six additional Aussie media stories. If you have not followed this, Aussie media was founded in 2013. As Smith writes, it boasted of a large audience for its general interest website, its newsletters, and its videos, and the company had a charismatic chief executive, Carlos Watson, a one-time cable news anchor, who had worked at Goldman Sachs early in his career.

And crucially, Ozzy said he'd had a great relationship with YouTube, where many of its videos attracted more than a million views. Now, on February 2nd of this year, David, Ozzy had a conference call with Goldman Sachs and Alex Piper, who was the head of unscripted programming for YouTube originals. Interestingly, it was supposed to be a Zoom call, where everybody looks at each other. But YouTube's Alex Piper said,

I'm having trouble logging on to the Zoom. Let's make this a conference call. We've all been there, yeah. No faces. Now, as Smith writes, once everyone had made the switch to an old-fashioned conference call, the guest told the bankers

what they had been wanting to hear, that Ozzy was a great success on YouTube, racking up significant views and ad dollars. As he spoke, however, the man's voice began to sound strange to the Goldman Sachs team as though it had been digitally, though it might have been digitally altered,

the four people said. The Goldman people then reach out to Alex Piper, and were told by Piper, that wasn't me on the call. We're not talking to the guy from YouTube originals. Smith writes within days, Mr. Watson had apologized profusely to Goldman Sachs, saying the voice in the call belonged to Samir Rao, the co-founder and chief operating officer of Ozzy,

according to the four people. That's where this story started. And what a way for a media story to begin. Yeah. Following the story has been, I mean, just the following, the following of the story

has sort of been part of the real joy of it, right? I mean, as someone steeped in the media world and podcasts about media, you write about media a lot, this is, you know,

right up our alley. But there's a large degree, degree which you have to sort of take a step back and say this is this is sort of well not tabloidy stuff but the stuff that we're the stuff that is that is catching on the stuff that's getting tweeted about the stuff that people are you know deeming each other to see if they read is just like so over the top and sort of like you said i think the real salient thing that we have to stipulate the beginning is what is ozia i mean we certainly have never mentioned the words ozzi media on this

before, not that that's the B-All Lindahl. I kind of got the impression from a couple folks on Twitter and then by following up with some friends who were still in New York, you know, I've been in New Jersey for the past year and been out of Brooklyn for most of the pandemic. But it seems like there's been a, that there's some awareness of Aussie media just due to like, like, you know, poster advertising all over Brooklyn over the past year or so that I wasn't present for. There's obviously these LA-based billboards that you, you know,

we're sort of strategically placed, but certainly not prevalent. But as far as like encountering a story from Aussie media in the wild, you know, like being retweeted by somebody or even primarily tweeted by somebody, I don't think I had any concept of who this was. I didn't have any concept of who Carlos Watson was, despite him being a quote-unquote former MSNBC personality or host. that by the way is not disputed because it's nominally true but seems to be the sort of original lie of this whole thing that he was just like a host he was a he appeared several times on morning joe and then for some period on morning joe and then very briefly had a show of his own um but that kind of establishes him as like you know a rachel maddow level news figure or something um The whole story is just bonkers, but it's about a relative nobody in the media landscape

who started a website who relatively nobody has ever encountered. But the links that he went to to make this website, well, seem viable slash be viable, all sort of add up into this really sort of compelling story. I mean, there's a lot to learn from it, I guess. I'm not sure what we can really learn about Aussie media itself, but let's, you take it now. No, no, I really, I just totally double down on your point of this kind of not knowing what Aussie media was and it coming out of this era where there were websites popping up where sometimes your friends were being hired by them.

Oh, right, yeah. And even your friends didn't quite seem to know what the mission statement was. Ben Smith in his original piece mentions Mike and Fusion as being two other things that come out of this era. Two great examples. I mean, Fusion in particular, I think that even, I think by the time anyone I knew was getting hired at Fusion, there were at least contemporaneous, like New York Times profiles of the website. But Mike is a great one where like I probably pretended I knew what Mike was the first several times I heard of it before I actually went back and tried to figure out what it was. But even those were on a totally different level than Ozzy. Um, it's, uh, I mean, I think a lot of what the story kind of underscores is that we don't, like, the average person doesn't know what it means to be a media entity in the modern age. And certainly, and people in, as we can know by the story, people who are investing in these media entities have no idea what it means to be a media entity in any sort of meaningful way. But I think even people in media, know what it really means. I mean, it's like, to make this thing personal, well, to make this thing personal, I mean, people have dismissively called the ring or a podcast company implicitly saying that the written side is meaningless to the overall production or, or importance of the site.

I mean, again, personally, I would, you know, point out the continued existence of the written side of the company after being purchased by a giant strictly audio company as a counterpoint to that. But that also just kind of shows an ignorance of the imbalance or the varying balances of modern media, right? I mean, you'd be easy enough for someone to point a website and say, they spend 55% of their resources on podcasts, so they have it backwards or they're messed up, right? We just don't know about these things, right? And I think that, but I don't think that's like, I'm not saying that I know everything. I mean, certainly, I mean, you look at any major online publisher that's been born over the past 10, 15 years. Like, I have no idea what any

of their business models look like. We can joke about them, you know, but I don't know, I couldn't say anything with confidence about even how the successful ones balance their, their sheets and balance their workload. And it actually goes back further than that too, because it's like when you look at the people who are invested, like Goldman Sachs investing, and there's all these people investing in this money, investing money in this. And excuse me for rambling, but there's a couple of things going on here. One is that people don't even understand people who are investing money in this don't really understand what BuzzFeed is or what the Daily Beast is or with these sort of like last generations what major websites that are

16 as successful, you either don't get what makes them work in a way that would make it reasonable to invest in another site or you have this sort of like deep-seated dismissiveness of it, which seems to be sort of like what the underlying current of this entire story, which is to say that like we people who worked at investment firms, like if these idiots are making millions of dollars with a website, then we can go make a website and then we can start taking all this investment money.

Yes. Right? So it's clear that, I mean, Goldman Sachs was, Goldman Sachs was apparently just like one phone call away from handing over $40 million to a company that, according to some resources, Ozzie had taken on $20 million in debt financing, recently, which may, which I, as on my reading seems to have been before the Goldman Sachs investment would have taken place. Maybe I'm wrong. But regardless, to be investing that kind of money based on a phone call, I mean, talk about old school, the way old media worked. Let's just get on the phone with this YouTube guy and let him like, you know, tell us you're doing real good. And then we'll buy the rest of your story. It's just, it's crazy. I mean, it makes you want to start a website. Yes.

It does. And let me tell you, that's what was so striking to me about all these stories is the thin line between what's okay to do at a media startup and what's not okay to do at a media startup. Right. We can all agree that allegedly someone impersonating someone on a conference call is not okay. It's obviously not okay. But what about the part where you say, hey, my website is really, really popular? tons of people subscribe to my newsletters. Look at the traffic my YouTube videos are doing. Look at this crazy traffic. Look at how I am appealing to this very specific demographic. Young people, those young readers you really want.

My website has those things. My podcast has all these fantastic guests. Everybody's doing that stuff. Everybody is doing that stuff. And look at all the money, by the way, investors are giving us. Does this sound like other websites you're familiar with at this point in history? That is what every media startup does. So to an extent, and again, I'm not, I do not want to at all sort of, you know, wave away what, what Ben is reporting here, but it's just so striking to

me that there's a certain game you play no matter what. Yes. And that everybody's playing. And then here is this moment where Ozzy again, allegedly goes over the line and that's that's it okay now here now we're pulling out we're shutting down though i guess he said this morning that they're actually that ozies is coming back in some way whatever that means but anyway that was just so striking by the story because it just feels so familiar to this era of media startup it does i mean listen this is definitely like the like the fully like bare cupboard version of there are extremes yeah yeah this is the empty cupboard version of I mean, everybody else is doing these things.

And frankly, like, if you had bought a bunch of fake followers on Twitter or paid for a bunch of fake views on YouTube or impressions on a story or anything else and managed to translate that into continued success, that's not much of a New York Times article. That might be like a BuzzFeed article because actually BuzzFeed did report on this in 2017, Ozzie specifically. But it's more than anything. It's like a, you know, a Twitter rant that like makes people mad for like 24 hours,

then everybody forgets about it. Because again, nobody really cares how you get your first million impressions as long as like the millions follow after that, right? That's right. And Ben mentions that in his article. It's like, hey, if you said, look, I did all this kind of flimflam at the beginning. And then you're whatever you have turns into a multi-million dollar company, 100 million dollar company. Everybody's like, oh, well, that's what everybody does. And that's the argument that Carlos Watson was making basically on TV today.

He was like, of course we paid to get our media in front of, you know, the right people. We don't want it to get lost in the algorithm. I mean, that's all BS, but that's the, on its best reading, that's basically that argument, right? It's like, yeah, we're paying to get the right people to look at it. And that would eventually be meaningful. I mean, I guess your mileage may vary on that. I was sitting there reading the Aussie articles last week, David, and I was like, wait a second. Did I get recruited by Ozzy at some point?

Search my email. It turns out I did, or at least I got a note from Ozzy in 2014. Oh, my gosh. First of all, the note begins, hi, Brian with an eye. Yeah. So it's kind of a problem if you misspell the person's name that you are reaching out to in the opening email. I just want to just note for all future media startups. This is the way the email reads,

we are a new daily digital magazine, launched by former CNN slash MSNBC anchor Carlos Watson. And we're currently in the market for a lead sports writer. This is a super important position for us as we partnered with a big media brand on this hire, so the person who fills a role will get a national perch. We're less than a year old growing like gangbusters and getting some nice pressed, et cetera, et cetera.

Would you like to jump on a call? I was not going to go to this website. We were at Grantland at the time. I did not need a national perch. But I do remember getting on this call and coming away and not knowing what Ozzy was at the end of the call. So exactly what we're talking about here. But that was wild to find that in the email. Yeah.

I can't believe you were one of Ozzy's earliest employees. What could have been? They probably said out of press release, touting their sports column is Brian Curtis. Could have been on a billboard in L.A. That would have been amazing. A couple more notes for you

for we shut off the Aussie fire hose here. Our friend Matt Moore sent us a New York Times alert that said called Ozzie an embattled company. Oh no. Yeah.

I would say that counts. Also, I know, and I know you're absolutely right to focus on the big picture stuff here, but we have to savor a few of the details of the story that came out. Well, no, no, I think that we, I mean, listen, I love savoring the details. I spent a whole car ride from Brooklyn to, I mean, from New Jersey to Brooklyn on Friday, explaining the story to my wife in just minute detail.

And actually, actually, they shut down, like, as we pulled into our parking spot, or they announced that they were closing down after they pulled into, as we were pulling in, it was just an incredible ride and incredible story. I was, I'm definitely here for it, and apparently my wife was too. But I think it's just, I think as long as we're like having, as long as the story is just kind of generally about the emptiness of media, then we should make sure that we're covering it in a, in like the, you know, at least in part in a non-empty in a, in a, you know, way with a few calories.

And I think that Ben Smith's, I think his most recent piece, which was, you know, called what they saw in Ozzy was a good a good piece you know I mean I'm not saying as other pieces weren't but that was sort of the piece that needed to be written right like why did why did people invest

in this thing you know and what the and what the and there's some you know there's some good stories about what the employees they're experienced but you know in a world of fake news

and whatnot I just think it's you know we should take a take a second just to point and say like what like why what is the difference between a successful or a correct, you know, modern website and one that's totally full of it. And I think that it's not just touting fake numbers and tricking people into paying for it. It's why the people are paying

for it, right? It's the numbers that it's the sort of thinking that undergirds the numbers. But I am totally invested in the wacky minutia. So go ahead. How about the A&E story? Smith reported that a TV producer was brought on for the Carlos Watson show and was told it would be prime time on A&E, the cable network. They managed to interview for this show, Terry Cruz, Andrew Yang, Malcolm Gladwell, Roxanne Gay. Then the producer realizes that A&E has scheduled hoarders for the time slot Smith writes that was supposedly meant for the Carlos Watson show.

So the way you find out that you're not going to be in prime time on A&E that Horters is actually already in the slot. The umpteenth episode of Horders. I can't believe that anyone would have seen the release of the fall A&E schedule. And that, and drawn that conclusion, I guess they were probably eager to see the name of the show on the lineup or whatever. But like, if I just saw an A&E schedule that had Horders in the 8 o'clock slot or whatever, I would just be like, oh, we're looking at last season schedule.

This could be from any year in the past decade. This is just a mistake. I wouldn't think that there was a giant, lie underneath everything. I mean, and listen, goodos the people that saw this lie coming a mile away. I mean, it's all this stuff happening. Also, Anthony Fauci was interviewed for the Carlos Watson show because, of course, Anthony Fauci, that was funny to me. Listen, a lot of people were, and a lot of people showed up to Ozzy Fest, which of course, which of course, the great part of all these articles is that they were sued by Ozzy Osbourne, uh, who counted Oz Fest, which is just like, yes,

I mean, you called it Ozzy Fest strictly because of the existence of Oz Fest. And yes, there would be some people who are confused, yes. But yeah, like every major, like, the people who appeared at Ozzy Fest should not be shamed for appearing at Ozzy Fest, but it does do a good job of sort of like, like, making a list of a certain class of modern high-profile podcast intellectual, right?

If Ozzy targeted you, you're a very certain sort, not good or bad. Just that's a very certain thing. Oh, to appear at their podcast? Yeah, and that appeared at the convention, at the Oz at the fests. You know, if you go, if you look at the pictures on stage of all these like major figures, the Mark Cubans of the world, sort of like surrounding Carlos Williams. Carlos Watson.

Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a very certain sort. Interesting tweet from sports TV ratings points out that Milwaukee Bucks co-owner and former Ozzy media chairman of the board Mark Lazarie's role in this story. Yeah, he might be the real, not the, he might be one of the real heels of this. I mean, he had a kind of very interesting role, at least in the dying days. Well, yeah. So when Smith reported his first story, he's the one who said, no, this was an unfortunate one-time event.

It's okay. I'm satisfied with what happened, then resign four days later. This is the tweet from sports TV ratings. I've been wondering if ESPN sports media should be covering the recent news, Reebok's owner, Mark Clasry. I know it's not NBA related, but if it were Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft, or even Steve Balmer, pretty sure sports media would be all over it. Yeah.

That feels correct. I don't quite know why they wouldn't be or aren't right now. Uh-huh. Because it still seems like a great story or a really, you know, juicy story. I don't know. It is a really interesting story. I mean, I think to me this goes back to my earlier point, right? Mark Lazre defended this beyond, well past the point when it should have been defended, right?

Because he doesn't understand the difference between what Ozzie. was claiming to be in any other of his million investments, right? I mean, it's just like if he thought that if he just helped sell this absolute and utter bullshit story, if he just put out one press release and everything would be okay, I don't think he would have put himself in the role of being the chairman. I don't think he would have put out any statements if he had any inkling that it wouldn't have worked, right? That he wouldn't if you, that it, I mean, and also, obviously, to recoup some of his investment,

he has to keep it going, right? he has to keep rolling it forward so the next people cash in. But yeah, I mean, it's, it was, his role in it is, was just very suspect. And, and just, like I said, just totally misunderstands what's going on here.

I mean, Mark Lazarie, well, whatever. Yeah, people, people should cover it. I mean, he was, he played a big role in this. Yeah, he's just not as high profile as Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft and those guys, obviously. So maybe that's the simplest answer.

And his team just won the, NBA championship. So, you know. But again, that seems like a good reason to cover it. Like the bucks are important. So why not? David, I want to talk to you about the return of John Stewart to TV or at least streaming.

But first, let's do the Overward Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the press box pod where they are always, always gratefully received. first up David on the matter of Ozzy. It was a very overworked Twitter joke to call Carlos Watson the wizard of Ozzy. I guess is in pay no

attention to the man behind the curtain. From the Department of Frozen Pizza, David, something you and I care very deeply about. This tweet from USA Today, Nestle is recalling 28,000 pounds of its frozen

di Giorno crispy pan crust pepperoni pizza. what? Due to misbranding and undeclared allergens. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write. It's not delivery. It's a recall. No de journo pizza in the shoemaker freezer.

I don't think so. You know me. I'm more of a totinos guy. I would always go when it's a matter of frozen pizza, I'm always going volume. I think you and I both agree on that one. Absolutely. no need to go high quality there.

Remember we'd see the high quality frozen pizza? And be like, yeah, maybe I'll just pay a little extra. Get a delivery style pizza. It's not good. First of all, delivery is not good. But, I mean, not good in a way that you would want to replicate in your oven. And second of all, yeah, I mean, it's a different thing. Just like Domino's Thin' Crust Pizza is one of the great wonders of the modern world.

I wouldn't go to a restaurant in search of it. And you don't need that coming out of your freezer either. One of the great wonders of the modern world. finally, David, a dire headline from CNN. U.S. government will run out of money by October 18th, Treasury Secretary says. The U.S. government will run out of money. It was an overword Twitter joke to write.

Did the U.S. government try spending less on iced coffee and avocado toast? Thanks to Joseph Darylowski for that. If you gave the U.S. government generic Susie Orman advice about saving money, congrats. You made the overward Twitter joke. of the week. All right, David, in the notebook dump, I want to talk to you about the return of John Stewart.

Great. John Stewart hosted the Daily Show from 1999 to 2015. He spent the last six years directing a movie everyone seemed to hate and doing cameos with his old pal, Stephen Colbert. He is back, however, with a new show on Apple Plus. It's called The Problem with John Stewart, which made me think, by the way,

with the glut of streaming shows at podcasts, it feels like we're running out of names. doesn't it? Oh, yeah. Problem with John Stewart. How do we feel about John Stewart in 2021? Oh, man. There's something just kind of obviously, like implicitly interesting

about a figure like this, right? I mean, it's like he retired at the top of his game. There's so many sports analogies, metaphors you can, you can drag this. He retires at the top of his game. His imitators or those influenced by him have gone to take over a huge footprint in the modern media landscape, right? I mean, much larger than anyone would have ever guessed. And all this time, people are begging Stewart to come back. I mean, at least once every four years, there is like a, you know, national write-in campaign for him to get back in the political fray.

and more frequently than that too. But at some point, you just got to realize that, like, I mean, I think even wishing he was back, you're sort of imagining something that doesn't exist anymore or never existed, right? I mean, I think the problem of John Stewart was actually a really good show. But the desire for John Stewart is a separate thing

than, like, the presentation of John Stewart, right? At some point, you have to, like, reconcile to yourself that, like, even if Elvis were alive, he would be terrible at performing right now, right? or like, I mean, the flip side of this, and pro wrestling is I just saw like C.M. Punk come back, one of the greatest wrestlers ever after like an incredibly long, multiple, many year layoff.

And I finally reconcile myself to him never coming back. He came back. I was like, he's going to be terrible. He was great or he's good enough. And that's fine. And I think that's sort of where John Stewart is right now. It's just like in terms of John Stewartness, he's good enough, right?

In terms of what we expect from him, from the daily show and everything else, I think he hit the bar of being. good enough. But I think he's going to find a hard time, not he, I think the show will find a hard time sort of getting situated in the modern media landscape. But we'll see. What do you think? The modern media landscape is a key point here. Because if the corpse of Elvis came back, I think he would probably find modern music a little weird and really be looking for his niche. And what happened with John Stewart is a funny thing, right? Because he's working in this completely

different just television universe than we have now. Like when he's on the daily show starting in 1999, there is not much of a demand for the liberal smackdown hour of TV. Compared to now where there's a big demand for that, not only on TV, but in podcasting and everything else. So he is working in the confines of a comedy show that is sort of also about politics.

and current events and media criticism. Like I'm going to go after the guys on Fox News and Bill and Riley and those kinds of things. Show you what they're what they're doing to you and how they're kind of polluting the discourse. And remember, I feel he would always say, I'm just a comedian. Yeah. I'm not, I don't really, I'm not the person you should be listening to about this stuff. I'm just a comedian who is commenting on the discourse and everything else. We are now in a world, not only where there's the liberal Smackdown hour, seemingly on

every single network, including by people like John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, and other former Stuart Acolytes, you just have to be a totally different kind of host now. There's a different expectation. You can't be, I'm just a comedian. You have to be wonky and knowledgeable and passionate and you cannot have the ironic distance that John Stewart had. And him parachuting into this universe is really interesting because he's either got to change. and I get from looking at the rundown of the show, he has changed, at least the show to some extent, or kind of be this odd figure where he is, as you say,

he's the godfather of it, but may seem out of step with what people actually expect. Yeah. It's a tough space to be in. I mean, I think that the luxury of being John Stewart is that you get to make the show that you want to make, more or less. Now, the show itself, you know, you can take exception to, I mean, to small parts of it, certainly.

He was wearing, you know, he seems sort of deliberately underdressed, you know, which is sort of, you know, a choice that one makes now. But as someone who was, like, out there in a suit being a fake newsman for so long, I mean, I'm sure there's examples of the contrary, but unless you're like Mr. Rogers, it's really hard to, like, dress down sort of in the middle of someone's imagination of you. You're like mental image of you. And my wife rightly called the set Jerry Springer-esque. If you look too much of the background, there's a whole lot of old fans and beat up brick walls and stuff that probably doesn't strike exactly the right note.

In the 90s. Yeah. But the show and the main, the first segment of the show, I'm not talking about like the weird talking to his writers in the writers room thing, but the main segment about military care, post-active and active duty. military care, medical care, was necessary and compelling and, you know, not up to the, not up to the levels of John Oliver or many other people doing this, right? I mean, it just felt a little bit stayed and a little bit, a little bit like a warm up. And that was sort of the overall vibe, right? His outfit made him look like he was like doing a dresser rehearsal for an episode of John Oliver or something like that. But, and all this is a big, big wind up to say,

he has the ability to make the show he wants to make and you saw that with one this sort of like toned downness of that whole thing and then more importantly everything that happened after that opening segment when he actually had veterans on stage interviewing them in real time

that is the segment that every talk show host serious and comical says they're going to do when they start a new show and no one ever does it. No one can ever get it approved and no one can ever get it test marketed and out there in front of people. right and then he went and interviewed the secretary of defense and had a really kind of combative

and frustrating interview but he went and he did it and i know that he's not competing with john oliver or anybody else well like is he not well i'm just not to not to read some sort of like rivalry into something that doesn't exist but if you're sitting there saying this is as i was saying well this isn't quite as good as john oliver and then he does that instead of you know buying a website to make fun of the people who weren't giving the right, the right, you know, medical care to, to, if he, if he, what he did compared to what John Oliver would have done to end the show was a just a giant fuck you to everybody else doing in the game because he did the thing that none of them are doing.

And I thought that was really impressive. By the end, I was just really sort of like impressed by that and thoroughly demoralized by the entire segment, not his fault. That said, I have a hard time imagining, I mean, he joked on the show that people were just going to be watching it, you know, in segment, you know, in snippets on Twitter. I have a hard time imagining what snippets are either even going to be passed around. The main, the subject matter was pretty downbeat and he wasn't making it for that sort of media. So it'll be really interesting to see what happens. But I think that whatever runway presumably is a ton of runway at Apple and he's going to make use of it.

I think the more that he puts into it, the more he'll eventually get back. So he's saying essentially, you want earnest, I'll show you earnest. Yeah, yeah. If that's the criticism, the kind of retroactive criticism of me was that I was standing way, way, way above the fray. I think this was a good sentence from Derek Robertson's piece in Politico about Stewart. If ironic detachment served as a cultural get out of jail free card that made it cool or at least

acceptable to care deeply about current events in the Y2K era, Stewart's successors view such cover as entirely unnecessary. And now, the good sentence, by the way, now he's going to go around them and say, aha, I'll make sure that this is, even if I'm sacrificing a little, you know, watchability, we're going to dig into the real stuff here. Yeah. And as you say, you're right. You're absolutely right.

That is what everybody says they want to put on television. I'm going to put the, I'm going to give you the real thing. I'm not going to book celebrities, right? I'm going to give you the real thing. force you to watch it but he's actually doing it that's interesting and i think that i think that i mean sort of just to make one tweak on the the quote you just read he did or the point you just made he he he wasn't just i mean he he he was saying you want a i'm going to give you b whether or not you want it but he did kind of give you a in the opening segment and it what but and it it

it wasn't quite it didn't it didn't quite land you know to use the the the comedy term This is a monologue he's doing in the open. Well, yeah. And I don't, but I don't think, I don't think that's necessarily a problem either. I mean, I do think it all just sort of, it does hold together and it did sort of build towards the end. And it was like, yeah, I mean, the accumulation of the show was something to be impressed by. And it certainly, you know, made an impression. I'm a little weirded out by the way he has been thrust out of the liberal TV pantheon. Oh, yes.

Let's talk about this. I just don't like, this is one of these things that, and I totally get that if, you know, right basically right now, the T-1,000 John Stewart exists in the form of John Oliver. Let's say, I'm not just funny. I'm going to do long, wonky packages about these issues that aren't getting enough attention, right? I'm going to give you the John Stewart part you love, which is the comedy. And I'm also going to give you what you now criticize him for, which is not being deep enough and not sort of wrapping your arms around these issues.

Yeah. I understand that. I just feel like you have to understand John Stewart in context of the time. And this idea that it was, it was not, it was again, no, he was on comedy central. He was taking, he was taking over a show that wasn't political. He wasn't political. It was Craig Kilbourne show. Yeah.

It was like, here is the funny thing I saw on TV show. Yeah. And I just I just the idea that he was going to be able to do like chopo trap house in 2001 is ridiculous. There was there was that did not that form did not exist. There was nothing there was almost nothing on television like that. We can put in Keith Oberman's MSNBC show if you want to. But like there's almost nothing on television like that. And the other thing is John Stewart was funny.

Yeah. He is funny. I don't want to consign can sign him to his 2000. But John Stewart's funny. I remember getting taken to a taping one time when we lived in New York. And the story was the Iraq war was going on and George Bush was on a diplomatic visit to Panama. And somebody stood up when he's doing the photo op with the Panamanian leader and asked him this really tough question about, you know, the Iraq war or war crimes or whatever it was. And I remember just Stewart just cut the clip right there and went, oh, tough isthmus.

I'm yanking at his collar. I just remember thinking that was so funny. And remember also like circa early 2000s when aggregation was still a little bit new in internet world? Yeah. And the first thing I remember is people just posting the whole John Stewart monologue online before there was even an effect, an efficient vehicle like Twitter or something to do that on. they'd be like, here's what John Stewart said last night, the end of my post. Yeah. Surfing off his comedy and claiming like, oh, here's some jokes I saw on TV, not.

Here's the free content that I'm just going to give you and you don't even have to watch it on television. Yeah. And to now then go around and go, well, that guy wasn't funny. Excuse me. I just find that a little bit ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, politically it was always going to be a tough road to hoe for him, right?

I mean, anybody that was sort of been, not just not paying attention, he's probably paying lots of attention, but it's a, it's a very different media world as we've covered in great depth on this show, you know, and, uh, and, and it's something that you kind of have to live and not just like observe, right? I mean, to know the rules. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a different thing for him. And certainly, when someone occupies the space that he did in his heyday, you know, he lives on as a great bastion of, you know, and I don't. I mean, it's like JFK being a being such a liberal icon, but if you go back and look at his policies, they may leave, you know, a little something to be desired to like the, you know, the Bernie caucus,

you know, but he's still big, you're still held up. You're still sort of like, you know, you're still a god for your era. More often than not, people like him don't get a chance to come back and certainly don't get a chance to come back and perform again. I mean, this isn't like him taking his, the daily show to Branson, Missouri, right? And just like performing. the old George W. Bush gags for the rest of his life to like an aging crowd of us, you know? I mean, but he's out there.

He's competing, you know? I mean, this is like Jordan's comeback to take it back to sports. You know, he's got to, he's going to go out there and he's going to go out there and try to make some shots. And he's got to like pull his hamstring and miss and like be crappy for half the season. That's part of the gig, you know? But like, you know, it's, it's impressive that he's taking a swing.

Totally mixed sports metaphors there. Sorry. You did mix sports. for us, but that's okay. But John Stewart wasn't canceled in 2015. No. It's not like after the rally to restore sanity or something else we, you know, looked at at the time, I was like, eh, that was, that was kind of, you kind of missed your target there. It wasn't like we, we all said, oh, we're not, we're going to cancel John Stewart. We didn't. No. And I would also point out that for all, the shows like John Oliver, you look at, but first of all, John Oliver's weekly,

not grinding out a show every day, which would be an. Well, and it's not even week. I mean, it's not even every week, too. Yeah, it's semi-weekly. Mm-hmm. But I'd also look around besides John Oliver and say, you know what I see out there? A lot of shows that aren't as funny as the daily show. Oh, yeah.

It wasn't its day, including current daily show, by the way. If we want to put that on the marker. Like, it's just, I don't know. Anyway, I just find that very, very funny that we sort of do that. And I think he's funny. A couple of quick items for you did before we get out of here. This is from Fletcher Kiel. Y'all Bimon, by the way, you automatically get on the show if you start your tweet to us with y'all.

Y'all bemoan the titling teasing of oral histories. But I'd like to know what it's actually like to put one together. It can't be easy to turn 15 to 20 interviews and make it read like everyone is in the same room talking in turn. Well, it's really hard. I mean, you're right. It's not easy. volume is certainly something that's really hard to work with

but I will say that like the first draft and a lot of this is you know secondhand information but the first draft can be can be relatively easy especially for the number of words that you have right putting the quotes in order the first time and suddenly being like out of nowhere like 15,000 words have materialized in this Google Doc that is an amazing feeling

of triumph that you don't get when you're just writing a feature story. You know, it takes work to get that. It takes work to get like, you know, 3% of the same quote material into 5,000 words and like, you know, massage it together and make the point and whatever. The narrative arc of an oral history is already in place. And the sequence is almost always entirely in place. And yeah, if you got all the material, once you get the transcripts,

you can start, you know, Legoing them together and you get a lot of the way really quickly. Now, different editors, different publications, different writers will have different standards on how long the optimal piece should be or for the subject in particular. And, you know, it could be really like going from 15,000 words in that first draft to trying to make it a tight 7,500 or something. That can be really, that can be really tough. And then to go to the specific question, to make it sound like they're all there having a conversation. I mean, it's really hard to point at the best oral histories because I think, I don't think we're always so critical. We're not so discerning when it comes to the quality of an oral history because it does feel like sort of reading the best version of a primary source, right? But the best ones do make it feel like the quotes really flow together.

And they'll cut up quotes to make the conversation feel more organic, right? You can put this quote from whoever, from Seth Rogen just in three pieces. it just carries the section. It can be a lot of work. It's just a different kind of work. It's more like, it's more like a, you know, it's more like a puzzle. It's more like, or not even a puzzle.

It's like a, I don't know. I don't even know how to describe it. It's a little bit workmanlike, but the result can be, I think, a lot closer to art. I think after you get to that stage, you talked about where you've done the interviewing and you laid them all out, I don't think the process is that much different than writing a piece, or it shouldn't be that much different than writing a piece.

Because there should be a writerly intelligence behind it. In terms of the way things are laid out, you talk about puzzle pieces. I find that all the time when you're writing a story. Where does this go? I know this should go in the story, but I don't know where it goes. And then you move it around and all of a sudden everything makes sense. It's not really that different. And we've talked about this, I believe before, but the good oral histories to me,

read like almost a written story where there's very length between them. Somebody talks to a paragraph. Somebody talks for a line. Somebody talks a little longer. Somebody says you have a rhythm to them. You have a sort of sense. Ideas are built up through the quotes. It's not just here.

And then this thing happened. And then this thing happened. You're actually learning and thinking on a different level. The worst one's just like, here are all the things that everybody told me. Mm-hmm. And you're just like, okay. thank you for this giant, you know, quote dump that doesn't like read like anything or doesn't really bring me to a place that should have brought me in terms of understanding.

It's just very, it's just very interesting. I got an update for you, David, from the field of nominative determinism. Oh, great. Something I will be able to pronounce at some point. You remember we had Phil McCann of the BBC reporting from a gas station the other day. I remember him well. Look, I've really, I've really been enjoying Phil McCann's substack, by the way. Someone sent us more that someone is Vino Mutt.

These are also, I believe most of these are from British television. Someone appeared on BBC News from the Water Research Center named Andrew Drinkwater. Oh, no. So somebody named Andrew Drinkwater went to the Water Research Center. BBC Weather, we met Sarah Bliss. Your name is Sarah Blizzard. You will become some sort of meteorologist. Why are these all British?

Well, I believe the, I believe the curator is perhaps British. Oh, okay. They're finding these. Then from ITV, and again, this almost makes me think this is not real, but I just hope it's real. They were interviewing a law enforcement officer,

Avon and Somerset police, and the law enforcement officer's name was, wait for it, Rob Banks. I did not go with Robert Banks. This is just, I cannot guarantee that's real. One honcho at like BBC is just like,

this is his favorite thing in the world, just to send people out to hilarious places based on their names? I don't know. I don't know. But maybe they were just drawn to those, drawn to those professions. That's the whole idea.

Interesting one from Adam Bisson. Would Ken Burns' Muhammad Ali documentary have been a sports media, a sensation had it aired on any network other than PBS? Yeah. It would have been way bigger, right? Mm-hmm. So there's two questions to me.

One is where does it go? Because especially after the Michael Jordan thing, we're all so conditioned to expect like the giant multi-part sports documentary from ESPN. And even if you have the exact same doc, but just in somebody like Ken Burns, who obviously has tons of experience in docs and sports docs and just shifted over to PBS that it gets less play, even though PBS is free and ESPN is not free. Yeah. That's fascinating.

Also the Muhammad Ali nostalgia zone. We have been consuming Muhammad Ali books, documentaries, many of them quite wonderful for a long time. Yep. And is there a point in history where that's just not, doesn't grab people in the same way? Well, I mean, as a publisher, and I, you know, use all these platforms, you can define them all as publishers. Yeah. I mean, there's always going to be some level of reluctance to be like, or not even reluctance. I mean, there's some, there's a motivation to take on subjects that no one else, I mean, that you have kind of exclusive rights to, right? But then at the same time, you see there's two Firefest docs. There's multiple Britney Spears docs or things that vaguely resemble docs that are all coming out at the same time. I mean, you want to ride the bandwagon too. Now, Muhammad Ali is not a bandwagon subject. So I don't want to, you know, you know, make that too close of a correlation. But, you know, Ken Burns has basically made a career of doing sort of the final word, not the final word, but sort of the comprehensive look at subjects that have already been

covered, if not specifically in documentaries. He's in a million books that he's like functionally competing with, right? Jazz, Civil War, Muhammad Ali. He takes on big subjects. He takes on big subjects that cannot possibly be unique to him. That's sort of the point, right? and we could have this conversation in 10 different directions we could have it for a long time

and I think it's a really good question but to think that like that that Netflix or anybody else wouldn't just back up the Brinks truck to have the next Ken Burns documentary to have Ken Burns on Muhammad Ali would be idiocy like they would in a heartbeat. Yeah, I guess it's not that it wouldn't get made or get funded.

It's just, is there, you know, Muhammad Ali has been one of the subjects that when you see something about it, people have been paying attention to more or less forever for the last 50 years, right? Like, he's so interesting. He's so fascinating. He's so important that. And I just, it's interesting just to me to contemplate. Is there, do we reach a moment where people are just less plugged into that? I don't know. And just don't regard that as something I have to watch right now.

I don't know where it is. That's a really, I mean, that is, that is the question. That's a valid question. But I would argue that for PBS, the press release is Ken Burns does another big thing.

Totally. Ken Burns on fill in the blank. And for Netflix or for anybody else, they would find a number of really relevant answers to the question you're asking. Like, why do I care about this? And they would make sure that's all you heard about for two months before the thing came out. Or if they did a surprise release,

they do sometimes. They'd make sure that's what people were talking about online immediately, right? They would find the things that are new. They would find the clips that are interesting. They would make it seem fresh and significant in a way that it's just not part of the PBS, you know, game plan to do. Yeah, with everything but Downton Abbey. That was, that was like the PBS thing where people were like people online were talking about in the moment, perhaps, or on the night of. Last one I remember anyway. Michael T and Chicken Finger Taco, two listeners, David, want to make sure we saw Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal talking about Finsta. I just want you to listen to this.

This is Blumenthal's back and forth with Facebook's Global Head of Safety. Will you commit to ending Finsta? Senator, again, let me explain. We don't actually do do Finsta. What Finsta refers to is young people setting up accounts where they want and they want to have more privacy. You refer to it as privacy from their parents. What in my interaction with teams, what I found is that they sometimes like to have an account where they can interact just with a smaller group of friends. Well, Finsta is one of your, actually, Finsta is one of your

products or services. We're not talking about Google or Apple. It's Facebook, correct? Finca is slang for a type of account. It's really funny in an era where when AOC is doing one of these grillings or Katie Porter and they have everything locked down like they are the master prosecutor, interrogator to get this where he has clearly just been doing something and his like so way will you commit to ending finsta right now well he didn't get the answer out of him i wish they would i wish they would in finsta i think ending finsta would make a big would make a big statement david we got a few only in journalism words of the day these are words that are uh you read

in print but never hear human beings actually say oh i've got one for you by the way oh you do do you want to lead with it or do you want to where do you want to go with this sure if a friend of the show i'll call him chris um was talking on the phone this week he's like Oh, I've got an only in journalism word for you. I want to get your take on this one. Okay. It's a usage one. And I think that we could probably go, if we start clarifying specific usage, we might be able to stretch this gimmick out for many, many more episodes.

His word is myriad. And the point that he was making is outside of journalism, you always say a myriad, which is, I believe the end. incorrect usage only in journalism to people use myriad correctly by saying there were myriad options on the table. I'm willing to grant any usage of myriad as an only in journalism word. All right. All right. Well, that's good enough then.

I don't know that I use that in speech very much, if ever. That's a good one. Thank you, Chris. Mystery Chris, for that one. A couple more for you. did from Brian Rice. And again, forgive me if we've had these before. I've lost track at this point. For Brian Rice, coffers. I feel like we've had that before, but it's a fantastic one. All right. Thank you, Brian, for reminding us of coffers. From Jason McAllister trumpeted.

Yeah. Somebody trumpeted a finding. Yeah, not literally trumpeting. No. Yes. Not an instrument, but you were you were advertising something. And this is from Chris Reed. I love this one. Yeah, because when you said that, it took me, like a full second to understand what you were saying. But if you'd seen it in print, you'd know exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah. Mold wine. Mold wine you use in real life. Yes, I have used that in my household.

Yeah. But never mold as in thought about or considered. Time for David Shoemaker guesses the strain pun headline. Yeah. Last Monday's headline about two generations of running backs named Frank Gore was Frank's and jeans Listener Noah suggests it should have been

dad jeans which is funny but aren't all genes dad jeans or mom jeans dad jeans is not itself a pun on jeans no

so yeah that jeans is fine that jeans is a pun but all but all actual right but all it's kind of redundant right all genes come from mom and you know mom and dad

and relative so anyway yes today's headline comes from Joseph Dorowski, his second appearance on this podcast, by the way. Get that man in Oxford comma. Today? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's from AP Audities, David.

The story is this, dollar tree. Love dollar tree. The national chain of stores that promises everything for a buck will begin introducing items on its shelves that exceed $1. That exceed $1. What was the AP's

strained pun headline? Dollar Is it like an inflation joke? Make your dollar go farther? Dollar. Oh, a tree maybe, like a tree grows,

the dollar grows, the giving tree, the taking tree. Giving tree. Your keyword here is buck. Oh, buck. Buck.

Um, Buck. One buck. Buck and dough. A buck. God, I can't think of anything. Buck. Buck up.

Buck up. Buck up. Oh. I think there's a lot of other places you can go with that one. Please send them to at the press box pod. We will, big buck hunter, bigger buck hunter.

Yeah. Oh, see? Here we go. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic from Erica Servantes. David, we should we do a quick,

some quick format talk here on the press box podcast? Let's do it. So we have, David Shoemaker is a very popular podcast host here at the ringer. Odd way to start this, but go. A very good podcast host of the ringer. And the ringer,

as you might have read, and I think we even talked about, is buffing up its wrestling inventory. There's a lot of buck up. in the wrestling inventory. A lot of wrestling stuff going on. So you're going to be, you're going to be doing tons of things over in that section of the ringer.

So what that means to the press box pod is David is not going anywhere. We are going to do our Monday podcast, just as we always do, news of the day, funny stuff, et cetera. But then David is going to let me do the Friday podcast, which will be interviews with people, some fun shows, and David will be on the bat phone to do the Friday podcast. Yeah. So what do we call that? Kind of a medium format change, minor format change? Format tweak, yeah. Format tweak. We're still here, but just in slightly different form going forward. I think you did that well. That was good. Okay. We're fine with that. But we will always have more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.