The Press Box - The Media in Quarantine, the NFL Marches on, and the Biden-Bernie Debate | The Press Box

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker discuss covering the coronavirus from quarantine (02:00), the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week (18:15), the NFL’s decision to charge ahead with free agency (21:15), what sportswriters and sports TV people do with themselves when there are no games (31:15), and some of the media lowlights of the pandemic coverage (36:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of The Ringer here. This is the press box podcast. Toward the end of the show today, we're going to touch on last night's Democratic debate between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders and figure out the state of the race, such as it is. But our topic today is coronavirus. I want to talk about the NFL's decision to charge ahead with free agency in the face of a pandemic. We'll talk about what sports writers and sports TV people do with themselves when there are no games. I want to hit on the misinformation being ladled out to the public by a rogues gallery of people, including Jerry Falwell Jr. But David, I want to start with a weird side effect of this, which is the media in quarantine.

I'm home in Orange County recording this podcast. Where are you right now? I'm in Pennsylvania Amish country. We just looked at the map to see where the least coronavirus cases were, and we went straight witness. That was our solution to the problem. Yeah, we just found a nice, the family and I found a nice little Airbnb out here in roughly the middle of nowhere, at least in comparison where we're from. So it's nice. If you're a first time listener to the pod, David does not live in Amish country. This is a direct...

Not yet. Not yet. Well, there's still time. And David is not alone. I was really struck yesterday when Wolf Blitzer tweeted a pick of the CNN set. and instead of the 900 analysts that CNN usually has, there were four, and they were all spaced at appropriate corona safe distances apart.

David, the journalist Jorge Ramos, missed Sunday's Democratic debate because he was in, quote, proximity with someone who was in direct contact with a person that tested positive for coronavirus. CBS News's office in New York was largely closed because two employees tested positive. here's a tweet from Grant Moist, publisher of the Dallas Morning News. The Dallas Morning News today, that is Saturday, was published 100% remotely by our newsroom.

San Francisco Chronicle is doing the same thing. Editor Audrey Cooper tweeted a picture of an empty newsroom and says, I almost cried when I stopped by the newsroom this a.m. It's sort of beyond cliche at this point to say, this is unprecedented. But I've never seen a crisis in this country impact reporters to the point where they're, away from their colleagues and covering the virus from afar, have you? No, I mean, I can't even, I don't even have any frame of reference at all. I mean, everywhere I've ever worked in the media, people are, you know, dragged themselves in almost even the worst circumstances, even as we got into the sort of, you know, internet age.

Yes. It's, it's, I mean, certainly there's, we have the ability to work remotely, maybe more so than just about any other group of people but yeah putting out a whole newspaper from a distance is I mean just the situation that we're in just feels pretty jarring and well in a lot of ways but that's one of them yeah and you can

there's a difference between I work remotely meaning I you know I didn't want to put on clothes this morning I wanted to work in my PJs or something like that and I can report news remotely which you can sort of do right but a lot of the news gathering that we rely on, you really can't. And that point was made by Margaret Sullivan in a column in the Washington Post that.

That was really good. She wrote about the problem in Cleveland. The plane dealer, the newspaper there, got a new editor on March 1st. Well, he laid off 22 newsroom employees, which Sullivan says means that the plane dealer may have as few as 14 reporters. That figure is correct. 14 reporters. Wow.

In the late 90s, the paper had more than 300. Now, they do share some stories with Cleveland.com, sister publication, but still. Well, Ohio, as you know, has been one of the areas that tons of news is coming out of. Governor Mike DeWine, one of the first governors to close schools and then close bars and restaurants and things like that. And in this media age we live in, I feel people like you and me, we do this too. We've replaced a lot of the local news in our lives with national news, right? We're not as prone to read the Fort Worth Star Telegram anymore, whatever our local papers. Oh, we'll just watch MSNBC.

We'll listen to NPR. We'll just do that. We'll listen to podcasts. This pandemic is one of those times we need local news. I'm sure you were doing your version of this, but my wife and I were wondering last week, when are our kids' schools going to be closed? And to figure that out, we're like looking at Twitter so we can find the Orange County Register or the Daily Pilot. which is the newspaper in Huntington Beach here. And Sullivan's question is,

how in the world do you distribute that kind of information efficiently when you have local publications working at one, you know, 5%, 10% of their former selves? Yeah, especially when things are changing as quickly as they are. I mean, on Friday, the line from New York mayor and of course one time presidential hopeful Bill de Blasio was that they were going to keep scoops and schools open as long as possible and then Friday at 5 o'clock they canceled them for the foreseeable future

so yeah it's it's hard to imagine in the absence of social media or easy text messaging with your friends and loved ones that that kind of word would even get around you know but um yeah There's not, the news is, it seems sort of, I mean, the news apparatus seems sort of secondary in the, with this, in this situation, especially with the speed, which everything's changing. But it really, you're right, it's totally hamstrung. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, in our, in our daily lives before, we've been, you know, you hear people all the time, subscribe to your local newspaper, do this, do that. I, we hear it all the time. But a certain segment of the population has done a really good job kind of just avoiding. And I'm just. We're going to be able to. local news, right? I'm just going to watch Netflix and I'm going to do my thing and I'll know some stuff that goes on around here, but I just don't need to subscribe.

I don't need to be plugged into that world. This of all times, I mean, just think like whatever has happened in your community to this point with coronavirus, schools closing, restaurants closing, whatever it is, there's going to be more in a week. And a week after that, there's going to be even more, right? And there's going to be places you can't go. There's going to be people you should avoid. there's going to be precautions you should take.

And it's going to be really hard to get that information when there are 14 reporters responsible for a large city. That's just crazy. I don't want to devote too much of this podcast to dragging Bill de Blasio, whom you just mentioned. Yeah. Did you see he went to the YMCA to work out this morning? Oh, God, no, to prove it.

I don't know if it was to prove everything's okay. It's just I need to get my, my reps in. Oh, no. He was photographed, or his car was photographed there. A spokesman says the YMCA has been a huge part of his and his family's life. Like it has been for a lot of New Yorkers, it's clear that's about to change. And before that, the mayor wanted to visit a place that keeps him grounded one last time. Wow. Which could be translated as the mayor wanted to get in one last workout. before he couldn't go to the whining. I mean, just think of that, by the way. And, you know, not all, unfortunately, not all communities in America are as well covered by reporters as Park Slope. So we're going to have some problems there.

Other thing is happening, David, interestingly with the media and coronavirus is there is still an incredible amount of garbage being pumped into the bloodstream. This was California Representative Devin Nunes with Fox's Maria Bargaromo. And there's a lot of concerns with the economy here because people are scared to go out. But I will just say one of the things you can do, if you're healthy, you and your family, it's a great time to just go out, go to a local restaurant, likely you can get in easily. Let's not hurt the working people in this country that are relying on wages and tips to keep their small business going. You know, we're very sympathetic.

Don't run to the... Understood. Yeah, just don't run to the grocery store and buy $4,000 of food. They're cleaning off the shelves. Go to your local pub. We want to be very simple. Can we count the number of amazing things in there? Oh, my God.

Down to that final blast of don't go to the grocery store and buy food, which is the one thing you should be doing at this moment in time? Well, I guess it's $4,000 of the food, which is nice, save some of everybody else. That's true. But the fact that he wound up at your local pub, like not even not even. not even like a, you know, a restaurant with some breathing room. They just want you to get down there with just like, you know, just get your pint of Guinness with your family and hope for the best. Devin Nunes strikes me as the kind of guy that spends time at a chain,

national chain of Irish pubs. You know, that seems like his cool place to go have a cold beverage. The other thing in there is him saying that you won't have to like wait in line or you can get a reservation because people aren't going to restaurants as if that's, really where we are? This sounds like some logic that you and I would have employed in Brooklyn like 15 years ago. Oh, absolutely. Just like this is the moment to go to whatever.

Oh my God. When we were complete idiots rather than members of Congress, though I don't know that those are mutually exclusive categories. I mean, we were like 23 and go, oh, there's a hurricane coming. We should surely get into our favorite pizza place. Unbelievable. And couple that with the unreliability of, of the president of the United States,

who told governors this morning, amazing scoop in the New York Times, respirators, ventilators, all that equipment, try getting it yourselves, right? In the New York Times, Ben Smith has his column, which is an interesting topic. He writes about the relative reliability

of social media during this crisis. Smith writes, all through February and early March, the voices of doctors and nurses on social media provided a vital antidote, dot, dot, dot, dot. The crisis is revealing something surprising and a bit retro. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and others can actually deliver on their promise to democratize information and organize communities and on their newer promise to drain the toxic information

swamp. What he's specifically talking about are certain doctors, reliable doctors, nurses, that have been able to kind of come on there and distribute information. What do you make of that that all of a sudden, all of a sudden, all the these social media outfits that we had said, oh, no, no, you're where the bad stuff comes up has become where the reliable stuff comes up. I mean, I still think it, well, it's fantastic.

Yeah, I mean, this is sort of the real positive angle on all this kind of social media. I guess, you know, I mean, there's the dark reality that we deal with on a daily basis, which is that, you know, unless a blue checkmark connotes some sort of like absolute reliability, then we're still, those people are still battling for space with hucksters. And to sort of imbue social media with some sort of, you know,

you put a crown on it just because it's like there's some people out there making some positive, you know, passing information in a positive way right now. I don't know that that, I mean, that might just make unreliable people more active and more prevalent. But yeah, I think that's absolutely true. Like I was saying with the school closures, I mean, there's so much that we don't know until, you know, it's in moments like this where I find myself not like checking Twitter so much. It's like adding the word Twitter to my Google search terms. I'm trying to figure something out. You know, I mean, to find out something that's like up to the minute, if you can source through or scan through sources yourself, then, yeah, it's irreplaceable.

And you have to throw a lot of to be sures in there because there's a lot of garbage on social media, including some TikTok dude who got banned the other day. And Smith does that in his column. But I guess the argument here is, two things. One is that there is enough good information that gets promoted by the various platforms, right? And, and sort of, and push to the top of the heap, that that to some extent drowns out all the bad information from your crazy uncle who's saying, I'm not scared. I'm going to the, I'm going to the bar with Devin Nunes tonight. That's one thing. The other thing is that and Smith notes this is actually a quote from Mark Zuckerberg in the piece, which is that unlike a political issue. So, like, let's say a political issue comes up. Well, what happens? Facebook says, well, the New York Times says one thing. And the daily caller says the other thing.

Who are we to decide? We can't possibly decide who's truthful here, even though one is clearly truthful and one is not. With coronavirus, the CDC, the WHO and other outfits like that have a kind of authority. And so as Zuckerberg explains, it's easier to set policies that are a little more black and white and take a much harder line. They can be like, okay, you're saying something different than the CDC. You're wrong.

You're off. You're banned. You're complying with publicly available information from experts. You're okay. We promote you. That's kind of interesting, too. Yeah, and I think just, I mean, very broad strokes. I'm guessing the scientific and medical community speaks in a language that, you know,

the guys and gal is running big tech probably in jive with a little bit more. sure we have they have a they have a they have a they have a source you know i mean they have there there's an authority here that that if only they're an authority at every other walk of life that that um that facebook would acknowledge as the final arbiter well it's just it's just funny that you can you can sort of punch at and tear down authority in that sort of trumpy in a way with politics to no end and convince everybody that there is no right or wrong there is no everything is just a mess and we are post-truth. But when it comes to disease, somehow the CDC still holds that place in American life. That's funny to me. Because I'm like, yeah, thank God on

the one hand. But on the other hand, why can't we, why haven't the bad people succeeded in tearing that down too? Maybe they just haven't had time yet because this is our first pandemic in a while. Well, I mean, Fox News is doing their best right now to downplay everything. And they have been for the past a week. And, you know, this shouldn't be an overtly political issue, right? I mean, it's just, it seems like just the easiest, like, this is just like such a softball to, like, come down on the right side of this. Yeah, I get, I guess because the other stuff isn't policy right, it's more just kind of weird rants. You know, Trump making a show of shaking everybody's hand at that press conference the other day that was about coronavirus. Sure. Uh, your Devin

Nunes thing like that, right? It doesn't quite, it's, as long as it's not like a written article saying, here are the safety measures. If somebody just put that out, I feel that would actually weirdly somehow break the algorithm, but at least we're not there yet. I want to talk to you about a couple of subgenres of social media things we've seen. One is the I'm Not Scared of Coronavirus Post. She's right.

The big one I saw was that one that said downtown Nashville is undefeated and featured a bunch of people at a concert, supposedly in Nashville. There were a bunch in the St. Patrick's Day category. Like I'm going out. I'm ignoring it. I don't care. I'm flying somewhere for a parade that's not happening post.

That was kind of amazing. The other one is the celebrity PSA. Oh, yeah. Which we've now recruited every unlikely celebrity. My short list here includes coach Ed Orgeron of the national champion LSU Tigers, Jack Nicholas, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and I'm sure there's more. but staring into a camera basically and telling you to wash your hands. Well, yeah, I mean, maybe the more profound subgenre of that subgenre,

and heaven forbid there's not more of them is what we just saw from Idris Alba, who just put out a video saying that he himself had been diagnosed with coronavirus, but that he was not worried, staying strong and then, you know, telling everybody to do the right thing and wash your hands and everything. I mean, it's pretty amazing, but these voices do matter. the day and age. Yeah, and I was just amazed. We'll talk about sports in a second,

but I was amazed how a huge segment of the American populace could not wrap their minds around coronavirus until the sports got canceled. And until Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz player, got diagnosed and then made a video saying, I made a mistake. Here's what I do. Like, that was,

that's what it took to grab everybody by the lapels. Well, but also that happened. I mean, that happened at a, I don't know, I mean, if the administration had acted more quickly, then maybe the perception would have been different. But even from where I'm sitting, I mean, all that stuff happened at the relatively early, you know, the Halcyon days before we started, you know,

stabbing our eyes out. And certainly before schools got closed everywhere, and, you know, bars and restaurants got closed. I mean, that was, that's when it started feeling really dire. NBA getting canceled just seems like a year ago. It does. in Corona time. David, I think we're okay to laugh again.

So I will bring you somewhat gingerly to the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrated a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it exactly the same time, send your nominees to at the press box pod. It's been a while since the world indulged in Chuck Norris jokes.

Oh, wow. Okay. They're back. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write. Chuck Norris has tested positive for COVID-19. The virus is now in quarantine for two weeks. We would have also accepted the virus died. Thanks to Eric Reynolds.

By the way, Norris, who just turned 80, has not actually tested positive for the coronavirus as far as we know. Happy birthday, Chuck. Everything else in sports is closed, so why not this? Quote is a precautionary measure due to COVID-19. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is closed. It was an upward Twitter joke to write. We're all Pete Rose now.

Thanks to Isaac Chips And finally David there was a question about whether coronavirus could be transmitted through dogs

The World Health Organization announced that dogs In fact cannot contract COVID-19 So the dogs previously held in quarantine can now be released The World Health Organization

is also known as the WHO Right The WHO So it was an overwork Twitter joke to write who let the dogs out. Thanks to Andrew Montgomery.

If you cheered yourself up by thinking of lovable pets and or bahamem, congrats. You made the Overwork Twitter joke of the week. That's fantastic. Can I tell a Who Let the Dogs Out story real quick? I don't believe I've told on this podcast. We went, a bunch of us and some of your mutual friends went to a, what we might call a country western sports bar in Fort Worth, Texas.

I was not present for the. this. I remember the story of this. You were not present. It had that old school jukebox, like the pre-digital jukebox, which was just full of old school George Strait style country music. All the dudes in this sports bar were wearing belt buckles and boots and shirts with pearl buttons and playing pool. They look like the kind of cowboys that we could never quite dress like when we were in high school. Unironic pearl button shirts. This is not, not your, not. Not. Not. Not. Not. Not your double RRL like $200 pro button.

No. We, one of our pals, mutual friends Eric, went and inserted like $5 into the into the jukebox in order to play who let the dogs out like 10 times in a row. It was played once in its entirety. At which point a bunch of those dudes kind of started looking around like what the hell's going on here. When we got into the second consecutive rendition,

one of them just walked over and unplugged the jukebox. And that was that. Oh my God. That's great. Back when we can laugh. All right, David, in the notebook dump, let's talk about the NFL.

There is this kind of stock scenario and disaster movies where the plague hits. And then this is like, and then you have a hearty band of survivors. You know what I'm talking about? Well, in the movie about coronavirus, the hardy survivor, at least in terms of sports content,

is going to be the NFL off season. because Sunday morning I woke up and there's all these headlines of death and mayhem across the world. And then there's a headline that the Jacksonville Jaguars, Klaise Campbell, had been traded for a fifth round pick. Just sitting right next to it. On Monday, today, free agency began. And there was this like very brief discussion about maybe this is unseemly to be doing, talking about these transactions. And then the Houston Texans made a bad trade and everybody. just forgot about. Exactly.

The only thing more powerful than the coronavirus is just the hot stove. It's amazing. I mean, all the other sports, obviously, I mean, I think it's the calendar has an incredible amount to do with it. The NBA just sort of had to retreat. And I mean, and they, you know, obviously they had to. They did the right thing. And MLB is just in spring training. It took them a couple days longer maybe than it should have, but they, you know, made the right call and suspended everything for a little while. And then the conversation just sort of, in both cases, goes to the calendar.

Like when are games going to resume? How is this going to affect the playoffs? What's the, you know, are we going to be able to like, you know, have a full season, et cetera, et cetera. Those conversations are all pretty downbeat, right? And they're unusual, but there's not really anything appealing about that. But you go to football and suddenly free agency is right there. And listen, free agency, for better or worse,

I mean, the draft is going to be a mess, but free agency isn't getting anybody sick, right? These are reporters sitting at home working the phones, and these are, you know, team employees that probably aren't planning on leaving the facility for 30 days anyway because they're in there just like buried in draft prep. And they're keeping, they're keeping us all excited, you know? They've managed to just keep, the only status quo and thank God it exists is Bill O'Brien making just indefensible trade. when I looked at the I am of course constitutionally you know

kind of motivated to say to to stick my fingers in the eye of the NFL but I looked at the objections one was from former ESPN or Bob Lee he tweeted look this is not quite the equivalent of the NFL playing games

days after JFK was killed 1963 but business more or less as usual right now just looks bad really bad bad bad look bad reality Mike Floreo over on pro football talk on the same track, tweets this a.m. 20 minutes until the NFL makes biggest mistake since playing games two days after the JFK assassination. An anonymous GM tells the writer Peter King, it's arrogant. It looks gross. We need to chill out for a while. The optics of it are going to be awful.

Now, you and I do on this podcast all the time say it's important to differentiate whether something is bad optics or a bad look. and whether it's actually bad. That's important. I suppose you could argue that players, that the NFL just forging ahead as if nothing were happening in the rest of the country, besides it, is sort of, I guess, a bad look in some way.

But what's actually bad about this? Like, we're okay with HBO releasing the plot against America. America, right? Yeah. Is that a bad look that they're releasing this huge mini-series? Disney just put Frozen 2 on the Disney Plus app and thank God, I say, as a father, this Sunday, a couple months ahead of schedule.

Was that bad? Because that, to me, has the exact same motive as this, which is money, which is relevance, which is whatever you want. But if you're doing it safely, what exactly is wrong with just continuing the NFL offseason? I'm not sure. I mean, I guess the perception part of it would be that they

you know, that they're trying to, that they're actively trying to occupy this vacuum that was created when MLB and the NBA sort of had to close up shop for a minute. I mean, for the NBA's part, that vacuum has been largely filled by like articles pointing fingers at Rudy Gobert

or rumors about whether or not he's going to be welcome in the locker room afterwards, which just seems totally unnecessary and counterproductive to what's going on. on right now. I'm not sure that, that obviously this is business as usual. I mean, it's not like they're actively trying to make hay of this. And like I said, I think more overall, it's a positive thing to have any level of distraction. Now, I mean, obviously, if you're, again, working in the media and you're trying to like relocate your family and cover, you know, the Hopkins trade at the same time, it's not an ideal situation. But I'm not sure what the, I mean, this kind of goes back to my

adage, which is like, you know, you can call something offensive, but first somebody has to be offended by it, right? I mean, you can't just like label something offensive. You can't just say this is a bad look unless you're like actively, you know, quantifying the damage. And maybe it is. Maybe there's somebody offended by this. Maybe someone which is the NFL would press pause. And I'd be, I'd be willing to hear it. But listen, it's just, it's, it's, I mean, I think the bigger issue is this is sort of what we get from having our media being increasingly siloed, right? I mean, I don't care about the, I mean, I was welcoming NFL rumors today, but at the same time,

I definitely rolled my eyes at like the 10th like push notification from variety about another movie whose production had been stopped because of coronavirus, right? It's like, just stop telling me. Like, I don't like just like, like, it's all the movies have been put off. they're all temple. Like one roundup page would be sufficient for this. I don't need to be alerted

every time when like Fantastic Beasts 3 is like pushes pause for two months. This is going to end up being a big story to that exact point about how Hollywood's going to lose a shit ton of money. You know, there's already been loose talk about how this will affect the NBA just in terms of salary cap implications

in coming here as if there's a huge, you know, huge mark in the debit column or whatever. but to my bigger point, if all of our news is so siloed, if you're only getting basketball news from, and football news from like dedicated Twitter accounts, if you're only getting your entertainment news from similar places,

from E on television or from variety or for whatever else, and again, if you're only getting your political news from like Politico or from, you know, whatever, whatever you're dedicated, you know, politics news on television, then, yeah, then some of these things are going to are going to awkwardly step on the toes

of what the big issue is. I mean, it doesn't matter how severe the situation is. I'm not, I mean, most of the people covering NFL free agency on Twitter probably don't have another gear to go to because they haven't been trained for it. I mean, they've gotten to where they are from being

solipsistic about it, right? I mean, they've gotten to where they are from not from just like being totally blinded to everything else going on in the world. And that's, and that brings me to my next point, which is there is this feeling in sports mediadom and sports writerdom, that they desperately want something to change the subject, right? Every one of those people will tell you,

and I think truthfully, this is the biggest issue in America. I'm incredibly concerned about this. This coronavirus should take priority over everything in our little world. At the same time, they want content. They do. They want it because they need the hits. They need the viewers.

They don't want their companies to tank, but they also need it because they want to train their money. minds on something else. You know, it's a lot easier to drag Bill O'Brien than it is to be like, what the hell do we do about coronavirus, you know, what's going to happen to me and my family and my loved ones and stuff like that. In a way, they're kind of being like that viewer who's looking to them for an escape, you know, they are looking for an escape, right? They are like, please take me away. I always love when sports media people say, well, you know, I consider the work we do to be an escape. And I'm like, you know, for people, I'm like, it's also an escape.

for you. Like, you are escaping from reality. And I feel that too when I write about all this stuff. So that is absolutely it. And to your point, you're right about the siloing of America and about journalism. But the NFL offseason, right, there's an argument that it's the second biggest sport in America anyway. And just the same way the NFL kind of straddles over everything in American society, what was that number 70 of the top 100 TV shows, period, in the United States or NFL games?

NFL off season is pretty close. And, you know, it's big, right? I mean, what's that number for the draft every year I don't have it in front of me? But it's, you know, more than a ton of NBA playoff games. It's more than a ton of just regular television shows people watching the NFL draft. So I think there's also the sense that like, it's just funny to me because a week ago, remember people were like, well, will Vince McMahon keep the XFL in business?

Will NASCAR keep the races going? will some rogue proprietor keep their sport in play so that they can gain all this attention because they'll be the only thing out there. We forgot about the NFL off season. That was already bigger than all those other sports. Exactly. And it's just running right along.

It's very funny. I also want to talk to you a little bit about just sports media generally in this period we're in. Because I wrote a piece about this on Ringer today and this kind of self-consciousness, I think we all have or a lot of us have. I don't say we all. A lot of us have that we're not at the adult table of American journalism, right?

All right. And then something like coronavirus comes along. And that's real news. And it results in the games being canceled, which means that not only you're not at the adult table, there's just functionally very little for you to do. Right. And I think that condition such as it is is worse when you look at what

journalism and sports writing in particular has been through financially over the last couple years. And we are told again and again, hey, your job may not be a job anymore. Or it may be so downsized that you hardly recognize it from what it was 10, 20 years ago. Now you're telling me there are no games for months. I can't do my power rankings anymore and all the jazz hands journalism I do every week to get through the week. Nobody even wants that anymore. That freaks people out. And I think it causes, you know, again, I'm guessing, I'm extrapolating for myself, but I think it causes a kind of low-key-key freak out within sports media.

Yeah, I mean, I think there are probably some other desks at the big papers who feel, I mean, who probably rightly feel a little bit adrift right now too, although I guess it's easier to imagine a path to kind of repurposing or, you know, a path to relevance, whatever your genre is. that's a little bit more ready than sports coverage. But yeah, I mean, listen, you wrote a great piece about this. It's, you know, it's informed, I think, by a lot of kind of external factors, and it's not, you know, it feels a little bit hopeless, like, wait to, like, throw up our hands

at this point in time. I mean, you know, this is probably not the time to, to embrace those, engage in those sort of, woes me feelings. But, but, yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that's what a lot of sports traders out there are dealing with. I mean, listen, I mean, this, the Dandre Hopkins trade was the most urgently, I mean, I've never seen ring or slack go nuts over anything kind of disproportionate to the trade. And listen, it was a crazy trade. But, but ring or slack went absolutely bonkers when this thing happened.

And suddenly, and like, you know, I think we published like 14 pieces within 25 minutes. So, I mean, it was, this is a, this is a moment where, uh, you know, I think a lot of people were waiting for their, to be reminded of their relevance. Yeah. And you see it, you know, a little bit when ESPN was in headline news mode last week, which I think they did a very fine job at. But you understand that there's not going to be probably a steady drip of corona-related sports news, right? The news was everything's canceled.

And that was huge news. And that was amazing to react to. But until we actually get to a place where the leagues are like, we know when we're going to come back, right? There's not a lot of, it's going to be tough. And so you're going to see ESPN sort of figuring out what we're going to do. FS1 announced last week that they are suspending production of all their studio shows through March 20th, right? And they're going to be putting old events, which is one of the things you see on Twitter, put up some classic sports along with WWE, which is apparently being conducted in isolation from the isolation chamber. And hopefully all those wrestlers are being tested

before they put each other in the headlock. The other thing about this, like, entertain to me is there's this last dance, Michael Jordan mini-series, documentary, I should say documentary series that ESPN is coming out with that was scheduled for June. And there is a 1,000% chance that ESPN is moving that series up. Right. To like now. Now, hopefully we'll have a national conversation about whether there is propriety

in moving the documentary up when we should be thinking about a, things. But you're old enough to get this joke, David. Remember when everybody in America would tune into a giant mini-series, a fictional mini-series on one of the networks, like Roots or the Thornbirds? The Thornbirds, yeah. And they'd come back every day. The Michael Jordan documentary is going to be the thornbirds of sports documentaries. Oh my gosh. Put that on the poster. It is. Just in terms of like absolute interest, audience obsession, it's going to be the Thornbirds. let's get you have to be over 40 years old to make that joke one more thing before we get out of here and it is unfortunately the media low lights of coronavirus coverage last week in the Atlantic McKay Coppins published a piece rounding up examples of how various right wingers had amplified and spun the administration's message that COVID-19 was really not that serious Sean Hannity took his wax Tommy Laron no shock took some wax

On Friday, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. went on Fox and Friends and announced yet another culprit. It's just strange to me how so many are overreacting. The H1N1 virus in 2009 killed 17,000 people. It was the flu also, I think. And there was not the same hype. It was, you just didn't see it on the news 24-7. And it makes you wonder if there's a political reason for that. It's, you know, impeachment didn't work and the Mueller report didn't work. And Article 25 didn't work. And so maybe now this is their next attempt to get Trump. But I had the owner of a restaurant asked me last night.

He said, do you remember the North Korean leader promised a Christmas present for America back in D.C. December. Could it be they got together with China and this is that present? I don't know, but it really is something strange going on. Wow. So just to follow there, you thought he was just going to blame the Democrats, or say the Democrats were behind coronavirus panic. But instead, he went to a different place. This person told him that what if it was North Korea and China tag teaming to, undermine the United States. China, incidentally, he's had 3,000 deaths from coronavirus itself, so probably not involved. Trish Regan on Fox Business blamed the Democrats. She has been put

on the bench for a while. Her show is now gone. There was a stock market rally late Friday, David. Donald Trump was impressed, as is his want, and he had a little gift for Fox's Lou Dobbs. Today, the White House sent along to me a sign chart of the skyrocketing Dow, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ, that the Dow, by the way, rose more than a thousand points from the time he started talking to the time the news conference, his news conference was over with his decisive announcement to declare the coronavirus pandemic, a national emergency. never mind that that was the opposite of what Trump is saying but this was this was real he sent a autographed stock chart there's a picture on the screen when Lou Dobbs saying an autographed stock chart unbelievable to Lou Dobb spiking the football because the stock market went up on

Friday in the midst of this pandemic will summer writes with Daily Beast tweeted this one trend I'm noticing is younger conservative personalities from the mainstream to the fringe are generally on board with social distancing. The older ones on the other hand, dot, dot, dot. And he says the idea that acknowledging the risk of coronavirus is equivalent to

disloyalty to Trump is really sinking in with a segment of the population. And it's incredibly dangerous. What do you make of all that? I mean, it's sort of heartbreaking, right? I mean, the idea

I mean, listen, there's really no reason to, in a situation like this, to over-politicize it, right? And on either side, I think some of the frustration from, you know, I mean, that people are experiencing is that it feels like Trump's sort of, not even the bungling of it, but the sort of weird denialism and, and again, the focus on the stock market, it's seemingly, above all else, sort of, I mean, it turns into him politicizing everything, even at a time when, like, he's insisting on being shielded from it, right? It's hard to cover, it's hard to cover anything

without addressing it in a political way. But in so much as, I mean, the point where that you landed on, I think is the really key one. I know, I mean, we, I mentioned it earlier, but there's a, column last week in the Washington Post by Margaret Sullivan, who is making a direct plea to Rupert Murdoch to, to, you know, tell the people on Fox News to stop downplaying everything. Because their audience is the audience that you were just mentioning, that Will Summer was mentioning, that this is the older conservative set who is, you know, sadly, like most susceptible to what this, you know, virus can do.

Yep. Absolutely. And it's amazing that, like, this is, you know, this is. one of those times when I was watching all those PSAs that we mentioned earlier from like Schwarzenegger and Coach O this is like the biggest layup ever if you're a famous person. This is like the ice bucket challenge, right? I'm gonna, I'm gonna go in front of a camera and just tell people to wash their hands. So it takes an incredible amount of, I don't know what,

to resist that and to be like, no, no, I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna go on camera and tell people just to go out to restaurants anyway. I'm going to go on a camera and tell people that this is a democratic hoax that is designed to bring down the president. Just think about that. Think of all the social incentives pushing you to do the other thing.

I mean, Sean Hannity could do a PSA, right? And people would probably pay attention to him. You know, there's a segment of the population, but oh, well, he told me to stay home and wash my hands. Okay. But you are still, for political reasons, for viewership, whatever it is, you are still marching out there and delivering that line,

which as Summer says, equates being concerned about the virus with being disloyal to President Trump. Well, and that's what, I mean, I understand how one gets in a situation, if this is indeed where Trump is, where he feels like, if he feels like, you know, it's too far in to be accepting any responsibility or to change course would be implicitly accepting blame or anything like that. But listen, I mean, it's crazy.

I mean, he's been handed a situation to be, it's not even like the right or wrong side of history, although he's turning it into that. But like, all he has to be is like baseline competent. And he goes, and this could be a heroic moment for him. And it's the same thing for Sean Hannity, like you mentioned or anybody else. It's like, you're not doing anything wrong by stating the truth.

And you could save a whole lot of lives. Like, you could be that guy. because we all know the direction this is going. None of the people who are making, well, I would say the vast majority of the people over there at Fox who are making the decision to misdirect the audience, I think they all have a pretty good idea of the truth of the situation. So it's just sort of mind-boggling that they would choose to jeopardize their own reputations.

If they're in this solely for, you know, for congratulatory or other, you know, just self-edification. Like, why would you not go that route? It's kind of crazy. From the Department of Stuff, David, that would have led this podcast two weeks ago. How about Bernie versus Biden? Yeah, when was that?

Last night? That was last night. Debate in Washington, D.C., Bernie Sanders clearly came in wanting to make various points and times engage Biden, but really not wanting to go after Biden in a way he might have absent coronavirus.

Not that Bernie has coronavirus, but the coronavirus is everywhere. it was sort of a little bit had the kind of the vibe of the Joe Lieberman Dick Cheney debate back in 2000 where it was slightly chummy we're going to have our differences but this is going to be respectful maybe their punchiest exchange was Sanders poking at Biden's record on wanting to cut social security listen to that you said that I in fact why am I rated 96% by the social security organization why am I viewed as of strong all that I said I have laid out how I'm I will increase Social Security back.

That's good. I laid that out. I have laid out how I'm going to make sure that it is in fact paid for. Jake. Go to Joe Biden.com. Look at my exchange with Paul Ryan on his desire to try to privatize and or cut social security and understand how he manipulated it. No, all right.

Joe, let me repeat it again. I want you just to be straight with the American people. I am saying that you have been on the floor of the Senate, time and time is. again, talking about the need to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Veterans programs. Is that true or is that one? No, it's not true. Just go look at the debate with Paul Ryan for the vice presidency. Look at what I did. And Bernie, will you acknowledge your campaign took out a context that whole exchange between Paul Ryan? Are you saying political factors wrong? Yeah, well, believe in Washington Post, political factors wrong a whole lot of times.

Are they wrong on that, Bernie? Are they wrong on that Bernie? Joe. Bernie, did you miss Joe, dear Joe, one minute. I'll answer your question. You answer my. I answered your. And on and on. I think that's a pretty good preview of what, of exactly how Donald Trump's going to attack Joe Biden.

And I don't say that to insult Bernie Sanders at all. Joe Biden is going to be gone after for his very long record in public office, just like what Trump did to Hillary Clinton, Iraq war vote, musing about. calling for cuts to social security. Crime bill. We get bankruptcy bill. We also came up last night. We could go on and on. That's exactly what the game plan is going to be. Yes. And you saw Biden's strategy last night was to basically not it concede anything at all and to kind of, you know, play a little three card money with, well, did you see what I, what I said when I was debating Paul Ryan in 2012? Do you see what I,

I said then, which is, I don't know. I mean, to me, if you have that voting record, that may be the only way to do it is to just kind of dig in and say, well, you know, to not concede that you did say it and just point to a time that you said the opposite. I mean, I don't may, I think frankly, didn't dig in enough. I mean, I think you can, I mean, there's digging in and there's digging into the Trump era. And I think that the, I think that the thing that he, that every candidate has to stop doing.

even though it's, even though this, this pains me to say, but especially Joe Biden, is to say, go to Joe Biden.com if you want the truth. You cannot ask anyone who's watching these debates to do homework, right? That's the point. I mean, a lot of people are just going to say that's the point of watching the debate. Now, I did get a little bit of joy off Bernie Sanders saying, uh, in response to that, that same conversation you were, we were just playing. He said, go to the YouTube right now to everybody who was watching because there was apparently would be proof on the YouTube of Joe Biden, Joe Biden's lies. I actually thought that was somewhat

effective in the sense that like, it's not actually demanding anything in the viewer. It's more like just saying you could see, if you spent two seconds right now, you could see that this wasn't true. And I think there's some effectiveness to that. But talking about digging in, I mean, Trump showed us four years ago. The easiest way to get out of a situation like this is just a lie. Just lie through your teeth. And then, and change the subject because like no one's going to, no one can force you to go. read Joe Biden.com. No one can force you to go find out the truth about a situation. All you have to do, I mean, you're right. You're heavily forced me to read Joe Biden. That's true. People are going to say it over and over again. Like the worst thing about being in

public life for 30 years is that you were, you know, you have 30 years of voting records or whatever. And at some point, he's got to either be willing to lie to the public, which I don't think is actually the right thing. Or just like you have to have a line. You have to be able to say, I voted for a lot of things over my career. And now I'm voting for the things that I believe are absolutely correct and absolutely right. And sure there was some evolution on some issues, but, like, tell me right now, tell me what I, tell me what position I have now that's wrong. That's, that, and that's going to be the, that's going to be an element of Joe Biden's sales job to the American public, right? Sure. Whatever that, whatever my opponents can point to, you know me and you know my values.

And you, or at least you think you do. And, and, you know, and, you know, and. And we can, and I can kind of just power through all those doubts, right? I can convince you. And you're right. If you added up everything Joe Biden has done in his public life, Joe Biden is certainly a friend to Social Security, even if he did spend, you know, more than once, come out and say that it should be cut, right? Like that, that is true.

But you can, he's just got to, he has got to exist on this kind of essence of Joe Biden. And by the way, it's done pretty well over the last couple of weeks. You know, just saying, you know, we know Joe, right? That was the chant at the rally a couple weeks ago. You know me. You know my values. And I'm not, whatever they're saying about me, I'm not that guy. Well, you called it a sales job, and I think that's right.

I think that the one thing, I mean, you talk to any salesman, any successful salesman in the world. And the answer is, I mean, they will never recommend that you say, listen, I know that you think I'm full of shit. But if you just read this 100-page pamphlet, you will understand the truth. truth, right? You have to be able to just make the sale right there in that moment. You have to be prepared for it. And that's over and over again, despite how well he's doing now. I think the sin of the Joe Biden campaign is his lack of preparation in the moment. Now listen, when somebody says, oh, you know, you voted, you were on the floor suggesting we cut Social Security or Medicare or whatever. Like, you have to be able to say something other than, well, I mean, well, let's just backtrack and let me talk for 30 minutes and explain it. That sounds like you're lying, right? All you have to do is say, like sometimes you got to put everything on the table before you take the important things off the table. You know, you just got to have like a line that you say that just like gets you past this because otherwise you're just like equivocating and dissembling and even if you're correct, you look like you're lying and he's got to figure that out. He's got to figure that out. Yeah, you saw one tactic too he used yesterday which is like, well, if you want to talk about voting records, Bernie, let's talk about gun control, right? Flip the tables, talk about Bernie's and and go to and sort of chip away at Bernie's point, which is nobody, nobody's perfect. right you know but that's but but two things one that goes to that goes to trustworthiness right

or reliability and i think that the vast i mean i think even even biden supporters are probably more willing to look at bernie sanders and say like he's probably not more conservative on issues that i'm confused on this point than then someone is leading me to believe right i mean i don't i don't think that i think that more people are probably after think joe biden is is you know doing a little dance and like trying to trying to mislead me on something and so i don't think that he wins that battle in general, but also that's just not going to win in the general election. You know, I mean, if, if, if, if, if, if this was a, if this was a battle of, of who's been more reliable or who's been, or whose record is more pristine, then Trump's going to lose in a landslide.

But we know that's not going to be the case. So, so if you don't have a defense other than like, hey, nobody's perfect. I mean, nobody's perfect is like exactly the wrong thing to say in the general. Yeah, I just, it's, it's, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're taking this idea that Bernie is the sort of unsullied liberal champion or lefty champion and that you're this horribly compromised person and just putting this idea out there that everybody's made compromises in their career, even Bernie Sanders. And again, you're right. He's going to have to come up with lines like that.

He was, I thought, incredibly engaged last night. He was on his game. I don't know if it's fewer people being on stage helps Biden. But he just seemed much more alert. He seemed very prepared. He knew what he was going to stay. He was still weirdly respecting the time limits. We're back to that in the debate.

Yeah. Maybe that won't matter again until like October. But I thought that was one of his better performances last night, especially the beginning section about coronavirus, which may be the only thing anybody cares about at this point. I thought they, I thought it was, they were both fantastic. Yeah. And that the, the tenor of the entire thing was great. And part of that is there only being two people there. but I mean, listen, I think that town halls are very vital or, you know, are incredibly important things.

I'm not sure that having a big audience for every debate is a good idea. If this, I mean, if the results are going to be this significantly different, if that had a big bearing on it, I mean, this was just, this felt like just are much more, much more intellectually rigorous, much more honest, much more like conversational. I feel like I learned more last night than I've learned in the past six months. Totally. It was definitely substantive compared to a lot of the other debates. And I think coronavirus too has a focusing effect. For sure. Because we have to talk about something different.

It just feels much more immediate. Well, I think it shows that the, I mean, I don't know if it's even worth zooming back or going in reverse here. But like the impulse that a lot of these networks have had to make debates about a single issue, right? The environmental debate, the economics debate, the foreign policy debate. It's the right impulse. Because if you have, you can talk about anything through the lens of this bigger subject. But the problem is. is that all those debates are pre-scheduled and you end up just going off the rails immediately

because everyone wants to talk about whatever the most newsworthy thing is. But to be really just, like, crass about it, I mean, having something like coronavirus looming over everything really focuses the conversation, you know, and everything can be, and everything is a lot more urgent and a lot more material. A lot of, it's a lot more, you know, palpable because whether or not you buy, you know, the argument that universal health care would be helping right now, and by the way, it would. You understand the stakes of what you're talking about, right? You understand the terms of discussion, and that makes a big difference. If we stipulate Biden is almost certainly going to be the Democratic nominee. This was the biggest news of the debate last night. I commit that I will, in fact,

appoint a, I'll pick a woman to be vice president. There are a number of women who are qualified to be president tomorrow. I would pick a woman to be my vice president. You just committed here tonight that you're running mate if you get the nomination will be a woman? Yes. the vice president committed to picking a woman as is running mate if you get the nomination will you uh in all likelihood i i will for me it's not just uh nominating uh or a woman it is making sure that we have a progressive women and there are progressive women out there so my very strong tendency is to move in that direction talk about outflanking the competition there guest to Bernie all right he's committed to picking a woman

to be his vice president how about you uh that sounds like a great idea the um that was an interesting move last night one if all of political journalism is playing a guessing game that sure shrinks the list come on down kamala harris stacey abrams maybe amy klobuchar val dimmings etc etc um the other thing i think you see biden doing is trying to wrap his arms around as much of the democrats coalition as he can, right? We saw earlier in the week he adopted Elizabeth Warren's bankruptcy bill, which is a big deal given Biden's history, speaking of checkered history on that subject.

And this is him, I think, you know, just about every political pun in America said he's probably going to pick a woman as his running man. That will probably happen. But him doing it at this stage, committing to it when he doesn't have to, is to me, him trying to do everything he can

short of, you know, giving Bernie a hug, which I don't think is allowed at this point in history anyway, of just consolidating, of trying to get his arms around as much as that Democratic coalition as he can't say. I'm the candidate for everybody, not just, you know, this large but incomplete lane of the Democratic Party. What do you think? Yeah, yeah. I mean, and listen,

I thought adopting some of Warren's platform was, you know, a move in the right direction. But without getting too deep into the, you know, this specific ideology here, I mean, I think he not just, not just was trying to unite the party, which I think was a huge part of it, but also, I mean, his

platform is sort of bereft of these big announcements, right? I mean, what's he going to, what else could he say? He's not going to stand up there and call for some new, you know, some second new deal or something. You know, I mean, to have a moment like that that people are going to replay. It sounds like he's doing a big thing. And it is an incredibly

significant thing. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it just felt to me, maybe it's because I was, I could have told you the same thing with 100% certainty before he said it. But I mean, it just, it felt like, um, it felt like a weirdly just, you know, political moment, which, which it was, you know, nakedly political, but, you know, more, I guess it, overall, I'm, I'm happy that he's doing it. This campaign has like the rest of American life been consumed by coronavirus concerns. Primaries in Louisiana and Georgia have been postponed as we sat down to record this. Looks like the primary in Ohio, which was scheduled for Tuesday, has now been postponed.

Candids are off the trail and doing virtual rallies. Tuesday, David, we have now, I guess, Arizona, Illinois, and Florida voting if they indeed still vote. It's really hard to see a scenario where that many Democrats have the stomach for much of a primary campaign at this point. and you know I think there was a scenario even minus where we are with coronavirus that Bernie Sanders was going to have that debate get his ideas out there and then after Tuesday drop out of the race it's really hard to see a scenario where he doesn't drop out of the race on Tuesday now what do you think about that I mean I just think everything's up for up for grabs right now I find it hard to predict anything maybe that says more about my mental space than

some reflection of the direction the direction of politics is going. But I thought that the idea that it was setting up for that was compelling. I think now, you know, we'll see, we'll see. But I wouldn't be surprised. You call everything right, I guess.

So I'll just lean on you. Yeah, I'm not sure about that. How about David Shoemaker guesses the strain pun headline? Thank you. Something to take my mind off everything. Last Monday's headline, I was like, what Monday is this?

Last Monday's headline about Netflix commissioning two new. Rold doll series was Rold gold. Rold gold. We got a few nominees for Rolting in dollars and Dala Dala Bills, y'all. And because these series... There's your winner. There's your winner.

And because these series will be overseen by Taika Watiti. Also the suggestion, Ty got a golden ticket. That's pretty good. This week's headline comes from a mystery person because I somehow... failed to write it down. It's from Harper's, David, it's a review essay about three books about the Southern Ocean.

That's the ocean around Antarctica, if you have not looked at a globe with your seven-year-old son lately. One of those books is about krill. Krill as in the crustacean. The essay takes a Harper's like leisurely but intelligent

gander at krill. What was the Harper's strained pun headline. Crap. It's, I mean, it's krill, right? Crile or be crilled.

Getting closer. Fits, crilling with kindness. Very funny. Buzz krill. Crile. Crell the messenger. That's what Ben Smith's going to start after he

gets tired of the New York Times. So wait, it's just about. It's just about the Krill? It's just about the region. Well, it's about the region, but it's, like I said, a leisure, a leisurely, look is good, a leisurely gander,

eh? I'm going to put you out of your misery. No, no, no, no. I feel like I can get this. Okay, okay. Wait, give me a hint. Don't tell me, though. It's the name of a James Bond movie.

or a pun on the name of a James Bond movie Timothy Dalton James Bond movie Oh here we go We'll give you a little Oh view to accrual View to a krill Yes

Oh he got it Who says Who says David's not operating at 100% efficiency He is David Shumaker I'm Brian Curtis Research by Erica Servantes And Chris Almeida Production Magic by Jim Cunningham

We're back Thursday or Friday With more lukewarm takes about the media and this whole weird world we live in. See you then, David. See you later, man.