The Press Box - The News Dump of All News Dumps | The Press Box (Ep. 547)

Episode Date: November 27, 2018

The latest Facebook eff-up and its pre-Thanksgiving news dump (02:45), the media’s role in the Kevin Durant–Draymond Green feud (29:00), and former first lady Michelle Obama’s book/arena tour (45:00). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, it's Liz Kelly. Right in time for the holiday season, the ringer's merch store has tons of new stuff. And right now, almost everything on the site is 20% off, including your favorites like binge mode and ringer NBA. And for the first time, we are introducing brand new merch for NBA desktop, Shea Serrano's villains, and Bill's Parent Corner. This Black Friday Cyber Monday sale lasts until Monday, November 26. You can check it out on the ringer.com slash shop. David, over the weekend Morning Joe co-hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzynski tied the knot. What I want to know is which current talk show most needs an onset romance to spice things up. You got to be careful here. Let's not offend anybody. We want to do that.

Don't say the Today Show. Does his first take a morning show? Can I throw that? Can I, can I, I mean, I would, I would love to, I think the only, the only place they can really go from here is for Stephen A and Max to, to get some of that Sam and Diane magic. For a second, I thought you were mistaking it for Get Up, but you really, you really didn't mean first take. No, Get Up is the answer, right? I mean, get up, if Get Up had a little, you know, like, Greeny Beetle thing going on, then maybe there would be, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe Beal would still be around. Maybe there'd be, there'd be a little, you know, there would have been a little more interest in the goings on. Yeah, I almost think, you know, as I kind of my mind wanders around the cable dial,

I almost think we need the other strategy of 80 sitcoms, which is just to bring on a kid. You know, family has a new kid. Wouldn't Sean Hannity but it would much better if there was like a four-year-old sitting next to him on the desk, just like face covered in marmalade or something, making funny noises? Didn't they do that with Mike? Didn't they do that with Mike Golick's new show? Oh, my God. Oh, boy. I'm sorry. I apologize for then.

We are the Shotgun Wedding of Media Podcast. This is the Press Box, a part of the Ringer podcast network. The Press Box is the media podcast where you're not allowed to write a column about all the things you're thankful for. We are Brian Curtis and David Shuebaker of the Ringer. David, welcome back from Thanksgiving. Three huge topics for us to discuss today. First, the latest Facebook F up, which culminated with a pre- Thanksgiving news dump. We will try to sort that out.

Second, we flash back to the still festering Kevin Durant versus Draymond Green feud. and discuss what role if any of the media had in making it worse. And finally, former First Lady Michelle Obama is selling her new memoir in the Barclay Center, how the ritual that is the book tour became an arena tour. Plus, as always the overworked Twitter joke of the week. But David, let's start with Facebook. As you know, I like to joke that there are more people on Twitter claiming to spot a Friday news dump than there are actual Friday news dumps.

But what Facebook did the day before they had, Thanksgiving. That was a news dump. It was a pure news dump. Came in the form of a statement by outgoing executive Elliot Schraig, who confirmed much of the November 15th New York Times investigation. Some highlights of said investigation. How Facebook decided that candidate Donald Trump's 2015 attack on Muslims didn't violate its terms of service. How Facebook was slow to reveal and then eager to downplay the extent that Russian trolls had used its pages to try to influence the 2016 election. How in October 2017, Facebook used a consultant that then tried to hold up George Soros as the hidden force behind Facebook's critics. And then, of course, with any

great investigation, there are these small but merciless details, such as the one where Mark Zuckerberg gets mad at Apple's Tim Cook and then commands his management team to only use Android phones. That was my favorite. In an essay in New York, Max Reed writes, the old Facebook, the ever-expanding government-ignoring, world-conquering company of only a year or two ago, is gone. What did you make of Facebook's massive climb-down and essential admission of the Times investigation? Maybe this is a little bit too much a window into my life, and then it's increasing dramatic normalization. But this is the first, like, news dump that in recent memory anyway, that I experienced as a newsdust. dump where I was like literally in a car on the way out of town like trying to pack the back

of a car and just saw this thing pop up on my phone or it was just like Facebook admit some stuff and I was like yeah I'll get to that tomorrow you know and they caught you going away for Thanksgiving like it actually accomplished the purpose it was totally effective it was really it was really good thankfully you know ring or slack kept me posted through most of the night but um yeah I mean I think kind of what's most surprising um about it is less some of the wild acknowledgements in the news dump, but the sort of implicit acknowledgement that Facebook kind of plays by the regular rules now in doing things like, you know, the holiday news dumps and just being forced to admit to reality when it, you know, contradicts what they've

previously said in the first place. I totally agree. And I think like one of the fascinating things that's happening with this, For people, for those of us who are not reading recode all the time and are not part of the kind of Silicon Valley watching media, this idea that we're seeing portraits of all these people like Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg that are not, you know, the kind of glowing sepia tone portraits that we've seen in the past. That's pretty amazing, right? Right. And I think that's like had a big impact. I mean, last year, 2017, Mark Zuckerberg was on a listening tour that people saw as a prelude to him running for president.

Think about that, right? And then there's this piece in the November 19th, Wall Street Journal. This is after the Times investigation. Deepa Cedaraman, I hope I pronounce it correctly, writes. Mark Zuckerberg gathered roughly 50 of his top lieutenants earlier this year and told them Facebook Inc. was at war. And he planned to lead the company accordingly. His announcement, along with other behavior, has led to increase clash. with Cheryl Sandberg, the C-O, reportedly feared for her job after Zuckerberg was displeased

with the way Facebook handled itself in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. So I think we're seeing, I think, again, just sort of the lay person is seeing these people under pressure, under fire, and as you say, acting like very normal corporate executives, as opposed to internet visionaries. As famous, I mean, as Facebook is, as, you know, indispensable as it has been, or as it seemed in our modern lives. Yeah, I mean, I think for the average people, I mean, people, you know, who are even less plugged into the stuff than you or I, I mean, it's, we're talking about people who are, I mean, Zuckerberg for as much of a space he occupies and the popular imagination is probably, you know, the, the, the, the portrayal of him and the social network is probably probably more salient than anything that he's actually done. I mean, does anyone, I mean, does your average person know what his voice sounds like, you know, or knows what he looks like outside of a still wire photo. And, I mean, I would say with great confidence that most people know Cheryl Sandberg as

a glossy photo on the cover of a book in an airport, you know, I mean, not as a, not as a, you know, chief operating officer. No. In the case of Zuckerberg, I put myself in that category before he testified before Congress. I just hadn't had him talked that much. I really hadn't. Yeah, I know. He's managed to be to be very present, but very sort of, you know, his.

at the same time. And I think that sort of speaks to the company that he's built. Yeah, there was this also good column I thought, or kind of interesting column by New York Times, Jim Brutonberg, who's there, media columnist, who sort of said, looking back at the social network saying, we should, it's funny, he was cast, Zuckerberg or the Zuckerberg character in that movie was cast as kind of the, kind of the good guy, if an extremely complicated good guy. Yeah. Against the kind of old money forces of the Winkle Vi. and what Rudenberg writes is that, you know, basically what happens in that movie, which is he does something wrong, he gets caught doing something wrong, and then he kind of backtracks and backtracks and apologizes and apologizes, but doesn't really mean it. That is kind of how he's behaved with everything.

Rutenberg writes, the cycle goes like this. Something bad happens is of increasingly severe consequence on Facebook, say Russian election meddling or the incitement of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. And after it is called out, Mr. Zuckerberg or another company official vows to do. better. And when the heat is off, the cycle begins anew. And that is so right. That portrait of Mark Zuckerberg is, you know, we could insert that at any point over the last five years and it would essentially be correct. Yeah. And I think, I mean, maybe just too old and hardened, but I think that what surprises me a little bit is that it's all sort of feels like it's amounted to something at this point, right? I mean, that it's finally all stacked up to the point where the general perception

even amongst, you know, the vast majority of people that don't know what Mark Zuckerberg sounds like when he speaks, you know, I think the cue rating for Facebook has taken a, you know, is a pretty sustained and legitimate hit, you know, especially recently. Yeah, that was also, there was a note about that in Max Reed's column, too. It's also, and we might talk about this a second, but it's amazing that both Republicans and Democrats are now anti-Facebook. He suddenly, Facebook was trying to navigate this, and this is part of the Times piece, trying to navigate this political problem they had where conservatives thought Facebook was anti-conservative. And they wound up navigating it so poorly that there's now this really popular political position to attack Facebook. Let's listen to one piece of a podcast that was interesting. Alex Stamos, former chief security officer of Facebook and a character in this Times investigation, appeared on the if-then podcast with Will Aramis.

And he talks a little bit about what exactly the problems were that Facebook was trying to solve. Let's listen to that. The truth is that a lot more was happening, especially in the late 2016, early 2017 time period, than is publicly known. And because of these concerns about not centering itself in the controversy after the election of Donald Trump, I think Facebook missed this huge opportunity to demonstrate that the company is part of the solution, not part of the problem. And because of that missed opportunity, now everything else that comes out is seen through the lens of the idea that Facebook doesn't care, which is not accurate, at least, for the people that I worked with. What he gets out there, I think is a fascinating part of this question, which is to what extent does Facebook have a moral problem? And by that, I mean that Facebook is immoral.

And to what extent does Facebook have a PR problem? that they've behaved, you know, somewhere between good to okay and they've just, you know, they're, they've sold it poorly. They've made other public mistakes that have counteracted what they were trying to do behind the scenes. How do you read that question? It's a good question. I think it's, you know, as with all these things, it's probably somewhere in the middle. But I just feel like it's hard to not sort of, I guess for me to not take a sort of arch point of view on this. but it seems like it's not a matter of, you know, evil.

It's a matter of amorality so much as it's a moral problem, right? It's this like this diehard sort of capitalist libertarianism. You know, libertarian ethos that guides not just Facebook, but many tech companies and many companies full stop in this day and age that would, allow there to be you know that you would see something that go wrong to

any of the examples that you've mentioned so far you know global global politics you know anytime they've Facebook has been seen to be a contributor to a bad actor

you know a tragedy of any level you know when something like that happens normally a company would just would actually make a change and not see it through the lens of like, well, how will this change affect our bottom

line? Or that's what you would hope, right? And that's certainly what the, that's certainly what we expect of, um, of our tech companies on some idealistic level, right? I mean, the, the, the, the argument against, you know, nationalizing something like Facebook, which is obviously an idea that's been floated more and more. And, you know, or even viewing them as public accommodations in any sense is, I mean, the argument against it is that, you know, this is the, you know, what's great about America, you know, and this is, and that we like to think of them as some sort of like post-ideological institution where that sort of, that sort of government restraint wouldn't be necessary.

And, you know, I think what we see with Facebook in particular, is that it trends, you know, everything kind of trends towards that same place that we've seen many times before. I mean, it's no accent that, you know, Google's motto is famously, don't be evil for so long. And that's obviously a different company. But I think that, I think that that was the sort of, you know, that was the, the kitsy, you know, cross-stitch motto above the kitchen door and all these tech companies until they, you know, remodeled and brought the, uh, and brought the IKEA furniture and and it's um now there's an accent wall where that yeah exactly yeah and i just i think that i think that we even those even you know those amongst us that that you know that stomp on the

ground about this stuff i mean we we do we do expect more of these tech companies and and i think more than anything it's because we're of that generation and we expect more of ourselves yeah i think so i also think that kind of amoral libertarianism that you've speak of was sold as a unifying liberalism. Right. I mean, it was so, so it's like, these guys are on our side, right? And I think one of the fascinating parts of the time story is you see Facebook discovering that, you know, discovering the extent of that Russians were using the platform to try to monkey

with sentiment in the 2016 election. But then they, they hit this big political problem, which is if we come out and say this forcefully, we are going to be seen as, you know, hinting that Donald Trump only won the election because of Russian interference. And back in 2016, 2017, that was still a little bit of a controversy. You know, coming out and saying that would have been a big deal right now, probably not so much. And so they were just really, really worried about the effects that would have on Capitol Hill and otherwise. You know, are we going to just piss off 46% or whatever it is of the country by saying this? Another fascinating moment in this piece that speaks to that exact same question of doing right and then the appearance of doing and then giving the appearance of doing right, aka moral problem and PR problem, is when Trump made a Facebook post in 2015, then candidate Trump about the Muslim ban that he was proposing.

And Facebook starts to wonder about, is this something that violates our terms of service? Should we just take this down? This is Alex Damos talking to Will Arremus about that question. Creating a situation that Donald Trump loses, and part of his argument is he lost because the tech industry conspired to silence him. I think that's the kind of thing that they were afraid of. And perhaps for good reason, I think, you know, if you're going to get involved like that, you've got to have a really, really high reason. And a lot of the Trump material, while, again, I think it would have been taken down from somebody else, was right there on the line. And if you're going to make that call, I think the tie goes of the runner if the runner is a candidate in a major election.

There's a great use of a sports metaphor. Tye goes to the runner who is a bigoted presidential candidate proposing a Muslim ban. But I would say it is a tough call, right? You understand. Yeah, I was going to say, of all of these moral quandaries, that is the one, I mean, that's the quandary that I think is the most legitimate. And partly because it's two really, I mean, very different countervailing forces, right? I mean, it's one is this sort of moral, or not moral, but kind of ethical question about site rules and creating a community. And the other one's about, you know, the other side is this incredible political catastrophe that's almost 100% going to happen, you know.

Yeah, Stamos went on to say that because Facebook essentially made that decision in secret about whether they would keep that up or not and didn't someone come out and say, you know, sort of share with the public their reasoning about. it, it seemed, it sort of chipped away at their trustworthiness because people didn't see like a debate going on on a public standard attempting to be, you know, figured out, right? So that's also part of this problem, too, is that they're sort of going into a, every time something like this happens, they go into a bunker and then they come out and maybe, maybe not, maybe in pieces, release something. And it was exactly the same thing with this time story. Cheryl Sandberg initially says, I didn't have anything to do with this consulting firm, which is,

named Definers from the Christopher Buckley School of, this sounds like something from a political parody novel, but is actually real Definer's PR. It's so amazing. And then comes out and says, oh, well, some of it was crossed my desk. By the way, we should say that in the annals of corporate climb downs,

the thing that they released right before Thanksgiving, and Nick Confessori, who was one of the authors of the New York Times investigation tweeted, I've never seen a memo. And the memo is Elliot Shray, the outgoing executive essentially, confessing to the crime and taking responsibility. And then Cheryl Sandberg sort of coming in and saying,

thanks, Elliot, I'll take some mild responsibility. Okay, we're out of here. He says, I've never seen a memo in which one executive basically reads out a confession and his boss then judiciously comments on the confession. That was amazing. Yeah. And you mentioned Facebook having bunkers. I think now is as good a time any just to throw in the jab that they've formally closed

their election interference war room that they touted just a couple of weeks ago. I mean, I guess the election is now over. but that really feels like another example of a of a very short-lived PR boon for them. My timelines may be wrong, but Elliot Shrague announced he was resigning in June. I didn't he, like he already fell on a sword. And it's like they brought him back for an encore to jump on top of another one. How many people have fallen on two swords? Yeah, he left right after Cambridge Analytica and it was just like, they were like, well, who's going to take the fall for this one?

like, well, is Elliot still here? Like, could we bring him back and give him another, like a bigger parachute? But, yeah, I mean, the, the way that Sandberg sort of, you know, admitted, qualified that she, that, yeah, I mean, it's also frustrating because it's like, I understand how that, on some level it could be true. And in her mind, it could be true that she didn't really know who they were. But, I mean, I don't know what else, what else. I don't know that there's any way to look at it other than that she was just bullshitting, right? I mean, because I don't know, I don't, the fact that she received emails and memos about this, like, what else did you expect her to do?

You know, short of like pulling out the risk board and, you know, with a laser pointer showing where the enemies are and where to attack. I mean, it was, it just, it was a pretty spectacular piece of literature that done. Yeah, and the level of, of just admission, too. It's all bizarre. You know, you've mentioned a couple times before we get away from this. I want to say it about the, you know, the political stakes for them. And we've talked in the, you know, the ringer office a couple of times about how sort of amazing it is that Facebook is constantly in the crossfire for this kind of stuff.

Not just from, you know, Trump and, but like you said, Republicans and Democrats have found common cause and, you know, hating Facebook. But the other tech giants, Amazon, Google, you know, it's, they've sort of like skated. by. So either they're much better at hiring lobbyists and, you know, finding people and, you know, finding like-minded people on the hill or Facebook's, you know, a totally different beast. And I think that the latter is probably true. It was hilarious in the New York Times piece where, I mean, not, not, it wasn't news to, you know, to the world, but that Chuck Schumer was sort of added as being their biggest fan

and that, I mean, their biggest proponent on the hill. And then also that his daughter was working there. It's like, could there be more of like a ham-fisted way to accomplish, you know, getting influence in Washington than doing it like that? I mean, the whole thing just seems sort of silly. Well, I would tell you, the only way that would be more ham-fisted would be hiring the consulting firm, which then, which is the whole point of which, and you say compared to Google and other big tech companies, was they were going to push bad news about Google to reporters.

So wild. And then also this company definers, a conservative, they use the conservative news site, the NTK network, which is one of their affiliates. And in fact, as the Times report, shares office space with them in Arlington, Virginia and would push articles about that. And this is the NTK network. There's not have a large audio of its own, but its content is frequently picked up by popular conservative outlets, including Breitbart. So, you know, Facebook, which had been part of the storm of fake. news is then hired a consultant, which with or without their knowledge is sort of pushing these PR crafted releases, consulting documents as news, which then get picked up by conservative

news sites. Yeah. I mean, that's just incredible. And you can, and the cycle sort of completes itself at that point, right? I mean, when I'm asking sort of rhetorically why Facebook gets more attention than some of the other tech giants, it's because sites like Breitbart are going to get clicks for writing stories, you know, for publishing stories about Facebook in a way their audience won't necessarily gravitate towards stories despite Trump's attempts about how Amazon is evil or certainly not how, like,

Google is evil, even though there's big constituencies for that. It's not the same as, it's not the same click-through rate, I'm sure, as, you know, a Facebook take down. And I think that that's sort of the bigger issue. A lot of the pieces about Facebook have touched on this, but, you know, it seems like in a matter of, in the blink of an eye, you know, far be it for me to to ring the death knell for a company as monumental as Facebook, but it does seem like Facebook has gone from the most significant

form of public life to a thing that our grandparents use. And I think that that's probably why it's more it's, I think that, I mean, to me that connects, that brings us back around to what I said at the beginning where they're

they're sort of figuring out how to be an old-fashioned company. Right? I mean, they're in the position of doing Friday news dumps of facing these sort of public ramifications in a way that it seemed like they might be above in a time. But they're, you know, they have, growth is down and they sort of are ossifying into a, you know, just a classic American industry in a certain way. Yeah. We need, we need like them to start running commercials like Dean Witter used to run during our childhood. Remember this is like an old accountant-looking guy on the screen, you know,

telling you about the virtues of the company. That's what we know. have truly transformed. And by the way, we need to invite Cousin Sal on this podcast to come on and handicap which presidential candidate is going to be the first to just wrap their arms around the anti-Facebook slash regulate Facebook mantle. Oh, that's great. You know, Trump is kind of already there because he's just anti, you know, he'll, he'll just slag them, but that's not really news. But like, you know, Amy Klobuchar is in this piece, said to having a very tense call with Cheryl Sandberg. There are a lot of people looking for an edge in a very different, in a very crowded Democratic primary field

who this ain't a bad issue right and this is something you know coming off Russian interference coming off as you speak of this liberal disillusionment with the tech with all of tech and with the healing power of Silicon Valley they could be very very interesting

and potent in the Democratic primary it is the Democratic side is interesting I mean I think the Republican side you can understand the tension a little bit more although I think a lot of it's disingenuous I mean Trump has just kind of figured out that magic middle where he can, where he can trash a tech company and ensure that he will be able to, you know, use the, their platform forever. But it makes sense why, you know, why the Republican

base would get excited over the super liberal tech companies, you know, affecting their, their candidates' chances. I have a hard time. I think in the Democratic primary season, you're right, it's going to be very attractive. I wonder if, I wonder if the candidates will, will have to, we'll be worried about hedging against that in the, in the general when they, when, you know, a Democrat saying nationalized this major corporation will sound a little bit too far left. It's a very good question. All right, David, time for our overworked Twitter joke of the week, where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Did you catch any of that insane seven overtime LSU Texas A&M game on Saturday night? Yeah, I did. Absolutely.

Aggie's finally won 74. to 72. It was an overworked Twitter joke to say incredibly bad beat

if you had under 145 and a half points that's from John Tatum. The actual overunder

for that game, by the way, was 45 and a half. So they scored 146. They scored

100 and a half more points than the over under. 100. That's, that's pretty insane. Did you

follow, David, the dumb Alexandria Casio-Cortez Jacket controversy. Wait, was this about her having a designer jacket?

Yes. All right. That dumb. I don't know. For some reason, it seemed like there could have been multiple jacket controversy. I think we don't really read bright, Bart enough to know what controversies are festering about here, but there probably have been more. The newly elected 29-year-old rep from Queens told the New York Times, she wouldn't be able to afford a apartment in Washington, D.C. When she takes office in January, the Washington examiner's Eddie Scarry and never has a person been more well-named tweeted a creep shot of her.

from behind with a note Hill staffer sent me this pick of Ocasio Cortez just now. I'll tell you something that jacket and coat don't look like a girl who struggles. There was a lot of stuff, a lot of responses, which were essentially taking these scary tweet and just putting it on other things.

Lots of pictures of gritty, the Philadelphia Flyers mascot everyone's obsessed with. Picks of the duck in Central Park that everyone is also obsessed with. And both our very own Kate Nibbs and Alex Perrine both landed on the George Kastain. hands up, puffy jacket as to go along with that. I thought that was funny. In other news, Donald Trump, the aforementioned, defending GOP voter suppression efforts and false accusations of voter

fraud, told the daily caller in a wide-ranging interview. Did you ever think I'd be telling you an American president told the daily caller in a wide-ranging interview? He says, if you buy, you know, a box of cereal, if you do anything, you have a voter ID, right? Saying, he's trying to He's trying to help us understand how common a voter ID is. And he says, if you go buy a box of cereal from the bodega down the street, you need a voter ID. It is an overwork Twitter joke to write, silly rabbit, tricks are for registered voters. That's thanks to Nashville's Benjamin Howard for that one. And finally, David, from the world of sports, the Bengals announced that Hugh Jackson,

recently fired from the Cleveland Browns would join the coaching staff as a special assistant to the head coach. it was an overworked Twitter joke to write assistant to the regional manager immediately going for the office reference. That's great. Thanks to blue shirts breakaway for that. If you thought Hugh Jackson was Marvin Lewis's

Dwight Shrewd, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. Very good. All right, David, topic number two, I'd like to direct you to a very interesting story that Anthony Slater,

who covers the Golden State Warriors for the Athletic, wrote on November 20th. He is writing, of course, about the Kevin Durant, Draymond Green controversy. Am I summarizing this correctly? When I say Draymond Green barreled down the court with the ball at the end of a game and would not pass to Kevin Durant who wanted the ball. And then on the bench, Green then pointed out that Kevin Durant has not quelled the talk of him potentially leaving the warriors as a free agent after this season is over?

Yeah. I think that's a good description of way. Yeah. Has this been covered on the ring or haven't read any stories about this? Anyway, the Slater writes, this potentially dynasty-altering issue is so much deeper than just what Green said. It's the inescapable result dot, dot, dot, dot of a dramatic, relentless modern-day media storm of psychoanalysis about Kevin Durant. Slater continues, Durant's teammate didn't just call him a bitch. That was what was later reported had been exchanged on the bench there.

The entire world knows he called him a bench. They're giggling about it online. Insults fly on his Instagram feed. memes flood his timeline. Debate shows the aspect of modern media Durant privately rails against most, use it as a jumping off point to hypothesize about his motives and dive into his mind.

So essentially, what Slater's writing about is two teammates have a problem in the NBA. This is not new in the world of sports. But now they have a problem in our modern sports media industrial complex, particularly our modern NBA, Twitter industrial complex, of which you and I work for a website that is part of that. We should full disclosure. What do you, having read his piece, what did you make of this idea that this whole feud is being not, not caused certainly, but stoked, kept alive, made worse by the media world?

I think it's indisputable. You said the ringer has written many pieces about this, and that's true. and I think that I mean it's I mean it's not just the pieces we've written

I mean as a staff we've just relished in this right I mean this is this is the reason why many of us love the NBA

and certainly why the NBA has become you know such a popular sport online we've you know have different iterations of this conversation

about like you know NBA Twitter and everything else but it's it's the it's the soap opera you know it's the it's the human aspect of it, which is more prevalent in the NBA than in any other sport. And, you know, there is a,

there is a demonstrably different feeling, seeing two players, teammates or not, but particularly teammates, having a verbal spat on the bench on your TV in a basketball game, then two, you know, football players in full gear smacking at each other's helmets or whatever. You know, I mean, it's just, it's a, it's a completely different thing. And I just think that, I mean, this goes to, this goes to the heart of why we love basketball and professional basketball in modern, in current year. And I, and, but it also, you know, it's, it's that, that level of attention. The fact that we're, you know, Zepruder filming every second of this conversation to try to

figure out what words he, Draymond said and everything else. Yeah, I mean, we're going to be, we live for this kind of stuff, for better or worse. And as easy as it is, in some of these instances, you know, some of the things that Kevin Durant has gone through or other things that other players deal with, it's easy to say, well, just ignore it, you know, or just, you know, it's easy. You would think it would be easy

just to blow off that question at the press conference. And this is one of those cases where it's sort of easy to see, like, you can imagine being Kevin Durant and waking up in the morning and just being like, shit, I do not want to talk about this, you know? and to know that it's just going to keep going every day until something takes its place, which is either another athlete going through something

or a bigger story taking over, but likely it's like the only thing that's going to take its place is something that's like more traumatic for you, or wonderful, but like it's going to be a significant shift. So yeah, I mean, this is a media creation or a creation of the modern world that the media reflects, but it's a real thing. Yeah, I guess so,

I guess the one thing I would sort of want to clarify is how much of this is actually new for our world. You know, what aspects of this? Because, one, the media world, sports media world you and I grew up in was full of psychoanalysis, was full of amateur psychology. That's what newspaper columnists did. This is not something Skip Bayliss started doing when he got on a disputed. He was doing this in the Dallas Times Herald in 1988, just was about Mark Aguire and Sam Perkins, right? instead of, instead of Kevin Duran. I also think the sports media,

Duran has this quote in here, and it's an older quote, but he was saying, nothing's far-fetched when it comes to the stories and headlines and clicks, but what should be about the game is getting farther and farther away from the real game.

You turn on TV, you turn on anything that has to do with basketball. There's less about the game, more about this stuff. As a pure basketball player, as a pure fan of the game at this point, it's pretty sickening. I also just want to push back on this idea

that the media suddenly got interested in the off-court lives of these guys, right? Right. That's not true. And by the way, this was on the court. This was literally on the court.

Absolutely, yeah. This was not, you know, this was not like two members of the Dallas Mavericks or dating Tony Braxton. This is, or want to date or whatever the hell that was. This is,

you know, this is a dispute amongst two teammates that happened on the bench. Yeah. So this is not something that sports writer. This is, first of all,

not actually what that is, but it's like sports writers have been interested in this stuff forever. It's true. And if you're telling me, two teammates are kind of feuding on the team that has won the last two championships. Like, of course that's a huge story. That's a huge story at any time in the history of sports. Yeah. We didn't need NBA Twitter to get interested in that story.

No, I think you're absolutely right. The one qualification, which is even this did happen on the court. And yes, it would have been covered, you know, it would have been covered in the past. although, you know, there were legitimate fistfights in the NBA not that long ago that weren't covered with this level of detail. But one of the things that Slater brings up in his piece, rightly, I think, is just the speed of the news cycle or the attention of, you know, the immediate attention that every little bit gets. And I think this was in the part where Steve Kerr was interviewed where he said, you know, we'll deal with this today. But then tomorrow one more, a different camera angle will come out or something. And then this story just keeps on and keeps on and keeps on.

whereas in years past, you had to wait, you know, two years to 10 years for the definitive Dallas Cowboys book that told you all what was going on, you know, off the field and in those championship teams. See, I'm not actually convinced that that's correct. I just think he uses the, he uses example of him getting socked by Michael Jordan in practice. And I don't remember how quickly that came to light. I think he says it was a number of weeks. We knew a lot about a lot of the stuff when it happened. You know, Michael Irvin with the scissors at Cowboys training camp, that was a big deal. It was not hidden.

The off-field indiscretions of the Dallas Cowboys, World Champion Dallas Cowboys in the 90s. I think people are kind of misremembering how fast the media used to move. It is true that we couldn't just, you know, there was no Wojbomb equivalent in 1994. Yeah. But the newspaper was out the next day. And if something like this happened and it was on that late edition of SportsCenter, remember when that SportsCenter replayed every hour from like six a.m. to noon. Like I don't think athletes in in 1994 thought the media was moving slow. And I don't think they thought they were undercover. In fact, I think they

would have said the exact same thing, right? Yeah. Oh, this is, you guys are just, you guys, everybody's talking about this. This has become a story. They won't let this go. They're talking about it every day. The newspaper, they won't let me alone. It's just a different, I just think, the one thing that the curse said there that I think is right when you talk about the camera angle is that and what's interesting is that Anthony Slater wrote this piece one of the guys who has done more than anybody to kind of create

this genre where I'm going to video a guy in the locker room and put his video of his answer on Twitter immediately, right, when he's answering a question which is very different in the annals of sports writing, right? We didn't have that, but that kind of access. So it's almost to me,

it's not that there's more psychoanalysis or even more obsession, but there is all this primary source material to psychoanalysis. right, camera angles, games on, you know, in the NBA package so that we can see every game, better camera angles

so we can scrutinize every gesture that these guys are making. That, to me, is what actually is mostly new about this. Yeah, minor quibble, but you said, you know, when the same episode of SportsCenter would run in, you know,

in blocks throughout the night. But I think that's addressing the piece. I mean, just to the extent that, like, there was sort of like an end of day for the news cycle, at least, you know, for, that's different now, right? I mean, there wasn't constantly updating overnight and you'd wake up to a whole new iteration of the story.

I mean, I guess the newspaper would come out. Do people not remember what newspapers were? Newspapers were coming. Newspapers didn't arrive at night. Right, but you just didn't subscribe to afternoon newspapers? Some people did? Woj normally, now Woj is incredibly industrious, but he normally doesn't update every hour on the air throughout the night.

He does go to sleep and then wake up in the morning. start working again. Yeah, but you're right about the, about the, you know, the iPhone videos and, you know, every little, every, every kind of bit of just, you know, primary source documentation getting pushed the moment it comes out. And that's what most of the shows on ESPN and Fox Sports now are based on is just, you know, throwing up a little video and asking for someone's impression of it. And I, and I, you know, it's, that's, that's, you're right. I mean, that's, that's a new thing. Um, one other minor thing about the, on court, off court. I actually totally agree with you. And this is, you know, as far as NBA

antics go, this is something that would have been addressed in any era. But I think what makes the Kevin Durant, Draymond Green scuffle so significant is an off-the-court issue. I mean, it's the issue of his looming free, of Durant's looming free agency, right? And that's something that is, again, free agency in the NBA has been a reality for a long time, but you can't say that it's been as much of a hot stove, just meat market for news as it has become in the past several years. So that's the second part of this that I totally sign on to, which is that our brains have been rewired to think transactions are the most important thing.

So we're almost as interested in where Kevin, if Kevin Durant's going to sign with the Warriors or the Knicks or the Clippers or whomever next offseason, as we are in the fact that the Warriors are going to win another NBA title. So that makes that story And then of course You know it's like his you know Potentially signing with the Warriors right was broken by woj Was it halfway through his last season in Oklahoma City

Certainly during his last season in Oklahoma City Yeah When you when you rewire everybody to think that transactions are the most important thing that can happen Or as important as stuff that happens on the court Then yes I think that is right and it and it makes these kinds of things seem like huge. Like, where's Kevin Durant going to sign? Where's Kevin going to sign? I don't think a lot of this is just particular to Kevin Durant. Yes.

Because on the one hand, he has this, to me, admirable kind of, I don't give a fuck attitude with the media where he's happy to, you know, be pretty raw at times and no better example of that than the Simmons podcast he did, which were pretty incredible. And then at the same time seemingly take a lot of things that the media says about him very hard and be so at the one hand kind of I don't care and on the other hand be very very sensitive. A different kind of player comes out and I am not as a sports writer person encouraging this and just says you know what I just don't want to talk about free. I just I'm all in on the warriors. This is about winning a title that it will be addressed in the future whatever. He doesn't really have that gene. So this does become kind of a

bigger story. And then as Slater reports, and he's as plugged into this as anybody, Kevin Durant is bothered by it probably more than your average NBA player. Yeah. The most interesting part of that whole Anthony Slater piece to me was the part about Kevin Durant being asked about being too sensitive and him saying, so what if I am? And it is just sort of like, it does make you stop and think like, yeah, well, why is sensitive? Why is sensitive a problem? I mean, we'd leave for the chance to call, you know, a player of his caliber or an artist, you know, in any opportunity where it comes up. And then, you know,

he actually has any sort of like non-robotic emotion and everybody recoils in this very old school. I mean, talk about, you know, a form of sports writing that's been around forever, like questioning the sensitivity of players. It was, I think Grantland Rice pulled that one out of the

out of the woodjet. Did we just do that with Josh Rosen? I feel like a month log referendum, yeah. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's it's a really I mean it's an interesting that I can totally he's a very sympathetic character even if you don't even if he's not a player

that you like or a personality that you like just because you sort of see you know this whole conversation that we're having is sort of played out on his face over the past several years you know and we've got to and we've we've all had access to his expression you know and his reaction to it

and that's you know and I think the you know, the sort of example that's, of what's changed the most. It's funny, too, that you talk about, you mentioned his podcast with Bill, and I was thinking about Bill earlier in this conversation, our boss Bill Simmons, of course, that because one, because his refrain about Durant now is that he thinks he's probably going to leave Golden State because, of course, this is what, because Bill, like, you know, emblematic of every basketball fan is concerned about where Kevin Durant's going to be playing next year, but Bill's argument against it is he could have a dime,

Dynasty at Golden State. He could win, they could win six championships, seven championships, and go down the record books forever. But this goes to what you were saying earlier. It is really hard. I think it would be hard to convince Kevin Durant that that's really, I mean, not him in particular, but to convince anyone that the dynasty in the record books and winning these games is what's really important when what we're talking about is the hot stove shit and

not actually winning games, right? Yep. Like when we're constantly, when the last thing we're constantly, when the last thing we're concentrating on is the win-loss record and the championships. When all of the media is about the piddly other stuff, then it's really hard. I mean, it's, maybe it's not, shouldn't be surprising when players are more concerned with anything else other than, you know, then leaving a giant legacy in a non-existent history book. Totally. Totally. Totally. Why would we penalize them then for thinking about what's my next free agent movie or too early? Yeah. All right, David,

let's talk about Michelle Obama's book and the rollout thereof. The title of the book is Becoming. It has sold 1.3 million copies in its first seven days, according to CNN. And just to show you how addicted our society and our media is to dumb measuring stick numbers, CNN ads, Barnes & Noble says that Becoming had the best first week sales of an adult book since Go Set a Watchman was published in July 2015. So Michelle Obama has vanquished Harper Lee. finally that scourge has been lifted just like we pit random movies against each other let's definitely pit Michelle Obama and Harper Lee against one another what's interesting about this

is Michelle Obama is selling this book on a stadium tour remember when we talked about the evening with the Clinton's stadium tour which is playing in a couple of months at the forum by the way is Trump responsible for this that all politicians are now

just on this eternal arena tour that we just you know Trump is like kind of less being president than just playing arena shows. And I just think that's kind of where we've come to, right, as a society, that you go see the Lakers and then you go see Michelle Obama and maybe the Clintons. Yeah. I mean, the economic side of this is really interesting to me, and not just as a person who used to work in book publishing.

It's not long ago. I mean, it's actually present right now where the biggest authors in the world would go to bookstores that could seat 60 people, you know? And that would be their big, their big moment. I mean, their big night in, you know, Washington, D.C. or Boston. I guess New York would be a bigger venue. Politics and pros are the big one of the big news.

Yeah. And, and, you know, certainly we have, I mean, I worked at politics and pros in a previous life. And there were a couple of authors for whom we would get bigger spaces down the road. But that was like, I'm trying to think of who that would be. I mean, maybe, I mean, we're talking like J.K. Rowling level authors, you know. I mean, maybe, maybe depending on the political climate, a woodward, you know, or something like that. But, you know, it's, there are very, very famous people that would just come in and talk to 30 people, you know, very famous authors. Now, certainly this is a different level of, this is a celebrity that transcends authorship.

And there are definitely lots of authors that do bigger venues than that. And, you know, David Sedaris does basically, you know, his book tours are the same venues that, a reasonably big acoustic rock and roll band would be doing. I mean, I'm not maybe not Mumford and Sons, but pretty close to Mumford and Sons venues all around the country. So I was going to ask you this, what other authors could open,

could do an arena tour, or at least like a Broadway theater tour? Broadway theater would be really interesting. Like Stephen King? Because Stephen King could. It has to be the intersection between someone who could write a book, who would write a book and someone who you'd be interested in spending an evening with, right? So it's not just the level of celebrity, right?

I mean, you would, my guess is that James Patterson could sell out a lot of giant venues, but like, I, and I've seen him on TV, he's a very charming guy. I don't know if James Patterson has like two hours of material, you know, and would, and could pull that off, but if he could, he would be, you know, he's such a big author, he'd be, he'd be that kind of guy. I mean, you think about like John Grisham back. in the day. And I honestly, you know, talking about Mark Zuckerberg, I don't know what John Grisham sounded like, although I feel like I lived, you know, lived with him for such a long period of my life.

But, you know, you could imagine there's like a folksy lawyer, John Grisham. If he's the character that he keeps writing, then sure, an evening with John Grisham. That could sell out of Broadway. Kind of pulling it as suspenders in his seersucker suit kind of night. It's like how Holbrook used to play Mark Twain or something like that. That's exactly what I was thinking. I was saying it, yes. But, you know, I would say there's a handful of writers, but for the most part, you'd be talking about people who are not first and foremost writers. You know, I mean, you'd be talking about... It's like Bill O'Reilly, right?

I think he actually did have arena shows. Mm-hmm. That were at least kind of semi-coincidental with his killing whomever books. Yeah. That is, but he's not a writer per se. That's a fascinating question. So Michelle Obama's book tour begins at the, or resumes at the Barclay Center. in Brooklyn on December 1st,

and then she's going to Detroit, the Little Caesar's Arena, Denver at the Pepsi Center, et cetera, et cetera, before winding up back at Barclays on December 19th. By the end of this year, Michelle Obama will have visited more NBA arenas than I have in the calendar of 2018. And not even close, by the way.

I would say that proudly, but it's just true. A couple things I found interesting looking at the kind of opening innings of her tour here. One was, it's really funny because there is this old reductive male-gazy way

that society and thinks of first ladies, right? Which is a window, a mirror window into the president, into understanding their husband. Here is Michelle Obama talking to a very giddy Jimmy Kimmel

about what Barack Obama is like when he gets stressed. You said something very interesting. I thought about your husband in your book is that on high-pressive days, he would be at his most relaxed and he would be the friendliest on those days. Why do you think that is? On his busiest days?

Yeah. Because that's what fuels him. He's a grinder, you know, I think, and, you know, he may be, I think he feels most fulfilled when he's full, when his plate is full. I call him a plate spinner, you know, those jugglers that keep spinning those plates. and if one is starting to wobble, he spins it, and if everything's going okay, then he'll put another plate up. I think he gets his energy.

Is he doing that at home now, like literally with the China? No. He is not doing that at her Washington, D.C. stadium show, Barack Obama made a surprise walk-on and handed her flowers and did this kind of funny bit where he was offering a slightly different memory of how they first met and got to their first date than she had offered previously that evening, which is kind of funny. But then he kind of kept talking and he's holding the mic and she's kind of sitting there

quietly and he kind of goes on and on. And what he's saying is sort of very touching, but it was a little bit, it was almost a little awkward. Like it went on a beat too long. It's like, no, no, no, this is about her, right? You had your chance. We want to hear from her. You know, you're sort of sitting here, you know, being a ball hog.

let's get back to Michelle Obama's life and memories of the administration. It was funny because I've never in my life said Barack Obama, please stop talking. But that was like one of the first times I've ever felt that emotion. I think what's interesting about Michelle Obama, though, is that we have gotten past what I mentioned a second ago as a conventional view of the first lady. And people actually care about her as a force and a political figure in her own right. She's gotten asked at every stop of this whether she's going to run for office in the future. She says in the book and has said to, to everyone that she's not.

She has this line in the book talking about being the first African American first lady in American history and saying, I had lived with an awareness that we ourselves were a provocation. She expanded on that idea a little bit in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.

My view, as I felt affected the first lady's position, so figuring out how to have impact in a way that wasn't in your face, particularly as a black woman who is often already viewed as angry and mouthy and bossy and naggy. I had to figure out how do I move people in a certain way and balance this perception of me

that had already drummed up in the campaign as you saw in the video. Yes. So I had to figure that out. And what's interesting, we've had this conversation before. When people say these nasty things and write these nasty things, write these nasty things and label you and put you in a silo, the angry black woman. That stuff hurts. Yes.

It does. And it's important to say it. Just on that very same note, talked about leaving the White House. They had essentially handed the keys over to the sublet to the Trumps. They exited the White House grounds on Marine One, and then they got on Air Force One to fly home. And this is the emotion she experienced on Air Force One. But then we got on Air Force One. And I didn't write about this in the book

because I had forgotten about it, because it was Valerie or some Valerie Jared or somebody who had reminded me that when I got on the plane, I think I sobbed for 30 minutes. And I think it was just the release of eight years of trying to do everything perfectly. And I said to Gharak, I'm a reading in his arms, and I said,

that was so hard what we just did that was so hard and I wanted to say that for it fabulous stuff isn't it and you know what other memoir from a first lady

has you know I'm not not claimed to have read all of them but has that kind of you know searing emotion and that kind of observation yeah I mean there's never been a there's never been a first lady who

I mean in our lifetimes who had, you know, a relationship with, with her base like Michelle Obama has. And part of that's, you know, or maybe a lot of that's her kind of relative youth and vitality. Her, the, the different sort of relationship that she had, you know, the kind of public relationship that she had with her husband in a way that previous presidents haven't to the same degree. And I think also just thinking about the job allowed, you know, I think Hillary Clinton is the only person who's probably done that in quite the same way, right? And this is before she became a politician in her own right, where she was a politician, I guess, before you can be an elected official in her own right.

But just sort of thinking aloud about what does this job, one of the public expectations of this job versus what kind of person am I? And really sort of not just touching on that question with diving deep into that question, which I thought was really fascinating. The other thing has come out of this book to her is she is not afraid to critic. criticize President Trump, whom she calls a bully and a misogynist in the book. She also writes, I sometimes wonder where the bottom might be. And there's been this whole, you know, kind of, where's, where's Barack kind of thing on Twitter? Why aren't you out here criticizing the, why aren't you out here rallying us, which he then sort of did finally during the midterm, some of his appearances during the midterms? But she is not worried about that. And in one of the

better stories too that she's come out with is like how she just she could not smile her way through Trump's inauguration speech one looking at the lack of diversity up there and then also just sort of hearing that American carnage speech and simply said I couldn't fake it because I wasn't you know I understood what the occasion called for and how my my husband and I needed to you know hand over the office and how important that isn't to the constitution and to the American experience, but I was not happy about what I was hearing. And I was, I am not afraid to say it. Yeah. I mean, she's, I mean, she's just, she's just so, it's she, her insight into, into the presidency is, I mean, from the moment she started talking about it, it's clear that this is like the best presidential memoir that we're ever going to read in a lot of

ways, right? Because there, because her honesty, or at least the, what seems to be her honesty and, and, and, and, and, and, and, just clear, headness is is uh you know is just so authentic and so powerful um but yeah i mean i and and her it's there's something i i don't know it's really hard to put into words the way that she's able to better than you did the way that she's able to sort of um transcend just not transcend politics but kind of transcend the moment and uh and and and you know be so forthright about those things without without seeing me at least from where i'm sitting without feeling like she's posturing or or trying to be too political. But certainly this is going to be, you know, the reception is going to be, you know,

your mileage may vary on how you read some of that, I guess. One more thing, though, before we, to bring this back around to the economics of it, I wonder if, I mean, obviously she's going to, she's going to fill these arenas. And there's a lot of people that have, you know, written over the, you know, the past several years about the sort of economics of having an athletic arena. arena. Certainly they're all moving. I mean, you know, we've, I've seen this as the Barclay Center grew up, but basically in my backyard in Brooklyn, how, you know, there's, there's definitely an increased push towards just keeping the lights on every night, you know, I mean, there are a lot of

different events. And she's not the only person, I mean, to compare her to other books, other book tours is obviously the wrong thing when there's a lot of speakers and everything else that sell out big arenas all the time. But part of me wonders if, you know, with all the shit that they, Clintons have gotten for the Clinton Foundation as, you know, positive as that could have been, you know, but especially all the, all the, all the Knox Hillary took for giving paid speeches in the last time. I kind of wonder if the book tour is the last, like, honest way to make a buck for a, for a former politician. So you don't take the money from Goldman. You take it from Random House.

You take it, and then, and you're selling the tickets. You're not just taking a set fee, you know, if Goldman Sachs were sponsoring the book tour, or that would be problematic. This feels like she's a woman of the people. That'd be amazing. The evening with the Clinton, sponsored by, brought to you by Goldman Sachs.

Yeah. Let's lean into the, you know, and it's oh, well, we're done now. Go ahead and we're not worried about that anymore. All right, for our final segment,

we're just going to do a couple of quick hitters before we get out of here about media stuff. We'll name this segment at some point. Please send your suggestions to at the press box pod. I was struck by a quote in Robert Draper's big profile of Nancy Pelosi in the New York Times magazine this weekend? This is Pelosi, the former and apparently soon-to-be Speaker of the House. May I say something you're not going to like? I think the press loves him, referring to Donald Trump, all day on TV.

And I don't even watch TV except sports, but he says someone had a horse face all day. We hear about that. You just give him all day. Now, Nancy Pelosi is making a point about here about the media's codependent relationship with Donald Trump, which I think is unassailable, right? What struck me was this little phrase where she's, I don't even watch TV except sports. we in the sports media, I think, regards sports television as just this garbage pit. But let us note that a politician saying they watch nothing on television except sports is the great safe harbor of political speech, right? I just watch sports. That's all I watch on television.

I don't pay attention to anything else. It's like, you know, that's a place you want to be. Like, that is a popular stance to take. The other thing I had for you, the crooked media guys who used to work with us, said they were surprised and angry about the to learn that Definer's public affairs had played a role in the Facebook caper, and they were surprised and angry because Tim Miller, who was an occasional contributor to their media sphere, was one of the guys from Definer's, and they'd announce that he would be no longer contributing to crooked media. I feel this is a point you and I have kind of circled around a couple of times and maybe touched on it.

I am the last person to think journalism should be a priesthood. but this is one of those cases where you just have to pick, right, what side you want to be on, right? Do you want to be the, you know, never-trumper, you know, nice guy conservative who is criticizing the GOP for demonizing George Soros? Or do you want to be the guy getting paid to demonize George Soros? You just had to pick one of the two. And more to the point, your media company should make you pick one of the two. You can't do it. It's like that Ed Rogers at the Washington Post comments that Jonathan Chait is always writing about.

There's like a lobbyist and has all these clients. And I also write op-eds where I'm pursuing cleared-eyed truth in the Washington Post-op-ed page. You just got to pick one or the other, you know? Yeah. And who wants to hear from somebody who is getting paid to do this? I just find that very funny. Yeah, it's crazy. And it's one of those things where, you know, there's another.

one with Rick Santorum talking about climate change and at the same time getting paid by, you know, fossil fuels. But you just pick, just pick one of the other. You know, again, I'm not saying you don't have no right to comment on this. I'm not saying people should, but your employee should make you choose. You just got to do one of the other. That's all. That's all I have to say.

All right. Producer of this show is Jim Cunningham. Research from Chris Almeda. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Back next week with more hot takes on the media. See you then, David. See you later, man.

I don't give a fuck. Well, how will this change affect our bottom line? How much of this is actually new for our world? By the way. What did you make of I don't give a fuck? It's a good question. I think it's, you know, as with all these things, it's probably somewhere in the middle.

But I just feel like it's hard to not sort of, I guess for me to not take a sort of point of view on this. It seems like... I don't give a fuck. Um, shit, I do not want to talk about this.