The Press Box - The NFL Stuffs Thanksgiving, the Pentagon’s Photographer Lockout, and ‘Spotlight’ and the End of the Reporter Hero

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

Today on The Press Box, Bryan and Joel start the show by discussing the Pentagon barring press photographers from briefings on Iran due to “unflattering” pictures of Pete Hegseth being taken. Next, the guys give their takes on the NFL’s potential plans to add a Thanksgiving eve game to the regular-season schedule (14:06) before asking whether this is a prelude to an 18-game NFL regular season (16:51). After that, Bryan and Joel look at the ESPN–NFL Network deal, what it means for NFL insiders Adam Schefter and Ian Rapoport (21:55), and where else insiders can work in sports media today (26:51). Following that, the guys talk about Tony Dungy’s departure from NBC (29:43) before pivoting to the wild night of sports that happened this past Tuesday (35:51), which included Bam Adebayo’s 83-point game and a failed NFL trade (48:58). Today’s show wraps up with a look back at 'Spotlight' on the 10-year anniversary of its Best Picture Oscar win (52:58). All that and more, here on The Press Box. Plus, the return of J-School! Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Producers: Isaiah Blakely and Bruce Baldwin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox. It's Brian Curtis. It's Joel Anderson. It's producers, Isaiah Blakely and Bruce Baldwin. Coming up on the podcast, Joel, first they kicked reporters out of the Pentagon, then came the photographers. Wait, the NFL wants even more Thanksgiving football.

Plus, is ESPN big enough for Adam Schaefter and Ian Rappaport? A sports night that involved 83 points and a trade that went bust. Post-Washington Post-Sports writers turned out to be. pretty valuable after all. And it's been 10 years since Spotlight won the Academy Award for Best Picture. How strange is the idea of a movie

about heroic reporters? But first, let us begin in the Pentagon where the Iranian counter-revolution will not be photographed. Or something. I'm still workshopping the title. Big scoop from Scott Nover

in the Washington Post and he's gotten a bunch of them in recent months. Nova writes, the Defense Department has barred press photographers from briefings on the ongoing U.S. Israeli military conflict with Iran after they published photos of Defense Secretary Pete Hegsa that his staff deemed unflattering, according to two people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. That's a very likely possibility. the idea of a retaliation. So yeah, I can understand they're not granting anonymity

in this circumstance. This is all from a March 2nd briefing. Nova notes that Pete Hexett had not appeared behind the Pentagon briefing podium since June 26th. Wow. Before that, Hexas Aides, Nova writes,

decided to shut out photographers from the two subsequent briefings of the Pentagon on March 4 and March 10, according to two people familiar. this is what happens when you hire a defense secretary from TV, right? Yeah, I mean, it almost sort of makes sense because it's true that Hegg Seth was mostly hired because of how he looks on TV. I remember when we first talked about him and I said, oh, he's kind of a, he seemed like a good-looking man. I'd like to sort of reevaluate that claim.

I don't think he's just good-look. You know who else I've done this with just as an aside, Cliff Kingsbury. Everybody talked about how good-looking Cliff Kingsbury was for a really long time. And then I looked at him and I was like, I mean, he's not a bad-looking guy, but I just kind of thought it was a little overstated. So that's how I feel about, heckset. He was on there because of how he looks on TV. And I think it's a little bit overrated, but whatever. And he's like bigoted in the way that many of Trump's closest friends and cabinet ministers prefer.

And he's sort of, he's not the kind of person that is going to apologize or appear weak on TV. so they like having him on there because he certainly wasn't placed in that role because of like a distinguished military career or any presumed competence running large large organizations. And in fact, were you to review his career, you'd see that he'd actually fared pretty poorly in positions of leadership before. So it makes sense that they'd be really invested in how he looks on camera because that's a big part of why he's there in the first place. We can get on the battlements and yell about press freedom here.

and we have when it comes to the Pentagon, we can also just say how stupid this is. Oh, it's pathetic. I mean, it's, it's pathetic. Like, it's stupid and pathetic. Like, it's like, yo, man, there's a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of serious shit going on around the world, man. Like, you know, the American soldiers are in peril. You know, we don't know how close we are to igniting a world war, like a global war. But, like, there's, the Middle East.

least is on fire right now. And he's concerned about how he looks in the paper. It just seems really small, but that's the kind of person that you would expect this administration would hire this time around. Part of the back story here, according to Nova is you'll remember the real Pentagon press is not in the building. Right. The tame Pentagon press is in the building. But for this March second briefing, a wartime briefing, the kind of briefing that Pete Hecker is. Exit is leaning into, they wanted a network camera in there. That is they, meaning the Defense Department, wanted a network camera. They wanted the pictures.

They didn't want to rely just on the class of reporters that were in the building. Right. So we get the cameras in there. We have still photographers as well, and then they're mad at the way the mainstream press use the pictures, pick the photos of Hexon. I don't, I mean, what are you even supposed to do under those circumstances? Like, what is the expectation that they're like, hey, we took? Because, I mean, have you ever set around a photographer at an event like this?

They're taking hundreds, if not thousands of snapshots. Yeah. So did they want access to their file, their JPEGs and go through like, all right, this one right here? Also, we know we'll do a little Photoshop on that. Like, what is the expectation there? It's also pretty rich. because you've seen those memes that the administration is putting out there

about the war. Yeah. There was one that featured Ray Lewis and Ed Reed. Oh, man. Both former members of the Ravens and Ed Reed was like, actually... Yeah, I do not support this message. Unsubscribe. Yeah, right.

Yeah. So it's okay to get a football player who's making big hits and compare that to bombs dropping on Tehran and people losing their lives. But we're going to draw the line when the Washington Post, New York Times, one of the wires,

publishes what we deem to be an unflattering photo of Pete Heggson. Yeah, man. I mean, again, I want to know more about what makes the photos unflattering. Like, again,

I don't consider myself to be a photogenic person. I don't ever want... Dude. No, I'm serious. I'm the same way. No, I'm the same way. Yeah, I don't ever want

to be in pictures, right? And so that part I understand, right? Anytime I'm in front of a camera, it's because somebody's making, me. I don't want to do that. But like this is a job you pursued. This is how you've made your living. Why aren't you prepared to look good on camera? Like what is what are they supposed to do to meet your needs here? That's what I don't know what the expectation actually is under these circumstances.

I'm with you on not wanting to be photographed. And it turns out when you host a podcast and you're on the video tier of podcasting, then not only can people watch you, but there's this thing called a thumbnail that appears with your podcast, whether it's on YouTube or Spotify or wherever it is. And a little behind the scenes here. At the end of the podcast, sometimes your producer says, hey, look into the camera and we're going to take a picture. Sometimes they go with, you know, quote unquote, you know, live picture of, you know, me telling a hilarious joke and you laughing uproariously. But a lot of times, folks, those photos are canned. that they are they are they are taken on purpose yeah sometimes yeah i mean we started doing that i don't do

that on all our podcast as this is this is is are you admitting something about your own vanity here because i don't know this on all podcast brian i'd like to but you know what whenever i look at those thumbnails i'm like oh my god like and i mean no disrespect to isaiah or bruce here but i look like the way the new york post used to make hillary clinton look when she was stepping out of a limousine i'm like oh my god what is wrong with you yeah no i mean yeah i just yeah meaning me what's wrong with me I don't want, yeah, if we could dispense with that, I would totally be with it. But like, that's you and the thing about us is that we got into a career where there was not going to be an expectation. You know what our career was supposed to have been like when we first got into it?

You took one mugshot for your newspaper and it would run for you for the next 20 years. You know, I don't know how Fran Blanbury, Fran Blanbury looked like in Houston, like I got it. When I would meet Dale Robertson in person, it may not reflect. how they actually looked when I finally got a chance to meet them. But like that's the only picture that I ever expected to have to take a meeting. And here it is. I mean, we have to, my job is mostly being on camera now.

So yeah, we didn't expect this. But if you sign up for public service or to be a public official, that's part of the job. And I can't make you, I don't, the cameraman, unless you're doing some sort of a photo shoot for Vanity Fair or something

or the camera person, if you're doing, you're doing a photo shoot. for Vanity Fair, like, I'm sorry, like, you look how you look. And that's kind of on you, brother, you know? So, I don't know what you're going to do to look better on camera, but, like, that seems like that's something that you and your team are going to have to work on. Maybe you have to use a different kind of blush or something like that. I don't know. Add some eyelashes. In the days of newspaper, I used to love when you'd see a sports writer,

and that's how they'd look in your mind. Oh, man. And then they would retake the photo 25 years later and they look like Gandalf. Oh, damn. Whoa, you aged. And it was a big deal when you actually had to retake those mugshots, by the way. Like it was like, yeah, it was like a big day in the office when that came around. One other part of the Scott Nova story that's worth mentioning Anna Kelly, who is the principal deputy press secretary at the White House. That is not a title that I was familiar with. Never heard of it.

Nover put in a story that Kelly declined to comment on Hegson. decision to shut out reporters. Kelly, as Trump officials are want to do, then went to Twitter and took a picture of her exchange with Nova. And the quote she had given him was, didn't the Washington Post just fire all of its White House photographers? So she wanted to make sure that we all knew about the trolley comment. It's a good line, but it's just really small.

You know? And I'm thinking about it from the kind of person that thinks it's funny when people lose their jobs, right? They think when, you know, the dunk is that all those people are unemployed. I actually know a Washington Post, like, photographer, like a person that works on a photo team, like personally. So I guess that's supposed to be funny. It's a good line if that's the one that she wanted to get off. But yeah, it's just kind of a reminder what's going on in there. And for all the people that signed up, you know, to be part of the new Pentagon course, like, what are you getting out of it?

Like, what is the news that they're breaking? Like, anybody paying any attention to what's going over there? When they, when the Pentagon actually needed to get real news out, they had to welcome people back in because they knew that they weren't going to reach the people that they needed to reach just by the people that were willing to sign up for credentials under the current terms. Or that it wouldn't be credible. Yeah, absolutely. They wouldn't ask questions that if people were watching the press conference, Oh, good question. Oh, no, you're holding it and Hegson is handling himself well.

They couldn't count on that happening at all. It is funny that the Trump administration is trying to take advantage of the politeness of the media where you go and ask for a response. The politician gives you something that is not responsive to your question. It's just a general statement in hopes of getting the statement into the newspaper. This has happened for years and years and years. you know, President Trump is working hard for average Americans. Like, I'm sorry, you didn't answer the question. So that doesn't get in the story.

Right. Well, I was going to say, would you have put it in there? And you're not that. I mean, I wouldn't, but I would go much farther. I wouldn't put, you know, half of the official responses I see in news stories all the time. And I understand there's like legal reasons for doing that. And there's kind of a newspaper even handedness below that that informs that. But half of them, you see it just like here is a just general.

campaign statement about the politician or the candidate. It's like, no, no, no. If you have an answer to the question, I'll print the answer to the question. If not, you decline to comment. You're declined to answer my question. Right. That's just all it is. Like, there's no, this isn't, this isn't, you know, you can fax that.

Do you're supporters if you want to tweet that out yourself in this case? I mean, the Trump administration, the thing about them is they've found the level of politeness. or they found the farthest reaches of the media's politeness. Like when Stephen Chung, remember wrote back your mom to a reporter? I think that actually weirdly got in the story

because it was just so strange. It was almost like, let's just put this in to give you a sense of it. But Scott Nover doesn't want to put this in because it's like it's ludicrous and it's not, again, it's not about what he's asking about,

which is that you're not allowing photographers to be in the media. Right. It just, the thing about it is that I, it reflects on the spokesperson more than what they're talking about, right? Like, it's a, and I wonder if in that way it's worth adding in there. Because again, they, you know, I mean, she took the Twitter to add it on there.

So good for her. It is also a reminder to, particularly to, and I'm sure the reporters that cover this, don't need me to tell them, but any conversation or any email you send that administration, it's fair game. Like, it's going to go out. You know, you might as well expect that they're going to try to burn you with it. So 100%. Yeah. Speaking of imperialist ambitions. Oh, man.

The NFL is looking to expand. Okay. Again? Again. Yes. We got NFL games on Thanksgiving. Three of them. We got an NFL game on Black Friday now. The NFL, according to a report from ESPN's Adam Schafter, is now looking to add a game on Thanksgiving Eve. Wednesday evening. Now, will you watch Thanksgiving Eve football?

Um, like with any NFL game, it probably, but it depends, you know? Like, I mean, I'd be hard-pressed to be interested in watching any game

the jet to the Giants or commanders play, right? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. The Jets are always in these big windows year after year. It's like, who wants this?

I mean, Yeah, like, it will at least be on the television. I can, that much I might say. What about you? Which is something, right? With the NBA game be on the television? Yeah. Yeah.

Would the baseball game be on the television? Just in the background provides a little flavor. Who was the World Baseball Classic this week on the television in the background? If I had known, if I, if I, if I, because I've been seeing. If I had known it was on, well, that's kind of there, right? But if I'd seen the action from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, that shit looked like a good, Rip Roaring good time. I would have had that on TV.

That looked fun. Yeah, absolutely. I always want a high horse stuff like this, especially about the NFL because the NFL is imminently tweakable, but I was like, I'll probably watch that game. So what am I, you know, when I'm going to take over everything? And I will watch the football game. Oh, yeah. Let's just be honest.

We do. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, nobody watches anything else anyway on TV for the most part. It's like, what is it, something like 95 of the top 100 rated program? on network TV or NFL games. So nobody's even trying. Like, it's only football that is on. So the odds are that we probably will have it on.

And, you know, like, I'm the rare person who would have been like, oh, if a college game was on, if the Egg Bowl was playing, you know, I'd probably watch the Egg Bowl before any NFL game. But that's not even either. College football is giving up. They've given it, they've given the NFL back their corners. Like, the NFL come and took all their corners. And so they've given up.

and they only play their games on Friday and Saturday. So I guess we just have to watch the Jets versus. I don't know, man. We have to talk about this sometime. I always bring it up. You NFL fans, man. I mean, Jets versus B. I mean, well, the bear is a little more interesting

because of Kayla Williams now. But their product on TV, man, just not the greatest to me. You're in the minority on that one. I very much so. I understand. Doesn't this all feel like prelude to have having 18 regular season weeks of NFL football? Yeah, which I mean,

I mean, didn't Mark Cuban say this? He's like pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered. At some point, you got to think there's going to be diminishing returns for all this extra football, man. I mean, the human body can only take so many hits for one, you know? And like to have an 18th week of football, man. 18th week? more games on days like Wednesday, which we've seen with Christmas.

Now we see on Thanksgiving Eve. Yeah, man. I get, I mean, I know they've got a lot of, they got a lot of supply and a lot of networks to spread this stuff across. So it makes sense. But, I mean, obviously it's working for them, but I just, sometimes I just wonder, like, well, people ever just, the Thursday games have been notably horrible, you know, for, for years now.

And I just, I just wonder about this expanding. and like are people eventually going to catch up that like not all these games going to be pretty good man well the scarcity thing has come up and it came up again when we heard about Thanksgiving Eve yeah isn't that why people love to watch football isn't that part of the reason they love football number one right but they love it because they have a week to catch their breath between games Sunday was a big deal fall Sunday it's like I know exactly when these games are going to happen I got my time I can make my I could build my schedule around a football game on a Sunday, right? But now you're throwing a Wednesday in here, and I'm like, I've got kids or work or just other stuff that I want to do, right?

You'd think. But, you know, if you're the NFL, you look at Thanksgiving and you say, hey, we always won on Thanksgiving because we had a captive audience. Reminder that Cowboys versus Chiefs, this last Thanksgiving, had 57 million viewers, which was more than any other NFL game that was not the Super Bowl. Super Bowl that season. Crazy. More than the conference championship games. Maybe aided by a snowstorm, but it was more than the conference championship games. That's a notably good.

The brands, I mean, the reigning dynasty, the most popular NFL team. Like, yeah, that was going to be a ratings bonanza. They timed that up really well. They were trying to pop a number. But still, you know, you get 57 million people for that. So they said, oh, let's expand the window when we have the captive audience. Yep. we know first we had two time slots we had a lion's game and a cowboys game on thanksgiving now we have three time slots because we have we have we have Thursday night too now we're going to have Black Friday which has been on Amazon and we're going to expand it there we're going to sell merchandise while we're having football which is you know a grand tradition of football and now we're going to do Wednesday night which is apparently a big bar night in America I'm a little ways away from that in my life but hey you know everybody's everybody's back home they're out they're having fun the game's on

We measure audience differently now so we can capture all the people in that bar in Fort Worth or Houston. Yeah? Yeah. I don't know, man. It's just kind of because, but what about Sunday?

You know what I mean? Like, now I'm, okay, now that Sunday, I'm watching a much thinner slate of games. Like,

I don't, that Sunday has been a little bit, it's been cannibalized a little bit. And I guess obviously it doesn't matter because it's a holiday weekend. They're thinking, who cares? Like,

I just want that captive audience. on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, but I don't know for the kind of people like me that I need my NFL games to be on one day during the week. And I don't know. I just said, but I mean, who am I to question the wisdom of Roger Goodell and the NFL? Because obviously, they're rolling right now. Another NFL story for you. Okay. ESPN and the NFL network are merging. We know there are going to be some people who lose their jobs. The most, high profile version of this question of the two insiders on those

respective networks. ESPN's Adam Schefter and the NFL networks Ian Rappaport. Now, Ian Rappaport had a scoop this week during NFL Free Agency, which is really like the 18th game, about Travis Kelsey coming back for one more season

with the Chiefs. And Greg Rosenthal noted that Adam Schaefter actually retweeted a Rappaport scoop. usually if you're an insider you kind of pretend that no other insiders exists right right I get all the scoops

you don't even do first reported by if you're on that highest tier of insider right there's no there's no Mark Whistle of Queensberry rules you know we're in the news story in the 18th paragraph this was first reported by Washington can now confirm that Travis Kelsey is coming back for us yeah you don't even you dispense with that completely

yeah right so the fact that shifter retweeted rap sheet was a thing. Front office sports has a piece by Michael McCarthy about this, asking the question, does ESPN want them both? Is there enough room at ESPN to have two NFL mega insiders? I mean, they have the money to do it. They have the space to do it. There's no reason for them not to,

but for the fact that they just don't want to pay two of them, right? But they could afford to keep both of them. Or they don't want to piss off Schefter. Let's throw that in the reasons. that's true wait territorial well I was think I mean who's to say that they didn't keep rap report

and got rid of Schefter I wouldn't do that why why do you think that's not possible well there was a line in McCarthy's piece quoting somebody saying hey if you put Schefter and Rapaport together you'd have 90% of the NFL news what do you have currently with just Schefter

82% of the NFL news I don't yeah you know what I don't know how much rap point didn't like I feel like Chester Schaefter is the is the king of the jungle Is the king of the jungle? Okay. Well, then, yeah. Um, I don't know, man.

Yeah, I mean, I think that they should and could keep both of them. And if Schfter is good with that, although it's it, I mean, I don't think Schaefter should be able to make that decision, but I also know how the media works. You know what I mean? Especially over there. But reported salary of $9 million. Feels like the kind of person gets to make decisions. He's got a lot more decision power than you'd think.

Yeah, I mean, I probably would keep them both because I think you're right. I mean, the thing is sports media and football NFL media is so diffuse now because you also get scoops from other websites, internet personalities. Like there's all sorts of people trying to create a buzz around their reporting. But if you had Schefter and Rapaport, you probably, that would be, you would be able to really, you know, stamp your reporting. It's like, for the most part, if you hear it first in the NFL, it came from one of the two of us. ESPN slash NFL network. But yeah, I mean, I guess they could risk letting go of Rappaport and letting him go break

other stories and work someplace else. I'm sure he'd catch on someplace else. But I just, the idea that we got to lay everybody off just because it's duplicative. Like, I mean, it used to be that every beat, I mean, the Tennessee Titans probably had like three beat reporters once in a time, maybe four. You know what I mean? Like depending on like who's a swing guy was. And now we're saying, oh, ESPN, the media conglomerate may only want to have one scoop artist.

Like, why? You can afford it. You can afford to. I'll just note the historical comp here. 2009, Schefter comes to ESPN from NFL Network, where he was born as a national insider. Chris Mortensen was the king insider at that time. He decided they sat down. they had a steak dinner,

asked Shepter about this one time, and they decided to rule the world together. Yeah. Mort was incredibly gracious with him. And ESPN had headlock on NFL scoops and has had one for the next 15 plus years. Another note, though, is

that's the only time I know of that that has ever happened in insider history. That's right. It didn't happen with the NBA at ESPN. Certainly didn't happen with the NBA. A whole bunch of shit had to move what they brought woes in.

Like it was a totally reordering of their NBA coverage. So yeah, I don't remember Buster Only buying a steak dinner for Jeff Passon when he came over from Yahoo. Maybe it happened. I don't remember that.

This is, these are, again, these are the whole idea is that you get all the scoops. That is the reality or the myth of the insider that you know everything.

So why would you need somebody else to help you out? So I'm not saying it's not going to happen. I'm just saying it's only happened once. No, right. I mean, my thought was, and again, I'm, I guess I'm making a labor appeal to Shephti if he's listening to this. Wouldn't you like to have some time off? Wouldn't you like to know that, oh, you know what?

If I go out of town, Rappaport's got it. ESPN is covered. Would you like not to be able to go on vacation and I have to be on your phone all the time? He's like, hey, my boy, Rappaport's got it. Same for you, Rappaport. You know, you go over there, Shephti, you know, Shepti's got it. I mean, it can also give people a chance to breathe a little bit. But I know that that's not how it works.

This is why I could not be a scoop artist in that way, because I just, I wouldn't want to live my life that way. What Woj described sounded horrible for any amount of money that he had. It just didn't sound like a very fun job. So, I don't know. Two related. No, of course not. Yeah.

Look at, look at for that. Working hard. Yes. Not working hard like that. Looking at my phone all the time so I can break a thing that somebody else is going to break two minutes later. I'm all good with that. Thanks.

They're better uses of one's time. Two related questions for you. You mentioned Rappaport going to work somewhere else. What is that now in our athletic media? Yeah, but Diana Rucini's already there. So I guess same question as before. And by the way, when they hired her, I was like, is she really that kind of insider person?

And I think she's done a really good job over there. She's established. They have a beachhead in that world now. She's just really distinguished. a lot of times when I'm, you know, getting NFL news or somebody's dropping something in a group chat is from Diana Rossini. Yeah,

it makes more sense over there because she can publish something and then you want to read her story or listen to her podcast or read her notes column over there. You know, I always wonder like, how does it even work at ESPN now? Like what's, I understand that,

you know, they're all things NFL. So I guess by extension, they want the NFL scoops. But what does that do? Does that drive people to ESPN? programming? Has that been shown? Well, that's kind of the thing I was wondering.

I don't know, not only if people care about this kind of reporting, but how much does it matter to the operation and the bottom line? Right. I still don't have a good grasp on like how much this stuff matters because even if you're first, you're not first for long, you know? Seconds. Yeah, seconds. Yeah. So just how much does this actually matter? And are people really keeping tabs. But also, I mean, couldn't Rapaport go to? And again, I'm sure these places all have their own scoop artists.

So bear with me. NBC, Fox, Amazon, you know, whatever one of the, whatever place wants to, you know, have their breaking news guy. Netflix, you know, for the NFL game or whatever. And they've got somebody, you know, like Rapaport right up there on the panel with everybody else, telling people what he knows. So I assume that there's some other places, but yeah, it's not like he's going to go to Sports Illustrated now. I mean, again, no disrespect to Sports Illustrated. It's just a different world right now.

Yeah, it really is. And again, I just don't, I don't know if you're ESPN, like, I don't know what you're afraid of. You know, it's like you're not really trying to compete for internet eyeballs as you were like you were a couple years ago. Yeah. You know, most of those Schfters, they don't even, they don't have a link. you know, you're not even trying to drive people to the homepage. Yeah, they don't write stories about them anymore. It'll be a little bit of a headline or whatever, but yeah.

You're feeding your own bottom line. He is essentially the assignment editor for ESPN. Because, you know, when he breaks something, it's like, oh, Stephen A, we got some news. We got it's our Pat McAfee's show. I mean, like, what is Pat McAfee's show? It's not driven by Trey Henderson. McAfee himself was hosting the free agent thing the other day. Yeah, man.

Trey Hendrickson, man. I mean, probably the most famous, non-famous football player. Because he kept a lot of off-season conversations going to last year and a half or so. Another football note for you. Tony Dungey's out at NBC. He acknowledged the news today. It was actually reported by Andrew Marchion

in the athletic last month, at least that it was likely to happen. What's your favorite thing Tony Dungey said on 17 years of television on NBC? Back to you, Bob. I don't know. I was going to say, I mean, I don't know. Everything that he's ever said

that has generated headlines, is not something that he said on NBC and almost sort of unrelated to anything happening on the field. Like I remember when, you know, back in the day when I was in the business to cover the Michael Sam stuff, you know, he said that he wouldn't have wanted to drafted Michael Sam because he didn't want the distraction.

When he tweeted about how at sub-schools, they're having kitty litter boxes or something because for kids who identify his cats, which was, you know, bullshit, but he got fooled. because that's the world he operates in. So, yeah, like, I can't think of anything that he's said on NBC, but that's maybe not fair because I don't watch as closely.

What about you? You're the guy that's watching that stuff. What has Tony Dunjee said that it's left an impact on you? At least recently, the first thing that came to mind was Tony Junji not talking about his Hall of Fame boat this year. Oh, yeah, right, yeah. So it wasn't a take. It was more of a take-in absentia.

That's right. That's right. It's like, well, why won't you talk about this? Yeah. But yeah, I mean, he's the classic solid guy on the pregame show. So the way these things are programmed, you have Terry Bradshaw, but you don't want Terry Bradshaw and Terry Bradshaw. Can't be too too.

You want Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long. Mm-hmm. That's right. Straight man. Tony, that, yes. Tony is that guy. Lee Corso and Herb Street. Yes.

Coach Corso. Herb Street, I would identify as a different type, which is nice young man. Nice young man. fair fair there's there's nice young man there's wacky guy there's solid guy there's scoopmeister scoomaster mm-hmm gronk i guess old qualifies his other wacky guy so isn't there like a room for like the old grizzled veteran coach jimmy jonson mike dick uh cower cower you know yeah the tough that tough old coach this. We're going to bring some tough

to this pregame show. That's right. Yeah. I might never say anything memorable, but I look tough here on this. Yeah, got the jaw for it, you know?

Yes. There's got to be a few more types. Of course, we have the host. Of course, yes, right? Who's basically a past first point guard in almost every case.

That's right. Unless it's fowler, you know, over on game day. Andre Miller, just dishing it out, making everybody else look good. That's right.

Andre Miller. I'm trying to think what else. Like, who's the other, who's the other character on this show. Well, now they've got this sort of formally flashy

NFL star who's like, you know, now it's sort of a, he can so it's like Michael Irvin, Randy Moss, Dion has kind of played that at times when he was doing it, you know, a very recognizable former NFL star who has a lot of

usually a wide receiver. Yeah. Kishon was that guy for a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's the wide receiver slot. So we got that guy. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty much the breakdown, I think. And you got yourself a pregame show.

Here's a problem with NBC. They had the solid guy in Tony Dungy. And then Jason Garrett was also kind of the solid guy, except with no rings. And then Rodney Harrison was also kind of a solid guy. I'm not a fun guy. I don't think of him is particularly outspoken or, you know, he could go there, but he wasn't there all the time. Jack Collinsworth.

It was a lot of solid guys. Just a bunch of solid guys. Yeah. I didn't. We didn't have the wacky, you know, make an awful announcing headlines guy. Man. So, I mean, it is kind of funny because that's such a prestigious slot. So why do they, the thing is, and I was wondering about this, do they just want somebody,

I wonder if it's more important for a network in that spot to have somebody that's not going to mess up. It's just going to do their job. can communicate cleanly and clearly with the audience and has some credible football knowledge. Like they can explain things in a way and it may not be the most scintillating conversation, but they may help bring some understanding of the game to people as opposed to taking a chance on somebody

who's going to forget names, get stuff wrong, can't speak very well. You just, am I tripping? It seems like that's a very, that's a harder job to, feel than you think. Not as many people can do as well in that role as you think. The highest value is we come to you and you say football words.

Yeah. That do not get us in trouble. How many of those CBS pregame shows have you watched? Yeah, you just commented on football. Oh, man. For 20 seconds. I have no. Oh, my God.

Man, Damarino's on there. All right. We might need it. We might need another category. Yeah. Van Marino is like, is this person biologically alive?

Oh, man. Joe Montana was that guy for a while. It's just, and it's crazy because it's just like those guys were just so, they had, they oozed charisma and cool when they played. Like you look at Dent, Damn Reno owned Miami in the 80s, Doug, you know, and he comes on TV and to be that boring. It was just really disappointing. And he was on forever.

He was on for a long time, man, you know. Got scooped out, got, got, got cleaned up by Boomer Assison and the Phil Simpses of the world. Boom. was in the Terry Bradshaw lightning rod roll. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. For sure. He's still doing.

He's a radio guy now. Radio guy. And he's doing it every morning on WFAN. We had a crazy Tuesday night in sports. Yes, we sure did. And, well, so look, I, so, Brian, where were you when you were made aware that Bam out of bio was having a historic scoring night? I was sitting right where I am now because I looked at Twitter and I was like, oh, my

God. Oh, so you, okay, okay. And first I just saw 83 points and it was kind of that moment of like a bar game. Like, can you guess the NBA player that scored 83 tonight? And I don't know how many guesses you would have had to give me before I got to bam. Oh my God. I'm trying to think because he, I was looking at our Ringer top 100 NBA players list and he didn't even make the top 20 most recently. He may not make the top 25. Like that's just top players, right? So just think about how far you would have had to go. But you didn't know he'd scored 83 points until he'd score it. You didn't know he was having that night until he'd scored 83 points? I had my phone somewhere on the other side of how. I can't remember what I was doing that was important,

probably like making dinner, doing something else and trying not to look at my phone. But yeah, I was late to it. Okay, well, good for you. Okay, well, like a lot of people, I got a media alert about him scoring 31 points in the first quarter. And then some group chat started updating when he got like the 60 points. It was like, Bam's got 60 tonight in the third quarter. I was like, What? What's happening? So anyway, for our listeners who are not familiar who we're talking about, Miami Heat Forward, Bam Out of Bio, finished a game against the Washington Wizards

the other night with 83 points. That's the second highest single game total in NBA history, only trailing Wiltschamberland scoring 100 in a game in 1962 that nobody has any video of. But the most interesting part of this, I think, at least, was how people responded. Let me read you three headlines, Brian, so you can see how people.

responded to this feat that not very many people have seen in the history of NBA. Why Bam Adebio and the Heat should have stopped it matching Kobe's Bryant's 81 points. Can't we just appreciate Bam out of bio's accomplishment for a second before all the critiques? Oh my God. Bam out of bio does not belong above Kobe Bryant. So did you find the response and coverage of this to be unusual or about what you expected for NBA. I think if you had told me this, it's about what I expected. I was struck by how instantly it happened. Yeah. We got to that secondary defensive take. Can't we just enjoy this? Of course,

BAM deserves it like 10 minutes after the game. And I understand all the fouling. He shot a crazy number of free throws versus what he usually issues. I understand all that. I understand the circumstances in which this happened. But just the the speed to which we got to that. take was very, very funny to me. Do you think that if it had not been Kobe Bryant that was in that position? Like, let's say it was Carmelo Anthony who had scored 81 points. Do you think it would have meant this much to people? Do you think people would have had that level of commentary?

I mean, Mello just would have been a totally different thing because he's his own lightning rod. Yeah. But it would have made more sense in a way that Mello scored 83 points. I think that would have fit into our ideas of like who's going to do this. Oh, I actually meant too that if Carmelo had been second in NBA history. Oh, if he'd been in the Kobe slot? Because I think the thing is, is that it activated, to me at least, it activated Kobe fans in a way that I almost miss it. It's like for a minute, I missed it.

I was like, oh man, look at y'all. Y'all's still out here. Kobe fans, man. I didn't know y'all was still out here, but y'all still holding on. and then it went into, you know, is it typically does with people that are very avid Kobe fans. It got a little bit ridiculous, I thought. So there was a version of this that happened when Cal Ripkin Jr. broke

Lou Gehrig's Iron Man streak. People argued. And I was, I was persuaded by this at the time. Now I'm, now I definitely do not care. But at the time, it was said,

hey, he should stop when he ties Lou Gehrig. Because Lou Gehrig broke his streak because he was getting sick. with the disease that would later kill him. Oh, man. And so, you know, there was this, there was, there was kind of an interesting moral argument. Cowrakewian wound up breaking the record. And I don't think, you know, many people spent too much time thinking about that afterwards.

But in this case, like Kobe had his career. Yeah. Right. Kobe, you know, Kobe is gone. But that, that, that's not the same argument at all. It's more like out of respect to Kobe, we should maintain his second place points in a game. record for all time. Yeah, that was this other thing that I, I, what was sort of fascinating to me, and we talked about it on tailgate yesterday. And I was like, you know, Van, because Van Lathen is a big Kobe fan, I was like, you know, 81 points wasn't the scoring record, right? Like, did you

remember, like, do you know, one? It was not number one. It was kind of famous. Yeah, right, just because you didn't see it. And it made me think about how little respect. And I don't know if that's just because of the speed of media or because like collective memory is not what it used to be. But the speed with which we forget about our former sports heroes or former sports feats is really sort of shocking to me a little bit. You know, like there's going to be a time I'm sure when people are going to be like, well, how great was Jesse Owens anyway? I didn't see him run at 200, you know?

You know, I could just see, I could imagine nobody. I didn't see him run it. What a nuclear take that would be. You know what I mean? but I can totally, I can, I just feel like there's less collective agreement on facts, period.

And you can just see it through the lens of this conversation. Is this like before, when anybody if it happened a real long time ago, people don't have a lot of respect for it. I also think the world's just moving really fast now. Yeah. And I got on ESPN's

homepage to look for something before noon Pacific time on Wednesday and Bam was not in top headlines anymore. Man, that's crazy. Syracuse firing their basketball coach was in top headlines because it was new and it was broken by an ESPN reporter, Pete Thammel. So it got priority up there. But if you just think of it like I am, let's just imagine, I am a sports fan.

I don't read social media. What's the news? Oh, somebody scored 83 points in an NBA game. That's below the fold. Because that's just the way news works now is there's a priority on what happened, whether it's as important or interesting as what happened 12 hours ago. Right. We just, we reload.

We reload so quickly. Or there was a random, you know, NFL signing. Like, oh, my God, look at this. Well, you know, to your point, I actually think, too, because, and I was, so I looked at looking up on the New York Times, which, of course, their sports section is, the athletic at this point. There were about a dozen Bamada bio pieces

and I just wonder if the way that we have to cover it this way is less awe and more I've got to generate an opinion is because that's, you know, there's not as many people reporting. There's not as many people

going out on beat coverage anymore. If you're going to talk about it, you've got to find something to say that you think will get people interested, right? Because don't people come to you at our job when I say, Brian, do you have anything to say about this? Sure. I'm like, I don't have anything to say.

I'm like, ask Joel. That's my question all the time. Yeah, yeah. I think Joel, though, you should take it yet? Yeah, right. Yeah. And it's like, I probably don't. So, yeah, or it was a tweet and that's it.

But so I feel like, you know, people have to say something about it. But that doesn't really give you anything to grasp onto, like opinions or what they are. Like, they don't. They're not supposed to be a standard test of time anymore. So somebody had a tweet about this account called Aid Andre. there's an interesting case study to be had about nothing in sports feeling legendary anymore. I don't think it's a nostalgia thing at all. I think it's a rise with social media and accessibility.

So we move on from everything immediately. And when you talk about the athletic, that's an interesting case study because part of the athletics plan is, thing happens, flood the zone. So when Bamatabio happens, they're just like, we need 12 pieces about us.

We're all over it. We're all over it. And whatever it is, it's a kind of really old-fashioned, newspaper mentality. The place is run by Steve Ginsburg, a veteran in the Washington Post. And it's like a, hey man, a thing happened. We just need, we need

some stuff on this. Yeah. We got to have some stuff. Let's go. We need pieces on this. Like that's a real thing. So you could probably point at the athletic is one of the places that is treating moments like this as a moment. Rather than, okay, it happened. We recorded

the podcast. Now what else happened? Did Wimby do something? Yeah. Interesting. Can we talk about who's going to win six man of the year and just moving on with the speed that everyone else moves. I should have gotten to Washington Post. I wonder, you know what? By the way, it's snowing here right now.

I don't know if you knew that. Oh, my God. Here and it just started snowing today. I need to be the 90s this week. Oh, well, that's horrible. I don't, I don't want that. But I want to, I should have gone to the, to the, to the store and gotten the Washington Post to see.

Because it happened here. What wires story they were in? The Wizards game. Yeah, right. What happened? Did that get covered as a piece of culture or not? I got to go check it out. Well, you wouldn't talk about the Washington Post right now since you brought it up. Okay, yeah, go for it. Because, man, those sports writers are getting scooped up.

Man, they really are. Former sports writers. There was a press release from a media company that actually contained good news the other day. ESPN, the press release read, is significantly strengthening its journalism operation with the hiring of six accomplished reporters from the Washington Post. Those reporters are Kent Babb, Kareem Copleand, Chuck Colpepper, Robert Klemko, Hi Robert.

Tom Shad, and last, but certainly not least, Ben Strauss. Hey, Strauss. Okay. They all have jobs at ESPN now. Good for them. Good for ESPN. This follows a press release, Joel, from the Athletic.

Okay. Which also hired six Washington Post sports staffers. Okay. including Adam Kilgore, Candace Buckner, and the paper sports editor Jason Murray. Interesting. Okay. They're all over at the athletic now. Okay.

Two things. One, those writers turned out to be pretty valuable, huh? Yeah, man. I mean, people were just like, hey, they're available. We should see what we can do about that. That is heartening. That makes me feel good, right? Like, they're people that still see the value and then,

and they're like, oh, we can do something with that. Like, we can make something happen. They're good enough that we should bring them in. And it's worth noting, number of Washington Post sports writers tried to get jobs when they saw where the sports section was headed, which is the dumpster. They tried to get jobs on the national desk of the post.

That's right. They were told we can't do that because we're just trying to get to a number here. So you weren't going around and saying, hey, who are our best reporters? How can we keep them? Even if we don't have a sports section, or at least a sports section is not,

just filled with wire copy. How do we keep them on the paper? How do we give them a different beat and allow them to use their reporting? They were not interested in that at all. They just cut the section. And now all these people got scooped up by other publications. Yeah, man. And I mean, I haven't heard all the news on it, but the Baltimore Banner folks

seem to be investigating bringing in some more folks. And I know the people have had some conversations with them. So that's that too is promising. And yeah, it's just like, you know, the Washington Postman, you could have had some of that yourself. Again, this, you know, without me, you know, proselytizing here, it's just if I was the richest, the second richest person in the world or third richest, I mean, I probably wouldn't get there because I would have this opinion about it, but I don't think I would ever lay anybody off. If I could just keep everybody employed, I'd see that thing.

I would never be a billionaire. Like I could never get there because of that approach. But like, I just felt like nobody should have to be unemployed. let alone people that are doing a really good job at a highly regarded news outlet, man. I mean, the Washington Post is taking enough hits, right? Like, sports is like one of the few things that they have. It's just like ostensibly non-political.

Yeah, had. You know, and it brings you like enough acclaim and attention that it seemed like it would have been worth it, but that's obviously not how it works. Do we want to talk real quickly about the other thing that happened on the night that BAM? Sure. dropped 83. So on the same night, big offseason used in the NFL. The Ravens announced they were backing out of a trade agreement that sent defensive end Max Crosby to Baltimore in exchange for two first round picks. Scuttle Butt being, the Ravens didn't like the looks of that physical because Crosby had had surgery in January on his left knee, 28 years old, two-time all pro, five-time pro bowler. Baltimore really could have used him. But now he's going back to the Raiders. He says he's a Raider. The Raiders say they're likely going to

or retain him. And then the Ravens did the very odd thing, but not even that eye, kind of shady, of signing the other highly touted defensive man on the market, Tray Henderson, to a four-year $112 million contract on Wednesday morning. So Brian, I don't know about you, but this is the way I go about things now. When I saw the first couple of posts about that canceled trade, I thought that these were like parody Twitter accounts. I just like, no, that's not actually happened. What did you think. Yeah, because the Raiders had this two-line statement. Right.

Weird letterhead. Weird font. Yeah. Everything was weird about it. Didn't look professional. It seemed fake. The BAM thing was happening at the same time. So it was like almost too much sports news.

Right. For all of us to handle. Also, the collective reaction, which was just like, whoa. Yeah. You know, when others, everybody's just saying, whoa on Twitter. I'm like, okay, can somebody just tweet out why this happened? I think Diana Rossini, the aforementioned was the first person I saw that was like, actually they're raven the same fail to physical.

See, man. And that's why they're backing out. But also, and as Rossini would later report, maybe they just got cold feet because they could go get Trey Hendrickson, who is not as good as Max Crosby, but didn't cost two number one draft picks. Right. And a very high draft pick.

When it's coming off knee surgery. And it's not coming off knee surgery. So it was just like, it was just a funny moment because it's also like, I get the whole Twitter, this has been part of Twitter since it started. Like we're all reacting to. together in real time.

It's the newsroom that none of us work in anymore. But everybody's saying, whoa, for like two hours is not super helpful. Right. Like there's an obvious why question to be answered here. Until we get the answer to why, you know, like, okay, let's, we can move to that as quickly as possible, please. Yeah. A notable exception was Jason Lockenfor, who I have not seen people talk about NFL front

office and quite the way that he did. He was really, oh, here it is. The Baltimore, this is a tweet from that night. The Baltimore Ravens ain't winning nothing with a fraud-ass front office. Team Prez is the worst GM in NFL history and the GM is overmatched and should have been fired before the coach. I think Newsom's GM family tree is filled with failures and his replacement is one of them. So that's not, that was not wow.

That was a tweet that actually, and I put it in one group chat, and the people in there went wow. That was, that's a wow. That really covered the waterfront too. Yeah, man. We still going after Ozzie Newsom. I mean, man, people, it's a follow up tweet. People scared to speak the truth in this town. Ozzie Newsom handed this egomaniac, a 14-win roster, and he did shit with it, but run it down, ignore pass rush, believe his own bullshit, and sign the wrong guys.

Good luck with Rookie. She's in this. Man, Jason, bro. I mean, athletic, man. I don't know what Jason's doing. Because I don't think he's working in sports media anymore. But that was a very, it seems to be a very informed take. And a very hot one, so to speak.

So I would like to hear more sports coverage like that, to be honest. There you go. It looks like he's writing for sports boom. Sportsboom.com is the thing there. Before we go, it's Oscar wig, Joel. Oh, man. And this ceremony will mark a certain anniversary. It has been 10 years since the movie Spotlight won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Yeah. That's a thing that happened 10 years ago. Man. Outside of reporter types, spotlight is, I think spotlight, let me think about how to phrase this. I don't think that spotlight has been forgotten so much. Yeah. The fact that spotlight was best picture might have been forgotten

or kind of faded into the Bam Otobio memory zone. I put it on this morning and I was struck by a couple things. Okay. One is the actors really dressed like reporters. It did. There were a lot of chinos and buttoned down shirts. and in one case, a button-down shirt with short sleeves. Like, that's something that you would probably see in a newsroom around that period.

I love the way the actors who were playing Globe reporters were fending off their own colleagues when they asked what they were working on. Oh, yeah. You guys are working on a big piece about the Catholic Church? No, we're not doing it. Which is a newsroom thing. It is. Mark Ruffalo had a great line to his editor, Michael Keaton. He said, shouldn't you be golfing?

and Keaton said, golfing is not a verb. Which is some real high-level newsroom pedantry. Yeah, right, there you go. I've become that guy around the house

just much to my chagrin where I'm correcting pronunciations all the time. I'm like, you know, actually it's pronounced him. That's a much better place to be than correcting his son for having his finger

and his nose all the time, I'll just say. Some really great performances, too. Leav Schreiber is Marty Barron. Can I, when I picture Marty Barron and my head, Lee Schreiber.

I don't know. How could you not? How could you not? Yeah. Like one was on the silver screen and one is on podcast talking about the death of the Washington Post. I've seen Marty Barron before. I'm certain I've been in the same room with him before, but it's always,

Marty Barron is Lee Schreiber as far as I'm concerned. So, yeah. Michael Keaton is Robbie Robinson. Yeah. Mark Ruffalo, unbelievably jittery, forgetting to eat. His microzendies. Yep. John Slattery is very good and crusty.

What was also striking about rewatching this movie was they were making this movie as newspapers were shrinking. In fact, had shrunk by that time. We're losing even more of their grip on the American populace. But also they made a movie in 2015 that got an Oscar for Best Picture in 2016 that presented reporters. in a fairly straightforwardly heroic light. Yeah. Would you make, would you see a mainstream movie today

that portrayed reporters in such a way? And if you did, would it win an Oscar for Best Picture? I don't, so I think there's a couple of ways to answer that. I don't think it would be about a news organization. But there's always a trope, or there's always a place for like the industrious reporter

trying to break a big story in the news, right? in a in a fictional story or any story, you know, like there's always a place for that kind of a person. I don't know that anybody would build it around the Boston Globe's heroic reporting on the local Catholic church, right? But yeah, I mean, I think that like it's possible that a heroic journalist or ambitious journalist might get that sort of treatment, don't you think? You tell it, like a substacker? Who are we talking about here? Yeah, like I'm just trying to think who would they make a movie about it. Like somebody, you know, I mean, the obvious thing that comes to mind, and I was going to pivot to this in a second, somebody that's covering war, you know, somebody that's covering a war reporter that's embedded with the military, something like that and, you know, trying to report on something or somebody done wrong in the past and, you know, family's trying to get some money out of the government because somebody was, you know, treated unfairly by government or whatever. see them building a movie around that. I just don't know if people would do it about a whole

organization because I just don't think that people love us that much. I mean, look at that trust and media number from the Gallup poll last October. Right. 28%. Yeah. And, you know, again, this is the sexual abuse in the church is its own subject. You know, maybe if such a movie came out today, you would not have half of America saying like, this is wrong. Why are you? valorizing these people, maybe that would still be in a zone where you could kind of get something like complete buy-in. But it's just, it's funny to see reporters being treated in such a manner, being portrayed in such a manner. Yeah. You know, the movie doesn't have a lot of stand on the table, Humphrey Bogarton Deadline USA kind of, you know, triumphant moments. It's about work, hard work,

convincing people to talk, you know, doing that great thing. Remember what they do where they go down to the basement and they're cross-referencing. Oh, yeah. the priests were sent when they're on leave. Yep. Yeah. And how they're sent all over the place and all that stuff. You know, little moments like that that are just so cool. But yeah, it's funny just to me to think about thinking about a reporter that way,

at least in terms of the mainstream media. I think even if people see it in a movie that way that they don't connect it to the media. Because it's interesting because especially now. And I've seen people say things about the media and their role. in building consent for the war or whatever or allegedly building consent for the war. I don't think people think of the media in quite that way, like, it's an organ

that it's actually attached to. They think of the media is just sort of a diffuse, abstract, bunch of tweets coming at them. And so that's media to people. They don't think of the newsroom. They don't think of a local broadcaster. They don't think of the high school reporter

that is, you know, coming up to their kid after a game and asking them about the game winning shot he hit or anything. or she hit. I don't think they think of the media that way. Now, they,

people are, the media is more of a villain. And today's, or just, because they don't really engage in media. Right? Or just like a, like a Twitter feed to them.

Yeah. Like here's the stuff. It's stuff I swipe through on Instagram. I agree. I completely agree. Yeah, but the sad thing is, though, is that if they were looking for heroes,

if they wanted, if somebody did want to do a movie about that, I mean, there would never be a better time. Last year was the deadliest year for journalists. in recent memory. Like people, all the journalists that were killed in

Gaza, they were also killed in Mexico, India, Philippines. Like, it was one of the deadliest years for reporters anywhere. There's people that are reporting in places that are so dangerous that nobody else is going in there. And they're trying to get stories and tell the stories of people that are being

bombed, hurt, starved, whatever. And so there is a role. There is a way that, like, we can valorize those reporters and tell those kind of stories. I just wonder if people are actually interested in. Completely agree. Anything else to get to before we get out of here?

Well, I did have a brief J-school. No, please. Really been talked about J-school in a little bit? We haven't. Let's do it. Okay. So I thought it was sort of important to circle back and talk a little bit about our interview last week with minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries.

Because we almost never do this. And, of course, I had like enough anxiety going into the conversation. And I'll just go ahead and say here what Van told me the day before we interviewed Hakeen Jeffries. He said, well, don't cuck out. Okay. And then I saw enough... What a pep talk. What a pep talk, yeah. Good friend he is.

And then saw enough follow-up comments that I thought it merited some brief reflection here. And I just, there were a few things, you know, I saw, and I'm not going to quote everybody because everybody I don't think, you know, was necessarily being kind. A lot of people were, but not everybody was. We hear a few things.

Would have liked to see you press Apex Shakur more. Could only listen to two-thirds the guy as a classic politician. Those things on along that way. Brian, what did you think about the conversation when you circled back and you had a little time to reflect? Well, he is a classic politician in point of fact. He's going to be the next speaker of the house. So I think that title fits. I mean, if it's, if it's, if it's, if it's.

it's useful to say how we approach these things. Yes. I think you can spell it out pretty simply. They're interviews. Some people say, well, this isn't an interview. It's a conversation. Ours is an interview. It's not, it's not, it might also be a conversation, but it's an interview.

It's not a hang. Right. It's not something where, you know, we're making a friend and we're seeing if we can all bro out together. That's, that's not what it is. It's an interview. Yeah. And we get to ask whatever we want in the interview.

There were no restrictions. No people may not believe it, but they were like, he's not. Nor have there ever been and nor will there ever be on these interviews or we won't do them. That's right. So that's, that's, you know, to me, that's that if that needs to be said, that needs to be said. We, you and I work on the questions in advance. We talk to each other a lot about what we're going to ask. And we just try to ask the best and most interesting questions we can.

Yeah. Yeah. think that like, and you stop me if I'm saying anything wrong here, we try to do a fairly broad range of questions, right? Because this is a person that answers a lot of these questions about Iran, about Gaza, about the Democrats messaging. Those are questions that he's asked a lot. So we're thinking of ways to ask, ask him that maybe he's not considered before. But also, we want to, by the way, a very normal journalistic thing. Nobody comes in there. I'm going to ask you the questions that everyone has already asked you.

The exact same thing to everybody. Yeah, right. And please give us the same answer, right? And also, we're, you know, we did want to ask him some things that he probably will never be asked on me. This is still like a fun sports media podcast, right? And so we wanted to treat him. Media, media podcast, yeah. Yeah, media, yeah.

Yeah, well, you know, yeah. But we're going to ask him about sports questions in a way that not, you know, I guess Anderson Cooper probably will never get around to ask him to start bench cut. his favorite 80s players in St. John's, right? But I think that, like, sometimes you can just be interesting and humanizes people in a way that you're not ordinarily going to get. And so, you know, I don't think, and you tell me, I don't think we missed any questions, but I'd be lying if I say, I thought everything went perfectly. And I'll just in reflecting that. But that's never happened with anybody. I've never gone out. But wow, that was a hundred out of a hundred. Yeah, right. Like I, it's also very normal. Very normal. Yeah. I'm,

Yeah, I mean, actually, I'm probably my own worst critic on this stuff, right? I'm in my head all the time. It sounds like a therapy session, and you and I did a version of this on text after we did. I'm always in my own head, right? So you don't, nobody wants to be in there because it's just a scary place. But if people wanted to know, and I'll be honest with our listeners, just because I think, I probably would have found a more elegant way of asking about his relationship with APEC. I didn't get around to it because I was like, I've already asked, we've already

asked him about Gaza. We asked him a follow-up about it. How many more times, in America's relationship with Israel, how many more times, you know what I mean? Like, I didn't see the value and pressing him on that.

And I thought about, you know, hey, maybe I should ask him about the way people feel about him in general because, you know, people will reach out to him. He's not, you know, they'll say whatever that he's maybe like sort of a low-wadage politician.

He's very stable, very calm, you know, whatever. And if I had had some data or something more precise that I thought would have been a fair question, I probably would have asked them about, well, what do you think about the way people think about you out here? Like what things will say about you, that whether you're not up for the challenge or whatever. But I just didn't come up with a way that I would have wanted to word it that made sense and that wouldn't have slowed things up. Does that make sense? Sure.

I mean, I don't know, man. I always go into these things and say, we're going to ask questions we want to know the answers to. I mean, that's the guiding principle here. And that sounds like really stupid. But like it's, isn't that what, then how interviews go? Yeah. That's what you're supposed to do. Yeah. That's right. Not the questions you think you have to ask, but the questions you want the answers to. And by the way, we have a lot of time with these people. This is not a four minute hit on cable news. So there's lots of things we want to know about different subjects. People say that we're getting very political, right? And here's the thing.

that I would say about that. Bro, we're going into the midterms. The world is political right now. Okay, this is a very important time. Is Iran war political? Yeah, I don't, well, I mean, we don't want to. In the Epstein files political? You don't want to be too partisan about that, Brian.

I mean, that's not fair to people that we want to side with pedophiles. But I think the important thing is that if people want to come here and talk with us, we'd be silly to not do that and to not seek out people that we think that people might want to hear from or they may be able to say something to our audience in a way that maybe they've not said anywhere. else. We'd be silly to not do that. We're not going to get it right every time, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep trying, and we're damn sure not going to keep going to start trying. So I hope you guys will hang in with this as we bring going in everybody from the Democratic

congressional membership over the next year. Literally, everybody. That's right. Yeah. I was watching the state of the union with the buddy. And we were, you know, the members of Congress are walking in. And we got to that tier. we were like, I don't know who that is. Yeah. You know, and I don't know if these guys were in it, but like Steve Danes from Montana who just announced.

Oh, man. Yeah. That he was that he was not running for, for re-election and that kind of very funny little thing. Also, John Houston from Ohio, who I saw a little clip from the other day. He got a, he got to run on a clip. Oh, okay.

On Twitter, I'm like, I didn't know. I'm sorry, I would not have recognized that gentleman. Not heard of him. What about Al Green? I'm kind of, I'm kind of, Al Green. I'm kind of, Al Green has gotten some attention.

I'll get some Al Green on here. You get thrown out of the State of the Union twice? I was saying, hey, man, he's from Houston. So, you know, I got some questions for him if he ever wants to show him. There we go. There we go. I hope you're going to be working on that. He's Joel Anderson.

I'm Brian Curtis. Productions magic by Isaiah Blakely and Bruce Baldwin. Coming up on the press box, Shoemaker's back next week. Anderson's back next week. There will be more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then, Joel. Looking forward to me.