The Press Box - The Washington Post Blues, the FS1 Lawsuit, and a Ringside Report From 'Raw' on Netflix

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Hello media consumers, Bryan and David kick off the show with a recap of WWE’s debut on Netflix. Bryan, who was in attendance, takes you ringside and shares his observations (0:37). Then they discuss the Washington Post losing its mojo, with more staff members leaving (14:30). Later, they discuss the life and legacy of the late Aaron Brown (30:11), whether Aaron Rodgers could have a future in television (33:44), the new magazine called ‘Metrograph’ (40:11), the Fox Sports lawsuit (42:48), and more. Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? It's Austin Rivers here and we are back for another season of OffGar. Me and my guy, Pasha Giggy, are hitting your podcast feeds every Monday and Thursday talking everything hoops. Austin is bringing that 11-year NBA veteran perspective and of course keeping you guys entertained throughout the season. Make sure you tap into OffGard with Austin Rivers on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to follow everything we've got going on social media. The OffGar podcast, Ringer NBA, and of course check us out on Ringer NBA's YouTube channel. we're getting better we're getting better.

Damn it! Yeah. Happy New Year, my friend. Happy New Year to you too. I feel like we were talking just the other day. But yeah, it's a wonderful. Every time I type in the 25 at the end of my file names

for these audio files, I feel like what the hell is, where is time gone? Does that ever get old? just the goggling at the fact that you have to change the date no I feel like it gets more I feel like just things like like dates are just like weather

they get to more interesting the older we get as we're just spending our time staring out windows it's true I always think of that as a vestige of the time when we had to write checks like it's 2025 already whoa now let me write out the number in word form

it's true years are more the passage of time is more exciting as a child right because you got birthdays and holidays look forward to now it's just like this this overbearing wistfulness just where is time gone let me rescue us from this abyss no no i want to keep go okay go ahead we got to talk about the crossover of two of our favorite subjects mm-hmm the media and professional wrestling wow okay this could go in a lot of directions but let's try it all right david uh i have a theory of politics no i'm just kidding I went to the debut last night of the WWE's Raw, or Monday Night Raw, as it's sometimes still called, on Netflix. I'm going to leave the textual analysis of the show to the masked man and his friends over at the Ringer Wrestling show. Yeah. But I've got a few impressions from being there in person that I'd like to share with you. Go ahead.

First of all, took the family to Disneyland yesterday because my kids were off. and it was kind of my wife and I's present to the kids for Christmas. We're all going to Disneyland. And then I took an Uber from Disneyland to wrestling. Mm-hmm. What a content day that was for me. Let me tell you. Did you tell the Uber driver where you were going?

Was he? He knew he was sort of up on wrestling somehow. They all do, yeah. They're totally into it. Every taxi I've ever taken, every Uber ever taken. when I'm flying out for a wrestling event, when I get hit down, they're just like,

where are you here for? I'm like, that wrestling thing? I'm like, yeah, expecting indignation. They're just like, yeah,

is stone cold still around? Yeah, yeah, is that? You know, there's always some, always of some memory buried deep down. References are a tad dated, perhaps,

but everybody watched wrestling at some point or another. Never been to the Intuit Dome before. How was it? That was an unbelievable facility. Again, I don't get romantic. about stadiums all that much, but just felt like the seats were going straight up. And when Triple H came out to start the show, I've been in sports stadiums.

I've heard big cheers or pops, as they say, in the wrestling business. I don't know how many I've heard louder than that stadium when that show started at 5 o'clock. Was it like that all night, though? Is it like just the stadium was built for noise? It tapered off a little bit. But just those first few moments, it almost felt like we were in a Dune movie in the Harkinan Homeland in some giant stadium where everybody's gathered together to make decisions. I mean, it was just crazy.

Got a ringside media roll call for you. Oh, I saw some of this on TV, but I'm excited to hear the full rundown here. You certainly saw Bill Simmons sitting over by the announced table. Bill getting that great heel heat when he got when he popped. up on TV. You should by showing the Celtics logo, great bit, great gimmick. I appreciate him separately, though, from his, from when he was actually being formally introduced, when he was like sort of sitting next to the war raiders, these like, you know, biker Viking guys, they were just sort of like crammed into a seat as like other wrestler, various wrestlers were being introduced. Bill was sort of

on the side next to, you know, the bell, whichever Bella it was that was there. I apologize. guys, you know, there's a lot of great bill in the background moments. A lot of reaction shots. He was kind of reaction shot guy all night. I saw Kay Adams of Up and Adams at Ringside. Yeah, that was her first wrestling event, according to her numerous tweets on the subject, yeah. Saw Chris Manix. Ringside.

That was a little bit of surprise. Both McCauley and Kieran Culkin. Oh, Kieran made it. I saw him. He wasn't on TV. And he's kind of the closet wrestling fan. So I saw him talking to Stephanie McMahon. Yeah.

About four rows in front of me for some portion of the evening. Mm-hmm. And what do you think they were talking about? I think Kieran turned to her and goes, hey, so the whole subject of succession, huh? Yeah. No, when we interviewed Vince for the documentary, we asked him about succession.

I don't think it made it in. And he was just like, what people keep telling me I have to watch this show. I guess I was someday, he hasn't like watched you know fiction show he doesn't watch much TV you know he's like people keep telling me have to watch it I don't understand why

maybe he had a chance to catch up last couple of months I'm sure I'm sure the rest of the McMahon family has watched it cringingly numerous times and this was the big surprise ringside at least media wise Woge was it Monday Night Rawl last night really? Woge made it out

I'm sitting there and I'm looking over and I'm like is that Adrian Wode Durrowski and he's gear not media anymore I guess

what is it is the same body is the St. Bonnie's position bring him to Monday Night Raw

what is he is he still LA based ambassadorial functions I don't think he was ever LA based I mean sorry

yeah is he LA based you're right or not recently no no no he's uh you know working back east

but he's a man of the world now yeah seeing him out and about at wrestling stuff mentioned Triple H. We got to talk about Hulk Hogan. Speaking of just existing on the precipice between media, politics, wrestling, and everything else.

Hulk Hogan was introduced as one of the many legends to come out last night and give the crowd a nice, warm, nostalgic feeling. Just one problem. The crowd went crazy and booed Hulk Hogan as soon as he came out. They sure did. So, David, in the last six months, Hulk Hogan has been cheered at the. Republican National Convention and booed out of a wrestling arena. Mm-hmm. Can you explain that culturally?

Well, okay, so, I mean, Hulk Hogan's, Hulk Hogan's got a lot of baggage at this point, right? I mean, I don't know how explicit or deep we want to go here, but obviously, for a lot of fans, you know, he was sort of removed from the WWE goings-on after the tape and more importantly after like the inward portion of it leaked um and it's sort of been used only you know here and there uh since then i don't think that we talked about this on on on ringer wrestling worldwide which is probably already up as you're listening to this you can check some of that out but i think on some level Hulk Hogan is is is

well, I mean, I think he's, like, widely booed and on some level disliked by a lot of wrestling fans and that sort of on a personal level. And I don't think it's necessarily politics. I think there's a lot of stuff going on there. And I think that's fine. I also think he's sort of going through a lot of some to some degree, like the, the more real life version of what John Sina and Roman Raines after him have already gone through, which is just like, it's okay to be there. But as soon as I feel like you're like being shoved down our throats, then we're going to react negatively, right? And Hogan seemed to kind of be doing okay until he was like,

I know you guys will never turn your back on me. And then you're sort of asking something of the fans. And the fans are like, you want my reaction? You can, you know, I was happy to be like, you know,

mostly polite here. But if you're asking for it. And the selling the beer thing, I don't have any problem with him selling his beer. I'm sure I'll make a billion dollars with the real American beer. But like, you know, it's like,

well, I'm sure there's some people who are like, well, now you want to come back, just to hawk this beer, like whatever. They don't know the ends the outs of it. I don't know. That was, that was pretty bad. Also, him thanking Netflix. We got

a lot of famous people thanking Netflix from the ring. And I'm, I could just feel the Netflix executives being like, uh, that's okay. Yeah, we don't need that. Thank you. We're now, we're now done with the thank you's. Also, just general note for Hulk Hogan. I'm a big fan of the mouth of the South Jimmy Hart going back to his days in Memphis. I've talked to him numerous times in person. He's always wonderful and entertaining. Nobody likes the version of Hulk Hogan that has Jimmy Hart coming out as his manager. It is never, it is like, it is just, it is, it is both like in actuality and in metaphor, the most just deplorable version of Hulk Hogan.

He was waving an American flag. Yeah. I'm just like, do you think this might be a little fraught? Yeah. Right now, given the holsters politics. What a weird moment that was. Yeah. Lastly for you, I went to the press conferences.

Oh. after the wrestling matches last night because now in the new WWE, they have press conferences, just like they have after a big football game or basketball game. And I'm sitting in there with our friend and the ringer legend Ben Cruz, who was asking questions.

One of the PR guys came up to me and said, do you want to ask a question to any of the wrestlers? I said, no, I'm going to leave this to the professionals. Yeah, of course. Smart move. I was fascinated by how the press conference was kind of revealing the wrestling is not real.

Kind of not. Yeah. Thank you. Use the word. I've told the story before, but I was there when they were shooting the pilot. I was helping out

when they were shooting the pilot for WW backstage, the obviously now defunct Fox Sports like studio show about wrestling, which they launched when they got Smackdown five years ago. And the discussions

about how to tow that line were incredibly bizarre and interesting. it's it is it's kind of worked itself out into a into a functional i don't know for a language at this point um everybody seemed to know the rules journalists included yeah because they would ask about making matches like do you think you're going to be fighting this guy and the wrestler would answer both in the kind of wrestler way like oh i'll take on all comers brother yeah but also like hey that's kind of up to the powers that be

who run this thing which is both true in saying this is the people that tell the stories it's also would be true in the UFC we're like no we have matchmakers

that arrange these things you know the big difference there is I guess in WWU you don't call somebody out with the hopes that you're going to get the matchmaker's ear

because that would be going sort of off script yeah it's a I mean but obviously that's happened before too look at Cody Rhodes last year he sort of forced his way in the main event

by hooker by crook But yeah, I mean, it is, it is interesting. I mean, you listen to when we have wrestlers on the podcast. Also, five years ago, wrestlers didn't know how to act most of the time, right? You'd just be like, every interview was like, am I supposed to be, like, you would there be like a pause, like five minutes and like, am I supposed to be talking for real now or in character? I mean, I have wrestlers that have refused to get out of character over the years that have never recovered in my estimation because it just seems so bizarre and unnecessary. I mean, listen, exceptions are made for wrestlers over the age of six. you know, they're just living the life of the character, but you know what I mean.

But they sort of have it figured out now, you know? It's like, it's like, you know, when I showed my five-year-old, it's now six-year-old, the Spider-verse movie for the first time, I was like, he's not going to understand this, because he watches Spidey and his amazing friends. And this is like a totally different version of all of these characters. And he watched it with like no, he had no difficulty processing the multiverse concept, at least to whatever degree at all. I feel like this younger generation of talent and just the world that we're in now,

it's like these conversations can just be had in this weird like half truth way or half real way. And somehow it doesn't, like everything doesn't crumble down. Yeah. It's almost like, you know, the key to understanding American life is professional wrestling. Oh, wait, we actually wrote the think piece. But it does say something about the way I think Nick Conn and company have dragged the WWE into this cultural space that's similar to where it was, but also different. Yeah.

Where you acknowledge some things, you don't acknowledge some things, but you make it, and this goes to your point about doing those interviews, comfortable for everybody. Where everybody's in a happy space, everybody's, everybody's in a place, and you can throw an event last night that feels like something, like it just, you know, the main event of American culture on a particular night.

Yeah, for sure. All right, David, coming up on the press box, Wapo is losing more of its mojo. We tried to say something about the FS1 lawsuit. Does Aaron Rogers have a career in non-vaccine television? And the Hall of Departed Journalists gets a new member. All that and much more on the press box.

A part of the ringer podcast network. Media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker and producer Brian Waters. Back with you in 2025. David, on Friday, the Washington Post lost another journalist. Yeah. This time it was the editorial cartoonist. We're now down to that level of Washington Post departure. Anne Telness had been at the paper for more than 15 years.

She submitted a cartoon, she wrote on her substack, about various media executives kissing the ring of Donald Trump. Basically, she took the opening segment of the press box, nine shows in a row and made it into a cartoon. she put the draft of the cartoon on substack and it showed Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman and Jeff Bezos and Mickey Mouse which I suppose is Bob Eiger in this case all sort of kneeling before Donald Trump turns out that the cartoon was killed

and Ann Telda says look you know as an editorial cartoonist there's lots of editing that I go through yeah where an editor says are we sure that's clear what are you trying to say here, but she wrote, I never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. David Shipley, the opinions editor of the post, push back on that and saying, no, no, no, this was not because of the point of view. It was because we've had one column about this very issue. We're going to have another column about this issue.

The only bias was against repetition, he said in a statement. it turns out David Antelnis is not the only person leaving the Washington Post I want you to listen to this list of Wojbombs Oh yeah Josh Dossy

leaving the post and returning to the Wall Street Journal Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer going to the Atlantic to join former posty Shane Harris Tyler Pager who broke a bunch of Joe Biden scoops over the last year and change going to the New York

Times because God knows they needed another top flight political reporter. Editor Matea Gold wanted to be executive editor of the paper. Didn't get that job. She's going to the Times as well. And the press box's very own Leanne Caldwell is going to puck. I also saw Chuck Lane's name on some of these lists because he's going to the free press. You know, when we do the, when we do the trend story, we don't have to use every data point.

I know he was in shattered glass, but anyway, we continue. All this comes at a time, David, when, of course, owner Jeff Bezos stopped that endorsement of Kamala Harris at a very late hour. The Post lost over 300,000 subscribers between that moment in Election Day, David Fulkin Flick reported. And then Will Lewis, who was the semi-embattled publisher of the paper, went looking for an executive editor, apparently got turned down by a number of candidates, and wound up choosing Matt Murray, whom nobody regards as a. particularly exciting choice. So that's a long windup, but my question to you is, what do we call this moment in for the Washington Post? Is this a malaise?

Oh, you mean like, how do we just, for the, for the institution of the Washington Post? Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't. Malays might be the right one, although it just seems a little bit ambiguous. us. I mean, this really just kind of feels like, like, so many newspapers over so many journalistic outlets in general, but newspapers in particular over the span of us doing this podcast have, have done staff buyouts, have reduced the workforce or whatever. And it is, and we've rightfully discussed it as a terrible thing for the business and for the human beings caught up

in it, right? Because there's only so many jobs out there. It feels like the Washington Post is the sort of, I don't know if it's the last bastion. The New York Times is probably the Wall Street Journal. There's probably some, you know, all these are, I mean, the, the big name employees there are sort of in a, or in a very different position than the, you know, employees of the, whatever, the Topeka, Kansas paper, they get shut down or whatever, you know, I mean, they're not just going, there's opportunities out there for them. And I think that, but with what the, with what the post has been going through,

over the past, well, several years, but specifically, you know, through the election time, I think that there was a lot of people that just said, I'm going to get out before, you know, someone forces me out or I'm going to get out because I'm given the opportunity to, or, or, I'm not going to wait around and just see what the future of this paper looks like. And, and it is in some ways a very different situation than some of the staff exodus and layoffs that we've seen before. Because people, like the ones you've mentioned, have opportunities, you know? I mean, and a lot of them were hired at the Washington Post at the peak of their, you know, going into the peak of their powers, you know, as a very incredibly successful journalist.

And a lot of them have been nurtured there and grown into better things there. And if you're running an establishment that doesn't seem to value that, then, you know, it makes sense that you would be eyeing other opportunities. Yeah. Do we think they don't value that or do we think these are just people looking around going, I'm just not sure where this thing is going? Yeah. I mean, I think that the sort of, you know, all, I guess it all just sort of is personified by, you know, Jeff Bezos's decision not to run the endorsement and endorsement during the election.

I mean, I think that, that, you know, there's a lot of you can use that as something to point to and say, look, and I can't just, I can't just be, we're not going to be run independently. I can't count on anything. But yeah, I mean, I think everybody in media is kind of looking at what the next thing is. And if some of these other opportunities are coming with broader opportunities, you know, the Atlantic's going to give you a podcast or say, you know, whatever. And I'm sure there's other things. Lots of money or just lots of money, right? No, I think.

Yeah, certainly the lots of money thing matters, you know. And also the other, the peripheral opportunities that come with the stuff going on the news networks and talking and, you know, being contributors, all that kind of, you know, all that stuff is still available to you if you work at the Atlantic. You know, I mean, it always was. I think even more so. I don't think it's just, I think that the news networks are looking for people that pop on screen more so than just the, the,

the Mastead that you're, that you're, you know, reporting in front of. And yeah, I just think, I think people are, yeah,

looking around, just seeing what, what is the future going to look like? Well, I don't know, but I know that there's a bag waiting for me right here. You mentioned job cuts. Could have added that to the list too,

because apparently they post cut four percent of its staff today before we went on the air. what Axios describes as impacting the fewer than 100 roles across business functions. So anyway, there's that too, just in terms of having jobs and future layoffs and that kind of thing. If anybody has looked at the changes to the paper or the direction the paper is going in, editorially speaking, I could not blame them for being a little confused and perhaps a little worried. because you and I have talked, I don't know, half a dozen times now about the kind of things that Will Lewis wants to do to the paper, this third newsroom that he has created there. You know, Dylan Byers over at Puck, who I think is probably given, let us say, the fairest

hearing to Will Lewis and that whole reinventing the post. Yeah. Through tough love. For sure. If anybody is now looking, you know, when he writes about now, it's like, we don't know what, I don't know what this is, right? I don't know what this grand scheme to reinvent everything is anymore. So I think you can totally look at that if you're one of these people.

When we're talking about the Atlantic, there's probably some interest there because you can write in a different way than you can write at the Washington Post. If you're going to the journal of the Times, you're probably largely duplicating what you're doing. That's a good point. Yeah, you can write, right, yeah. But at the Atlantic, yeah. And so maybe that leads you to books and other things. I think Josh Dossy's working on a book already.

But for some people, that may be an opportunity. I don't know. It's, it's interesting to look at a big institution like this in a moment like this, because this is where we always hasten to add. There are lots of good people at the Washington Post doing lots of good work. And you can lose this small group and still have a paper that I think a lot of people would look at and be like, well, that's really good. There's lots of really good stuff in that newspaper. You know, and when I always come to this sort of moment whenever I'm reading a juicy media story and I'm like, okay, this is for the reporters in the audience, everything we just said. Yeah. Now for the regular people in the audience who just like to read news and may consider subscribing to the post, will they notice that those bylines are gone? You know, to say nothing bad about any of those people, just the opposite. But are they going to be like, okay, Josh Dossie left. I'm out. I'm not interested in the Washington Post journalism.

Well, I think that's the question. I think that there's, I mean, listen, there's obviously going to be interest in voice-driven newsletter content that's like subject-specific. You know, the Washington Post should be outlets like that. Just like we said, the New York Times should have owned podcasts before they spent all the money trying to retroactively get into the business or whatever. It's the same thing with newsletters too, right? I mean, they should own, the Washington Post should own every newsletter that people

care about in politics and even in culture and everything like that, them or the New York Times, like they could be doing that. But if you're asking about like the daily update newsletter, like the email you get in your inbox the beginning of every day, no, people absolutely don't care about the content because, but what you're talking about is you're creating a new, a new version of the Washington Post, which is, you know, like 12 to 24 paragraphs, you know, with two bylines or whatever. And that, because that's all that people are going to read, you know, They don't care about who's doing it, but there's this compressed news feed with hyperlinks that probably rarely get clicked on. I mean, that's not news.

That's just like, you know, that's headlines. And, and, you know, does it matter? I mean, I guess it can serve as a way in. I mean, that's the hopeful thing. But I don't think that. It matters. I mean, the sense you want the paper to be as good as it can be. And if you lose good people, you know, obviously the paper, at least in the short term, isn't as good as it can be.

But I just am always fascinated by the idea of normal people looking at this. I mean, hell, you and I, you know, I mean, I know that the Wall Street Journal right now under Emma Tucker is considered the hot paper versus the Washington Post under Will Lewis because I keep reading people saying that the Wall Street Journal under Emma Tucker is the hot paper to some extent. Like I don't keep a tote board here at Pressbox headquarters. Yes, exactly. Well, you've been kind of owning that.

I can intuit that. can figure that out if I really try. But then I'm like, the people at home are just like, I want to read news about politics. I want to read the kind of stories of Washington Post. I'm always fascinated by that. How much of that perception leaks in to people outside of the media sphere. Yeah, I'm not sure that people really care. I mean, I think, I think that there is a general feel like tote board vibe out there in the world. I think he'll be making jokes about the Washington Post losing staffers without actually knowing who the people are who left, you know,

but I'm not sure that it, that it really matters that much. I mean, I think that's the gambit that the, Washington Post is making now, you know, it's just like, yeah,

we'll be fine without them. We'll create new stars. Well, you know, we can, we can just churn this stuff out. That's what they're telling themselves anyway. I'm sure they're wanting those people to actually leave.

But yeah. And by the way, stars, have I had done this rant to you before? Yeah, well, they're not stars. Yes.

I mean, like, this is the thing. Every time we do, this think piece, it's always like, oh, they lose these stars. Like, folks, when I think of a star, let's say in the movie context, I think of somebody that makes you buy a ticket to the movie. So if Timothy Shalomey is a star, that means like, oh, Timothy Shalameh's in it, I will

buy a ticket. There are a vanishingly small number of journalists who make you buy a ticket to anything. That's a good point. Especially newspaper journalists. Like, if you tell me Maggie Haberman sells newspapers, I believe you. I believe that. how many other people who are reporters, again, not columnists, not voicing people, but like reporters who sell newspapers on their own.

And again, there's conversion data out there. So that's probably a knowable thing to some extent. But I think that's actually a verily small number of people. Yeah. And when we talk about the post, is there a point where the post would lose a ton of talent and hit this point where even to just non-media professionals, it was you could look at and be like,

this just isn't what I want anymore. This isn't something I want to pay for. Yes. I think that is a long, long, long way to go. I think like even if the post didn't add a single person, we would look at that paper and be like, oh, it's good. There's some smart politics stories in here, good coverage, there's scoops in here.

All of that kind of stuff. That's why I keep coming back to the whatever malaise or whatever the right word is. Because this has happened, we should note before in post history too. It was like now almost two decades ago when I remember, Mark Leibovic and that whole crew left. I think Marcus Broccoli became editor shortly after that. And it was his whole idea of like, oh, that's not the hot place to be anymore. The people who are postees are now going over to the times, a lot of them that have choices.

Because it just feels like, oh, you know, I don't want to be here anymore. Yeah. It's just a funny thing to think about. And it feels like it's partly real. It feels like it's partly perception. and I don't know, just all kind of in that weird sort of, sort of, I don't know,

stew of how we think about the media from inside and outside. All right, David, it is time for the first time in 2025 for the overworked Twitter joke of the week, where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time, send your nominees to at the press box pod

on Twitter or BluFourke. sky where they are always, always gratefully received. I know you saw this Daily Mail U.S. tweet from December 29, David. Texas cheerleader, age 17, is charged with animal cruelty for, quote, poisoning her rivals show goat. Poisoning her rivals show goat. It was an overworked Twitter joke to write Tanya Herding. Tanya Hurting.

If you've seen a showgoat or two in your time in Texas or anywhere else, you've made the overwork Twitter joke of the week. All right, a couple quick things for you before we go. The Hall of Departed Journalist, David. He's added a new member, and this is a person whose career you know well, TV news anchor Aaron Brown

died on December 29th. Aaron Brown was 76 years old. Interested to read his Times obit. Briefly attended the University of Minnesota before dropping out to join the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. I don't know if it was the fact that Aaron Brown wore glasses, but Aaron Brown just came off as a very like well, well-educated, well-read type of television news anchor.

I just love that perception. I would have told you, I don't know, maybe we went to talk. Harvard. Yeah. He was a big time anchor in Seattle. And then he went to ABC News, which is when I was an intern at Nightline, I first saw Aaron Brown because he was one of the backup anchors to Ted Cople.

Oh, yeah. And he felt just like in TV newsland that he was that guy. Okay, this is that guy. He'll be the kind of smart, interesting guy who'll come in and do some backup shots for Ted once in a while. well then Aaron Brown's life changes dramatically because he goes to CNN in 2001. He's still preparing to get into the regular CNN rotation. And guess what?

He winds up anchoring their live coverage of September 11th. And all of a sudden, Aaron Brown's career changes mightily. The time says he was always a little iffy on the way that changed. So sometimes I'm a little embarrassed, I suppose, that this notion. that anything I did mattered, I think I just told a story. Said that to CNN, excuse me, to NPR 10 years after 9-11.

He is the host after that of a CNN primetime newscast which was called Newsnight and it was on at 10 p.m. He told ad week, I've always divided viewers. They found me interesting.

They thought I was a jerk or they love to hate me, but no one is ever neutral about me. I can live with that. Not sure I would have ever thought that Aaron Brown was like a super controversial figure, at least, given the way that TV news developed after his heyday, but okay. He was on news night. Ratings were not terrific. And in 2005, Aaron Brown was replaced in the 10 p.m. slot on CNN by Anderson Cooper. Yeah. Went to PBS after that, taught at the Cronkite school at Arizona State, and I saw a whole

bunch of tweets, people who are in the news business saying, I am in the business because Aaron Brown was my professor at the Cronkite school and really encourage me to go into this and help me out and help me figure out my way. So he did a lot of good work after he was a regular on television. Aaron Brown, David, dead at 76. Aaron Rogers, Mr. Shoemaker. Yeah. You may have discerned from Sean Fennesse's tweets,

the New York jet season is over, and the career of Aaron Rogers may be over as well. He even made a few comments about that. Given everything that has happened with Aaron Rogers, vaccines, Jimmy Kimmel, do we think Aaron Rogers can have a job in sports, television after he retires. Absolutely.

I think despite... Absolutely. Absolutely. Despite everything that's happened and maybe in part because of everything that's happened. I think that it'll just slide right in with no trouble. I mean, it depends on what he wants to do, I guess, to some extent. But, I mean, he's an odd duck.

Like, whatever. He's got some bizarre beliefs and whatever. But, man, if, I mean, if he decides to go the Tom Brady route, Tom Brady might open up, might leave the chair open for him, who knows? There's a certain amount of like implicit mea copo that comes with like, you know, tying the winds or not in your tie

and cinching it up your neck and putting on the CBS blazer or the, you know, or whatever, you're putting, you know, dressing up for the job, right? There's that sort of conformity is its own sort of apology. But in terms of like, could he do something else? Could he have his own like, like, you know,

talk show, could he have his own, you know, sports show? I think it might be kind of bad if he were the central figure. And I think it might take, you know, get an undue amount of, or, you know, well, yeah, an undue amount of heat if it weren't great. But he's not disqualified himself in any sort of way. I mean, I think, I think if you're him, that's what you got away, right? I mean, you're probably at the peak of your earning power off, I mean, on, you know, off the field. So is now the time to go for it?

I mean, it might be. You know, they're, I'm sure there's opportunities there. And who knows if they're going to be there after another year or two of, you know, five win seasons. It's, I think I mostly agree with you. I want to say that if I had to make a prediction, it's not going to be at CBS, the most conservative of sports divisions, or even putting on the CBS blazer. And I love you, I love your idea of that as just an apology. of itself. Sorry about the Jimmy Kimmel stuff I say as I slip on this beautiful neutralizing

blazer. I guess my only hang up is it is the NFL. It is the one thing that all these networks don't want to offend and the most important business for them to be in. So if you put Aaron Rogers on and Aaron Rogers was just like great right happy to just talk about other quarterbacks in the league frankly which was always the idea there was a reason he would everybody thought he'd be good at this right like that he would be frank that he would be honest that he could be a little mean at times that he would you would really get something interesting from him if you're getting that are you then worried that he's just going to go on like a do your own research podcast and open up this whole

wormhole of stuff that then you're going to have to deal with as a network? Well, I think you'd have to have that conversation openly before, you know, as you're making the deal, there'd be some contingencies in there. And I think that, I think that even the most generously, I'll say, open-minded people are still, still understand, like, cause and effect, right? It's one thing to sort of poke the bear because, you know, you're anomaly in NFL employee and you know and you're and you're trying to see what you can get away with as you feel like you're being you know maybe you've been silenced at other times or whatever else but it's another thing to be like I'm I'm affirmatively choosing this career path and I know what it's going to

take for me to keep the job um so you know yes but but is there the potential for this to be a sort of maybe it's a apt comparison maybe it's uh uncomfortable but like a Rush Limbaugh situation where you, you know, hire somebody because of the potential for a lot of these fans following you there and then you're in the position of having to fire them six months later or whatever. I mean, it's, it's a, you know, I think that's what you have to weigh because certainly the biggest difference is as much blowback as ESPN got for Rush Limbaugh. I mean, and from firing Rush Limbaugh, I think firing Aaron Rogers could be a much bigger problem than anything that he says, right? So you don't want to get yourself caught in a situation

where you have to punish him and yet also, you know, not fire him. It's, it will punish him and yet also keep him on the air and don't feel like you're revoking his privileges because that could be the real issue. I think there have to be a lot of real formal agreement on the way in. And I think I don't think that would be shocking. Well, and that's when I come to the question of how important is this other stuff to head the, let's just call it, doing your own research to just give it a simple heading. How important is that to Aaron Rogers. These guys made a ton of money.

He's obviously interested in that stuff and interested in having an opinion and talking loudly about that stuff. Like, is he just more interested than that than the conformity that would be required by television? Yeah. At least this kind of television, you know, where you're putting on that blazer and you're on the pregame show.

So I don't usually mention Tom Brady, too, because I remember just thinking my own mind, And I believe now, I do not believe this actually happened, but when Troy Aitman left Fox and I'm thinking, okay, they want to make a splash, I was like, wouldn't you just call Aaron Rogers? Yeah. Wouldn't he be a guy who might just walk away to take a job like that and have this just crazy amount of visibility calling a Super Bowl? That year, turns out they made an even bigger splash in Aaron Rogers, but it was just, you know, that was a name. Yeah. that came up. David, there's a new magazine in the world.

That's right. A new magazine. I love new magazines. I always love number one issues. Do you love new magazines that emanate from the Lower East Side? Oh, yeah. Our old stomping grounds. Let me show you the Metrograph.

This is a new magazine that is being produced by the Art House Theater on the Lower East Side of the same name. I read about it in the New York Times. I ordered a copy of it, issue one. It's got some unbelievable bylines in it. First of all, it's just fun to hold a magazine. Yeah, of course. I kind of resolved for New Year's and I'm not going to lust after old media. But Austin Collins, Sasha Frere Jones, got all these things in here on an interview with Steve Martin.

But the article of the many articles on movies, the one that really caught my eye is an interview with Clint Eastwood. That is really in here by Nick Pinkerton, who's one of the editors of the magazine, a long interview with Clint Eastwood. That sounds cool. Yeah. And then what the editors did was something really amazing,

which is they took Clint Eastwood's entire filmography, and they did a slightly higher brow version of the vulture power ranking or some of the stuff we do here at the ringer. and they went and got interesting people to write about Clint Eastwood's movies. Oh, wow. Like a capsule.

Yeah. Just a little capsule. So a fistful of dollars, that capsule is written by Quentin Tarantino. Oh, wow. The capsule for Dirty Harry, that's written by John Wu. The Outlaw Josie Wales, that's written by Lucy Sond. Every Which Way But Loose, that is written by a, Harmony Corinne.

Wow. And on and on. Firefox by Jay Hoberman, White Hunter Blackheart, boy, that's a lost movie by Richard Hell. I mean... Oh, cool.

Okay, I'm ordering a copy now. The Metrograph. Check it out where fine magazines are sold or do what I did, which is read about it in a different publication and then order one over the internet. All right, before we go, we've waited long enough, David.

the Fox lawsuit. Oh, sheesh. Let me read from the article that was broken in front office sports by A.J. Perez and Michael McCarthy. Right. A former Fox hairstylist alleges in a lawsuit that a network exeatio used, quote, his position to sexually harass women, end quote, as well as that Skip Bayliss touched her inappropriately and propositioned her for sex. That is the opening paragraph. And it goes on from there.

I never know what to do about stories like this. Because I've got at least one person on Twitter that's like, oh, Curtis, your bias is showing. I'm sorry, what bias would that possibly be in terms of this? When you have a story like this, and I do encourage people to go over to front office sports and check out the full piece, which has lots of quotations and incidents and context

that are lots of people in the media are talking about right now. I'm always like, what are you and I going to add to that? Yeah, that's the right. That's the right question, I think. What is the take we are going to pivot and have based on reading something like that? We just need a segment where someone reads the news story and the other one is obligated to just cackle in the background. That's it. And I feel that's like what the sports radio version of this would be, you know, because people, not that they're laughing at the allegations, which are very serious,

but they're, they have beef with the, various people involved in this. Yeah. And you've already seen some former Fox people, like go on their own podcast and have this whole take on this thing. I just don't know what to add to that. I really don't.

Me neither. To tell people that if you want to go over to F or not FS1, to front office sports and check it out. That is over there. The story is by A.J. Perez and Michael McCarthy, uh, headline Fox Skip Bayliss,

others sued on 14 counts, including sexual battery. So check that out. All right, David, for the first time, but certainly not the last time in 2025. Yes. It's time for David's Shoemaker guesses. The strained pun headline. Yeah.

What was our last headline? Did I haven't read it down? Oh, I did. The last time we did this, David, on Yola Boko Flood. The headline about phasing out police horses was back the glue. back the glue. Today's headline comes to us from alert listener Jared Christensen.

It is in ESPN, ESPN.com. Chess great Magnus Carlson, David. I'm reading from the story here. Chess Great Magnus Carlson had to quit a chess championship in New York because he was wearing the wrong pants. Okay.

He was wearing the wrong pants. They violated the dress code? Yes, by wearing jeans. I put on a shirt jacket and honestly like I didn't even think about jeans, even changed my shoes. And he was briefly, I believe this was later rescinded, but he was briefly ejected from the chess tournament. Wow.

I want you to think about recent bits of pop culture that may have concerned the world of chess. As you ponder, what was ESPN? strained upon headline. Well, as someone who's been denied entry to a South Carolina beach club because I was wearing jeans, I can sympathize, surely. Is this real? Years ago, yeah, it was my family. We were like, staying at somebody's beach condo and went for dinner and they would say,

you could eat here at the bar, or at the whatever, there's some ed area, but you cannot enter because you're wearing jeans. And I'm just pointing around. I'm just that jerk who's like, everybody in here is in khaki cargo shorts and denim. You know, this is like, we're like 28 years old or something. I'm just like, these are New York jeans. Do you not understand how much money may have been, that was not spent, but could have been spent on this skinny cut.

Jeans are tough, right? Because if it was just that you lacked a tie, they could give you one, but they can't be like, sir, can you remove your pants so we can use some slack? Yeah, they could just give me some like size 48 cargo pants to pull on, cargo shorts to pull on over the top. Those count is not denim. Anyway, so wait, he was denied. He had to, you got kicked out of the chess tournament.

What is chess? Like, the queen's gambit? Like, what are the, there we go. Okay. The wrong pants. So it was the Queens. Not the Queens Gambit, but it was the. The jeans gambit.

All right. The jeans gambit. Jeans Gambit. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Projection Magic by Brian Waters. Coming up Press Box Thursday, Joel Anderson and I. Look at some very.

issues in the world of the media. And go deep on the Fox sports drama. Oh, you know, you know Joel's got stuff to say. Shoemaker, I'll see you back Monday with more Luke Forbes takes about the media. See you later, Brian.