The Press Box - The Washington Post Social Media Saga, Plus the NBA Finals in Tweets

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

Bryan and David break down the dispute between 'Washington Post' staffers on social media that resulted in the firing of reporter Felicia Sonmez. They discuss the repercussions of the situation, and how this affects the 'Post' and other newsrooms (7:39). Later, they touch on all the tweets following Game 4 of the NBA Finals, from Steph Curry doubters to Draymond Green's podcasting (26:09). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Associate Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. We're not just reacting to the NBA playoffs on my podcast. We're also doing it on the Ringer NBA show and the Mismatch podcast. They are coming after some of these NBA playoff games. Check it out, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights on the Ringer podcast Network. David, it's one of the principles of this podcast that we should never sound like a Father's Day card. But it is that time of year. It is that time of year.

So can I sneak a Father's Day-like segment in here at the top of the podcast? Yeah, why not? This spring was my son Owen's first year playing Little League baseball. Uh-oh. In fact, baseball of any kind. Mm-hmm. Very interesting time to be a sports parent of a third grader, because first and second grade virtually got wiped out sports-wise by the pandemic.

wiped out school-wise too. But yeah, yeah, it's been a wild couple of years. So imagine there are people like me who said, boy, I can't wait to let my son or my daughter try little league sports. But then those very formative beginning years of little league sports didn't happen. So we started this spring. Had a fantastic experience. The coach was absolutely incredible. The other parents were incredible.

team was good, it was fun. All that was fantastic. But I have to tell you about one little feature of Little League Baseball here in 2022. I can't wait. I, for many of the games this season, kept score. Like on a, like the old-fashioned piece of paper

with the pencil and the graph situation? Oh no, David. There's an app for that now. A scorekeeping app where I enter all the pitches pitch by pitch because there are pitch counts

all the plays all the fielding plays et cetera et cetera but here's the thing everybody at the little league ballpark can see what I'm doing in real time

oh no the coaches can see what I'm doing in real time because the number of pitches that the pitchers are throwing is very important. So you will see, so I'm sitting there in the bleachers in the sun,

allegedly a sports writer, accent on allegedly, trying to properly input exactly what is happening pitch by pitch in this game. And then I sneak a look down the third baseline and one of the coaches is looking at the phone. Okay, a couple of thoughts here before you move on. Allegedly a sports writer, well, throw the allegedly out. it would, this is, it's, it being an app, I'm sure that they look to you with some sort of confidence because you're your sports writer, but it would be better if you were like, it would probably be a better arrangement if you were like allegedly 25 years old, right? I mean,

someone with a little bit more, or 18, some with a little more felicity with like apps and app inputs and stuff. I'm not offended by that statement. So it's weird, is this like a widely used app? Apparently. One of the things that you realize when you have kids, and especially as your kids start going to school and all that's kind of stuff is there's just this whole ecosystem of websites and apps that only exist for kids that are weirdly in some ways a lot more developed than the stuff we use for work right it's just they're kind of like single purpose like messaging or like whatever apps that just like people really care about this stuff and uh and i and i'm not sure why it's at times they feel a lot better sometimes they feel totally archaic you know look what your kids are

using to like check their check their assignments in middle school or whatever but it's a very It's weird, you know, is we're old men, right? And we spend, we spend, you know, a good percent of our, well, I won't say our day, but there's, you know, a healthy chunk of time each month. We spend just complaining about whatever new program that we're being forced to interface on, right? It's just like, I hate it when fill in the blank as part of my day. But like now there's this whole group of, like, kid ones too, where, you know, I guess it's better that they're not like on some, like, Slack channel.

that you would have to stare at all the time when you're doing your work. But it's anyway, I don't envy you having to figure out how to use a scorekeeping app for a little league team. Well, there's old man complaining about, oh, this, look at this. What am I doing with this? And then there's, damn it, this is incredible pressure to do this correctly. I felt like the sports writers in the middle of the century who were the official score of a baseball game. Yeah. And whether something is a hit or an error comes down to me.

Yeah, but that's also, you know, if you got the box score wrong in the paper the next day, there might be someone that caught it that, you know, would catch you on it. But for the most part, you just, you know, rewrote history. It's not like the average reader at home would be like, I think Curtis got this wrong in the fourth inning. But if you're sitting there live at a little league game and the parents can see this, all those famous parents that would like come out of the stands on YouTube to go after their kid's own coach, they could just come after you now. They're like, you're stealing something from my child.

Well, and it's also a bigger question, right? What is a hit in Little League? All right, yeah, okay. So in Major League Baseball, if there's a ground or to short, and the shortstop doesn't throw it to first base and get the batter out, that's probably an error happened somewhere, fielding the ball, catching the ball, whatever it was, throwing the ball. In Little League, what is the chance that that play is going to be converted?

20%, 30%? We had a good team. Like those kinds of plays are really hard. So I'm like, well, that doesn't seem like an error. That seems like a hit. You know, I made contact with the ball and I'm standing on first base. That seems like a hit to me. These were the kind of things going through my head with every play this season.

Yeah. And again, we had a fantastic experience. It was amazing. So what would have happened if you had just given hit, given the benefit of the doubt to the hiter in every, in every instance? sense if it's your kid's team. I mean, you're not affecting the gameplay, right? I mean, that's the umpires. But it's both teams. Not just my team. It's over. Right. I'm doing both teams, of course, scoring. So it's just about like the historical record still for you. I mean,

it's being being judged in real time. But I mean, and it's, you know, you're not affecting the outcome of the game. You're just affecting the scoring, which is in some ways something, someone might be even more territorial up. There's some, there are, uh, all-stars postseason awards, things like that, I guess, that figure in in terms of batting average and stuff like that. Again, I'm just the data entry guy. I'm not the commissioner of the league looking at all this stuff at the end of the year, making big decisions about who's going to pitch in the All-Star game and stuff like that. Anyway, just a very funny, slightly Father's Day.

Note for you there, David. Coming up on today's show, what happened at the Washington Post last week? David and I break it down. we have some tweets from the NBA finals. Has the postgame show been reinvented? We do think piece in a box. All that more on the press box. A part of the ringer.

Podcast Network. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, producer Erica Servantis here. David, there was a Washington Post saga that played out on Twitter, ending last Thursday with the firing of Felicia Sanmez, a national political reporter.

It's a three, part story. I think it's helpful to think of those parts separately, though they do overlap in some ways. So let's break it down like that. Part one, on Friday, June 3rd, Dave Weigel, who was a

well-known political reporter at the Washington Post, retweeted a misogynistic joke. If you want to find out what it is, go look it up. In response, Felicia Sanmez, who worked on the breaking news desk at the post, tweeted,

fantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed. Weigel, subsequent to that, unretweets the joke, dubs it offensive and apologizes, and later the Washington Post leadership suspends Weigel for one month without pay. Right. That's sort of act one here. Anything to say about that? any factual discrepancies?

I mean, that is, I don't know if that's, that's act one in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, pure timeline sense, but that's sort of chunk one. That's conversation one. Chunk one. Month long, month without pay is a pretty hefty suspension. Mm-hmm. It's a lot of money. That's very hefty.

Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, we, we're used to athletes being fined to that degree or something, but we're obviously talking about just dramatically different. I mean, I would, I would, it goes with. without saying, I think, to the most of the people listening to this. But I think it's fair to say that for just about, despite the profile and the byline, and the vast majority of people working at newspapers count on that monthly income to, you know, pay their rent or their mortgage and their bills and for their children and whatever else.

Dylan Byers in a story for Puck said that Weigel had other tweets that had been flagged to HR. So this might have been due to a culmination of things rather than, one single retweet. Anyway, chunk number one, political writer at the Washington Post retweets something offensive. Another Washington Post reporter calls him out on Twitter. Writer number one gets suspended. Here's chunk number two, which is important context about Felicia Sanmez and the Washington Post. And again, I'm going to quote Dylan Byers and Puck here. In 2018, Sanmez alleged in a statement that she had been sexually assaulted by a Los Angeles Times journalist, prompting the post responding to her public advocacy to ban her from covering stories pertaining to the topic,

such as the Me Too movement that might present the appearance of bias. Perrin, the accused journalist claimed that their interaction was consensual, closed perin. Byers continues, the post lifted the ban, which was highly controversial in March 2021. The following July, Sanmez sued the paper and its leadership for discrimination. that lawsuit wound up getting dismissed. But I went back and read her suit over the weekend. And it is really interesting reading. And what she's saying essentially in is like, wait a second,

you're saying that I am being an advocate for issues surrounding Me Too and sexual assault. What does that mean? Does me making a statement about what happened to me constitute advocacy? does me attempting to correct an article that was written about what happened to me can constitute advocacy? Yeah. The ban sort of happens around the time that Brett Kavanaugh is being confirmed to the Supreme Court. He, of course, had allegations of sexual assault leveled against him. And as Sanmez points out, though, there were instances, and again, this is from her lawsuit, where let's say Herman Kane died in 2020.

Kane during his life had been accused of sexual harassment. So Sonmez says she was not allowed to write the breaking news story about Herman Kane's death because his life had touched this issue in some way. So that feels like, again, and that dispute takes place over a number of years, she protests the ban and Washington Post keeps the ban in place.

And what Sanmez is officially saying is, effectively saying is, You sideline me for what you say is advocacy or the way I tweeted about an issue. How widely is that standard going to be applied across the newspaper? And as I said, the dispute goes on for years and it eventually turns into a loss. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. I think that the facts sort of speak for themselves in a lot of ways, but it goes without saying that there's a sort of, it seems like there's the issue of like whatever the in-house rule. or ruling is kind of budding up against, you know, whether or not you agree with it, the rule itself kind of running up against the execution of the rule, right, or the implementation

of the rule, right? I mean, even if you were to agree that it makes sense to bar certain reporters from certain beats based on certain things, there's obviously, like, you have to think through the implications of it, right? And it's not like, if I came out and said, you know, I hate going outside and a sunny, day, that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to cover anything that's ever, you know, anything that happens in daylight, right? I mean, it's just irrational. And to that point, you know, being sexually assaulted is not a phobia or something that's, like, specific to your personality that's irrational

in some way or that's compromising in some way, you know, a crime has been committed on you, or whether or not it's, you know, legally true, it doesn't even matter, you know, that shouldn't, it shouldn't be shocking to be anti-sexual assault, right? I mean, to be advocating for it, I mean, that's, it should sort of go without saying. But, you know, it's, this, it, it, this kind of goes back to the part, chunk one of the story, right? I mean, it's, it's okay to, I understand, you mean, there's, in one way you can understand where the Washington Post may be coming from in this. And obviously, we don't know what they're thinking. But there's a difference, there should be a distinction between something being a, a,

being problematic or making work more difficult or being something that would be a barrier or hindrance to doing your job and just something that could be a PR nightmare

or just a minor PR curfluffle and should that second part matter at all? Maybe the answer is yes. Maybe or maybe that's been determined inside the Washington Post. We're so averse to the to just the potential fear that someone's going to say,

yeah, but, at one of our major stories on Twitter that we're just going to do everything we can to avoid that. Well, I mean, I don't know if that's legal. I mean, I don't know if that passes must or even in the HR department. But, I mean, it does seem just like incredibly problematic in terms of implementation. So this is chunk number three of the story. The Weigel retweet incident happens, as we described a minute ago.

And as the Washington Post's own account noted in the ensuing days, Sanmez continued to use her Twitter account to focus on the incident. retweeting criticism of Weigel and contending that post management enforces social media policies inequitably. At this point, David, another post writer named Jose del Rial enters the fray. And he tweets, Felicia, we all mess up from time to time. Engaging in repeated and targeted public harassment of a colleague is neither a good look, nor is it particularly effective.

It turns the language of inclusivity into clout chasing and bullying. Sanmez, in turn, says that Del Real is now engaging in improper behavior on social media and says it's hard for me to understand why the Washington Post hasn't done anything about these tweets. Two more post employees also get involved. So now you have a dispute on Twitter involving at least five Washington Post staffers. And this is when last Tuesday, newish Washington Post editor Sally Busby sends out a memo, which was reported in the press saying, quote, we do not tolerate colleagues attacking colleagues either face to face or online. So that's her way of saying, whatever the issue is here, we want you all to stop doing this, for this to go all, whatever is happening here, we do not want this on Twitter anymore.

Man, again, a lot to unpack. I think that there's a sort of larger question about this sort of, well, I mentioned like, you know, passing HR muster. I mean, I think that I'll say your mileage may vary on your, on your experience, everyone's personal experience with the HR departments at their office.

I think by and large, they're not exactly the most, everyone's like favorite people to deal with. But this is a, this is a situation where you kind of felt like people were like, like, just trying to suss out what the HR angle was at all and all this stuff when it's happening online.

It's sort of like a democratization or a socialization, but probably democratization of HR, right? It's that things like this get called out in public, and then they have to be dealt with in public or else for it to make any sense, right? For the whatever penalties or repercussions happen, it sort of becomes a very public thing.

And that's not traditionally the way those things are worked out in an office setting. And, you know, we've been talking since like the inception of this show about the sort of, it's the sort of work-life balance of Twitter, right? I mean, it's like how much, once you become a public figure, how much of your Twitter account should be work-related or work approved or, you know, whatever else. And the answer increasingly seems to sort of hedge towards all, right?

But I don't think that, I mean, I think that even if, you know, everyone agrees that, like, wow, the first Weigel retweet was totally inappropriate. And also that it's, like, totally appropriate for someone like Sanmez to be kind of discussing personal matters in some ways or to be advocating, quote, unquote, whatever, as she's done. You can say that both those things are great and also recognize that it's, it's probably, be difficult for like an institution like the Washington Post to try to draw that distinction, right? And to sort of figure out how to legislate it. And it's tough, you know? I mean, I think I think that there's some very basic stuff that I think everyone can agree on in terms

of just like the practical, like the day-to-day you and I are on Twitter, forget about our jobs aspect of the whole thing, right? But then when it becomes inherently a workplace issue this being played out in public, it's just, it just is, it becomes messy, you know? It's really, it's hard. And speaking of which, at this point,

and again, we're re-narrating the events from last week, a group of post employees tweeted out suspiciously similar statements in defense of the paper. So here is star reporter Josh Dossi. We know his work. Quote,

no institution is perfect, including the post, but the place is filled with many terrific people who are smart and collegial. I'm proud to work here. Here is White House Bureau Chief Ashley Parker. The post is not perfect. No institution is, but I'm proud to work here. Dot, dot, dot.

All on Twitter, all using similar language, all very subtweedy in some sense of the word, and all very much conveying that they're worried about what the public nature of this dispute is doing to the reputation of the Washington Post. Again, I mean, listen, I don't know how I wouldn't be comfortable sending anything like that, but I could definitely imagine myself feeling that way, feeling defensive about a place that I worked. You know, it's just, it just seems like every kind of step of the story is just sort of

taking us further down a rabbit hole or one adjacent rabbit, one rabbit, one rabbit, adjacent to the next about this sort of like what part of work can really exist on Twitter except reading out you know here is my new story in the Washington Post it's it's I I I don't I don't find it hard to sort of place my sympathies in the story but I find it really hard to like speak intelligently about or speak or to speak like definitively about what what what elements of this are like What appropriate was the word workplace appropriate? I don't even know. Yeah. And let's get back to the lack of a definitive line here in just a second.

After we finish the events here on Thursday, Sanmez replied about those Washington Post employees who had done the synchronized tweets. She identified them as among the quote stars who quote, get away with murder on social media. Now you've got it more than probably 10 different Washington Post reporters all on Twitter, all involved in this to varying to agrees media reporters and a lot of people who really want to hate the Washington Post for political reasons. We're now all doing the Washington Post in disarray story. We saw various versions of that last week. And then on Thursday, the post fired Sanmez for what her termination letter said was, quote,

misconduct that includes insubordination, maligning your coworkers online and violating the post standards on workplace, collegiality, and inclusivity. continuing here, we cannot allow you to continue to work as a journalist representing the Washington Post. Yeah, I mean, again, there's so much happening offline that I think that, you know, previous tweets by Weigel at the beginning of the story through, you know, the backstory, obviously lengthy backstory between Sanmez and the Washington Post. And the stuff that I don't know to say that's missing. In facts that I don't realize aren't there, right? I mean, there's clearly, so much happening offline that it's impossible it would be it would be really reckless to speculate but it does feel like if there's a justification for that then it's stuff that happened offline right i mean it's that's where twitter in real life sort of butt heads and i and and um yeah i mean i think that

we can all sort of sympathize with being in that situation um but it's you know it doesn't it doesn't feel like Again, it's really easy to like point a finger here. David, let us take a pause and do 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 where they are always gratefully received. You may have to help me with this one because the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that reality stars and former Georgia residents Todd and Julie. Chris Lee were found guilty on all counts of bank fraud and tax evasion by a federal jury Tuesday in downtown Atlanta. It was a very overworked Twitter joke to write, Chris Lee doesn't know best. I'm not going to lie, I have never watched that television show.

I have, mostly because it used to come on immediately after wrestling on Monday nights and you would just sort of, you know, accidentally start watching it. it is a really, really bizarre reality show. It's like a parody of a reality show that seemed, in retrospect, to only exist to be used as like state's evidence against the Crisley's in their tax evasion case because it's just, well, I'll let that speak for itself. Would you like to ever be known as a former Georgia resident or former resident of someplace you had once lived? It's probably never a good look.

You're always in trouble when they bust that one out. Except when you're flying into Newark Airport and they have the New Jersey Hall of Fame decorating all the walls on the way in. And it's like it is exclusively former New Jersey residents. And Bruce Springsteen is he used to live in New Jersey. But, you know, that's just sort of the way things go around here. In the notebook dump, David, let's do a few basketball notes. NBA finals between the Celtics and Warriors is tied two games apiece. Game five tonight in San Francisco.

game four was dominated and I mean dominated by Steph Curry. Listener Temple of the blog tweets, the old guy still got it. Steph Curry at 35 is probably old enough in basketball turns for an old guy still got a tweet. I am sorry to report, however, that the doubters have come for Steph Curry. Oh, no. You know the doubters. You can be an NBA All-Star, first ballot, a Hall of Famer, one of the best players in the history. of the league and still there are people out there or so it is alleged that don't believe in you

that want to that want to slight you so dway now now step kerry was not saying this about himself but dwayne wade got on twitter during game four and said everyone everyone david everyone But everyone keeps talking about what Steph ain't. Let's talk about what he is. A bad MFer to which LeBron James hopped into the replies and responded facts. Quote, they will try to do anything in their powers to not acknowledge simply how, quote, different he is. It's rare and rare is not liked and appreciated. Okay.

Now, who are the doubters at this point who are talking about what Steph Curry isn't? and don't like that he is different, I guess different being in the sense that he hits all the three pointers he shoots. Don't you feel like at this point in our media ecosystem, the doubters are always a voice inside of the head

of the person decrying the doubters? Like the own, like doubters only exist as a stand-in for your own opinion two months ago that you might not have said out loud, right? Everybody that's decrying the deaf doubters had a point within the last six months

where they were just like, yeah, he can't carry this team all the way. This is not the year for the Warriors. Those are the doubters. The doubters is just looking in the mirror and like giving yourself the finger, I think, at this point. Well, it's like, you know, I need to get mad. Yeah. I need to be upset. Yeah, you're right.

Sometimes I think it's the voice in the head saying you can't do something. But it's just I need, you know, I am so good at what I do that I need a character in my life who is telling me I can't do something. something. Yeah. Well, I guess everybody's got doubters somewhere. And it's an easy, it's an easy ghost to point a finger at. Yeah. Somebody was, I was texting with somebody about this and they were like, are we just talking about the morning sports cable shows at this point? Like, do those play such an outsized role, not only in the discourse, but in stuff that athletes watch? Yeah. That there is a doubter there because basically every day they're taking a

pro or con side on lots of people. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so there is, so like by definition almost, there is a, like everybody has doubters, right? Because one of the big talking heads on any TV show will have to take the con point of view, right? If they were debating which weekend day was better Saturday or Sunday, like each person

would have to pick a side, right? And if there's, if it's a three, if there's three people on today, then like, you know, Kendrick Perkins would have to pick Thursday and just make a weird, wild case that it's the best day of the weekend, even though it's not the weekend. And then all three of those days would have doubters because they wouldn't be agreeing on it. And so then all the days have doubters, man. I mean, like Saturday, despite the doubters, Saturday is still a beautiful day outside. Also, from the NBA finals during game four, Chris Weber, former player, and I guess we would now say former announcer, tweeted a very interesting comp for the Warriors Dremont Green.

This is Weber's tweet. Is Draymond Green the Wes Welker of the NBA? Yes or no? And if yes, what does that mean? And what does that mean for him and Wes? To quote the great Conrad Thompson here, David. Is that a real? Is he like crowdsourcing a term paper?

Like what is like it's that seems so bizarre. It's like it's already, first of all, that's a fine whatever. That's a fine prompt. That's a fine, like, you know. It is? Well, if you're just trying,

if the point, compare and contrast. If the point is, no, no, no, no, Draymond green is the NBA's

West Welker is a great way to like get attention on Twitter, you know, in 2020. But to say it and then say, I don't know why I'm asking this question. And what does it mean?

And what does it mean? And what does it mean that anyone, it's like, it's like he's addressing the doubters, right? He's just like, who are the, the doubt?

the doubter, the imaginary army that they're saying this thing about West Walker and Draymond Green are, what do they mean by that? Well, you're the guy who just said it. It was very strange. Did someone else say it before? Because that's the only reason

that it only would make sense. It's the first time I've ever heard it. Maybe this should be a format of tweet that we just all adopt. We're just going to start saying, just, you know, is Steph Curry, wait, is Steph Curry the,

who should we, is Steph Curry the Tom Brady of the NBA? And everybody has to follow with yes or no. And if yes, what does that mean? And what does this mean for him? But even that as Gonzo as that comparison would be or useless as that comparison would be. It's like, okay, I understand comparing the best at one of the, at one sport with one of the best of the other sport.

You're right. Or leadership or whatever kind of, you know, thing you want to squeeze out of that comparison. like Draymond Green and West Walker. Yeah, no, you're right. You need to go further. It's just like, is Steph Curry the Ohio River of the NBA?

And what does that mean? And if so, what does that mean for him in the Ohio River, right? It's just so many steps. It's even the last part. What does that mean? Would almost be okay.

I mean, sorry, what does that mean for them is okay? But what does that mean? It's like, why are we saying this if you don't know what it means? It means you're comparing them. Like, I don't even, that's so strange. Jeff Wade,

a sports host in Dallas tweeted, This is the greatest sports tweet I've ever seen. The only thing that could have made it better is immediately going to the phone. Weber would try to clear things up later and tell me if this adds any context or not. He's a great player, no doubt. But as far as role, team success, dive in the rabbit hole, all love. Some football players hit me with some interesting responses from their perspective. Don't get it twisted.

Both are greats, exclamation point. Yeah. No, I'm deeply confused, though. From valued listener Thomas, David, can we just acknowledge that one of the main talking points of the final minute of game for the NBA finals is what is Draymond Green going to say about this game on his podcast immediately afterwards?

Right. Kind of a fascinating phenomenon, right? Draymond's post-game show going to podcast land. Yes, this is the biggest, this is the moment for podcasts. This is the moment podcasts have been waiting for, right? I mean, just no one has talked about podcasts this much, despite the fact that everybody asking the questions in the postgame interviews has a podcast.

Podcasts have not been, ever have been this much of a going concern, just because Draymond Green is taking to a podcast to give his two cents after the games, you know? It's a... A longer version, yeah, because he's going to, I mean, Draymond Green is not going to be shy with reporters after the game.

No. He's always always a good for a good interview after the game, but then he's going to give a longer, like, with 30 minutes. 20-some-th-minute minutes after the game. Even if he didn't say anything else, we would still be talking, we'd still be asking rhetorically what he's going to say in his podcast after the game.

Right? If he got on the podcast, the podcast comes after the question. Well, not for us to be asking what he's going to say. Once we've all asked the question, you can get on there and, like, you know, sing a song. That'd be fine. You know, we've still asked the question.

What is he going to do? It becomes an advertisement for the podcast itself. Yeah. Actually, him getting benched in the fourth quarter was probably the greatest possible advertisement for his podcast, right? Because now we all really want to know what he's going to say about that. It's funny because with the very notable exception of Inside the NBA, post-game show strikes me as the hardest thing to do in sports TV. Because a lot of times, and I found this, you and I might have talked about this after the Super Bowl, but after the Super Bowl this year, you and I hopped on. a live podcast.

We did like an hour together. And I'm sitting there just like full of energy. And wow, the Rams won. They beat the Bengals. It was a good game, a close game at the end. I want something.

And there was kind of nothing available. To listen to. Or to watch. There was really nothing. I mean, ESPN was doing Sports Center, I guess, still at that point.

Or maybe it had gone to like some kind of. If you're super hyped about a game like the Super Bowl or even like, you know, if your local, if your favorite team wins the championship or, even a big game, there's nothing that feels better than, you know, you would just watch SportsCenter for the next 16 hours straight, you know, if they were, if they were playing more stuff. But at some point, it's just like, you get like 10 minutes in. It's just like, well, this is the

same thing I saw 10 minutes ago. You know, there's just not that much content. And it's not, or it's not, it doesn't feel like it's the right people. I mean, you know, that's why inside the NBA was so good, not just because of Berkeley, but you come off a big NBA playoff game. It's like, I can't wait to hear what they say about this. But that doesn't really exist in that many places in the universe right now. So it's interesting that I can't wait to hear what he says about this is about Draymond Green's podcast versus something that would actually appear on television. We had the first ever event of the Live Golf Tour this weekend.

Oh, my God. This is a tour funded by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, which is offering millions and millions of dollars to golfers like Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeShambo to defect. from the PGA tour, Kevin Van Valkenberg hopped on the pot on Friday and was really good at untangling all the questions about sports washing and so on.

But we got a question from listener Josh I wanted to hit you with. Just about to listen to the newest press box, my question of those covering the live tour would be if the tour offered them $1 million or more a year to cover the tour, how many of them would take it? All of them?

Are you asking me that question, Because we're all talking about the golfers. Yeah. And questioning why they would leave the PGA tour to take this money. But if Live Golf came to your favorite podcaster and said, we are going to give you this much money to come to all the Live events, new podcasts with them, maybe we can get you a little interview with Phil or DJ or one of the golfers out here. How many people would say yes? Are you allowed to keep your current job and just do that as a sideline? I guess so.

We're making this up, so sure. Yeah, I think just about everybody would try their very hardest to justify it, right? Everybody would have a different moral or ethical line. But I think that you would certainly negotiate in good faith to stay on your side of it and so collect that paycheck, sure. Right. That's where I kind of stopped short of saying going and working for live God. as kind of an in-house writer podcast. That's actually less problematic.

I mean, maybe it's more problematic when you go back into the, if you try to reenter the straight journalism world, but it's like, it's okay to like switch jobs, right? I mean, there's a lot of people that have been forced into new jobs over the past 10 years in journalism, and that doesn't disqualify them from getting a job in the future if something opens up, right? If you just want to go be a PR person for a year, then that's fine.

But you have to make sure that be open about the fact that you're a PR person, and be, you know, appropriately, you know, apologetic for it if you ever try to return or you have to be, you know, like, honest about it when you try to return. I don't know. I mean, I think that obviously people's different ethical lines will vary pretty dramatically on that one. But a million dollars is a lot of money, you know. I definitely think that, but as like a hypothetical amount of money, I mean, let's, why talk about

a million? You know, why not say $20 million? If somebody said, will you come cover live golf or $20 million? a year. You don't have to do anything but show up and push record on your podcast and write a blog post about it. I mean, like nobody's saying no to that. You can't tell me that your ethics are going to get in the way of that. This is why I like the perversity of the question. Yeah. You're asking the golfers about this. What if we ask the journalist about this? Yeah. It's interesting. It is. It's a good question. Imagine how many orphans you could feed

for $20 million. That's what's happening in your head, right? What all the, with all the, when all the dollar signs get. Well, you're saying, like, what would I say? What would I say to people when they ask me, how could you do this? What would you say to yourself? When you're talking yourself into it, what do you get? Like, yes. Exactly.

It's time for David Shoemaker. Guesses the strained pun headline. Yeah. Monday's headline about a dog that bit pitcher Max Scher was dog bites Max. I can't believe I didn't get that right after that. Today's headline comes from valued listener and National Journal hotline editor Kirk A. Bado from the Washington Post

kind of a weird one, David. Story is about the new Jurassic World movie, which brought back the classic characters from the original film, Sam Neal, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum. I want you to think of honoring these actors

like we would great basketball players. What was the Washington Post very strained pun headline? it's like a Hall of Fame pun great basketball oh oh oh something about retiring numbers

retiring jerseys retiring there we go on the right track getting there where might those retired jerseys go in the rafter yeah no no oh raptors

the numbers hanging in the raptors or hanging in the raptors I think we're there in Dominion, their jerseys are hung with the raptors. Yeah. Their jerseys are hung with the rapids. Impossible to get, but yeah, it's brilliant. It's David Shoemaker.

I'm Brian Curtis, production magic by Erica Servantes. Really fun interview coming up this week, David. Mike Breen, the play-by-play man of ESPN, he is back from COVID. He is calling the finals. He is going to be on this podcast tomorrow. Very excited to have him on. next Monday, David and I are back with more lukewarm

takes about the media. See you then, David. See you later, Brian.