The Press Box - Trump and CNN’s Fate, Another Telos-Novela, and the New Diddy Documentary

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel start the show by discussing the future of CNN, including President Trump’s possible involvement in its sale, the assurances David Ellison reportedly made to Trump if he bought it, and what an Ellison-owned CNN would look like (01:10). Next, the guys talk about the Laura Rutledge—Justin Herbert post-game situation, and Bryan explains how he would fix the post-game interview (13:25). Then, Bryan and Joel dissect Part 5 of Ryan Lizza’s Telos-Novela (29:02), before giving their takes on the media outrage towards the College Football Playoff bracket (39:46). Lastly, the show ends with Bryan and Joel diving into their thoughts on the new Diddy documentary, 'Sean Combs: The Reckoning.' (50:23) Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Producer: Bruce Baldwin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox Thursday. It's Brian Curtis. It's Joel Anderson. It's producer Bruce Baldwin. Coming up on the podcast, Donald Trump has entered the negotiations about the fate of CNN. Laura Rutledge tried to get an interview with Justin Herbert. We have another year of Kimmel.

We have more hating on the college football playoff. And we have a breakdown of the new Netflix doc, Sean Combs, The Reckoning. Are you smiling about that one? Yeah, man, I got in jazz by watching it. When we get to it, I'll tell you, but I feel inspired in some ways. I can't wait for all the questions you're going to ask me once we're doing there. I've been rehearsing them in my head, Brian, what's your favorite, death row song, what's your favorite Death Row song, what's your favorite Al B. Sure song? What is your favorite Al Be Sure song?

Well, see, we're going to get to that in the second. I want to get ahead of ourselves here. Okay, yeah, we want to save that for later. We got to start with the latest on CNN. Now, if you miss Monday's show, we talked about how CNN has become a part of this Warner Brothers Discovery sale. And if you missed our breakdown, it basically goes like this. Warner Brothers Discovery is trying to sell its movie assets and HBO to Netflix. This is option number one, Joel.

And if the Netflix deal goes through, well, that's good news for CNN. I guess it's good news because Netflix does not want CNN. This is where we are with cable news in general. We're not wanted counts as good news because at that point then they get to be spun off with TNT and all these other cable assets and they get to try to go it alone. And MS now. MS now style. And your reward is if you get the quote unquote good option is that you get to try to figure out the problem of how we make money with cable in 2025 and beyond

without the attachment to life support of Batman movies, Harry Potter movies, all that kind of stuff. That's your reward. Again, that's the good option. Option number two here is David Ellison and Paramount. They want all of Warner Brothers Discovery, not just all those tasty movie assets, but they want CNN as well.

So in that scenario, CNN would not only be owned by Paramount, but they would be owned by the person that already owned CBS News and has put Barry Weiss in charge of CBS News. And the thinking goes, maybe CNN and CBS would be merged in some way. Certainly people would get laid off. Maybe Barry Weiss runs both of them. That is door number two. I mean, that's just, I mean, what a grim set of circumstances you just outline.

Because, I mean, this top line, the loss of jobs will be devastating. I mean, we're talking about two strong news brands that have done incredible work for decades. And the idea that they would be merged together, that seems just a little weird as it is. But then just all those great journalists going out to this void out here where there's just nothing is on the horizon right now. Like nothing is coming to save any of the people that are getting pushed out of the industry. Nothing is being created, at least on that scale. Right. So like, what's everybody else going to do?

Everybody can't do substack, right? You know, everybody can't do substack. Everybody can't do their own YouTube channel. No, but they might have to. So that was where we were on Monday. The news yesterday is that Donald Trump has officially inserted himself into this deal. We kind of knew that was going to happen. We knew that the Trump administration loved.

to use their approval authority to inject themselves into discussions like this. I was going to, I'm torn as to whether or not I want to make a stormy Daniels joke, but I'm going to let it go. It was insert the word that triggered you there. That was very 12 years old when you said it. I didn't do that on purpose, but I see where you're going there. Anyway, here's Trump commenting on the possible sale of CNN.

So what do you want to know? What changes do you want to see a CNN underdial? Well, I'm not involved in that. I will be probably involved. Maybe involved in the decision. It depends. You have some good companies bidding on it. I think the people that have run CNN for the last long period of time are a disgrace.

I think it's imperative that CNN be sold because you certainly wouldn't want to put people, just leave those people with some money, good money, and CNN so that, you know, they can spend even more money. spreading poison because it's lies. Both alarming and sort of unintelligible, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, the thing that we know is that he doesn't like any news that he doesn't approve of, right? Like, that's the thing. And so I would have thought that in recent months, maybe the last couple years, that CNN had

started trending towards something that Donald Trump approved more of. I mean, I've certainly seen more Scott Jennings. clips in the past year than I'd ever planned on scene before, correct? And so I mean, I think there is new editorial leadership over there, and it's maybe not exactly Fox or certainly not, you know, O-A-N, but I would have assumed that it would have been okay. But again, nothing is good enough for him, right? And so, yeah, like, he's going to, he's going to figure out a way to have everything been towards his preferences in terms of media coverage. Remember the whole process of trying to turn CNN into a less Trump antagonistic

organization? Yeah. I mean, remember how much time was spent on that? Like, oh, you know, it's not 2020 anymore. Yeah. I mean, well, how is that turning out? I mean, I don't, I watch some CNN, obviously, like I watch Abby Phillips show, especially when, you know, our boy van is on there or whatever, but I don't, you know, it's not something that I have on all day long. I've seen, you know, Jake Tapper on or whatever, but like, I don't, I don't, I don't, maybe the changes just haven't been drastic enough for his preference, right? Because I mean, we know what he wants, right? He wants truth, social TV. He'll never be drastic enough for his preference. Right. And it was obviously comical at the time. But if you now look at the timeline of what's happened to CNN, it was, you know, I wouldn't even

call it resistant CNN so much. It was definitely resistance adjacent. But if you listen to Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper and those people, Don Lemon at the time. It was always like, we are saying this is a lie because it's a lie. Right. Because he's not telling you the truth. And as journalists, we have to stand up for the truth above all else. It was different than MSNBC. Then they went through this whole relearning process where they tried to,

where the Scott Jennings of the world got hired and we did all this stuff. Now we're coming out on the other side. And it's like, oh, wait, he still thinks CNN is poison. Right. Why don't we do all that again? Yeah, I mean, the thing is, is that CNN and a lot of other media outlets, it was easier to be strident in 2017, 2018, 2019, because he didn't have complete control of the regulatory apparatus in this country. Right. You know, but somebody was telling him no at the time. Like that. Yeah, there was guard, there were guard rails that no longer exist anymore. And so you either have to really, you know, put yourself out there. and be willing to take those slings and arrows and be at risk of lawsuit or something happening

to your broadcasting license or whatever. It's like getting, just getting messed with, right? And not a lot of people have the money or the wherewithal to withstand that right now. So two data points for you. One is a big Wall Street Journal story that came out Monday. This was by Joe Flint, Brian Schwartz, and Natalie Andrew. They reported that during a visit to Washington in recent days, David Ellison, that is,

Paramounts David Ellison, offered assurances to Trump administration officials that if he bought Warner, he'd make sweeping changes to CNN, a common target of President Trump's ire, only journalism, people familiar with the matter said, Trump has told people close to them, close to him that he wants new ownership of CNN as well as changes to CNN programming. So that is the missing piece here that probably was pretty obvious to begin with, both from the Ellison side and from the Trump side. I mean, I guess the thing is, is that so let's say they get control of CNN in the way that they want. I mean, obviously it has some value because they wouldn't want control of it if they didn't think there was some value in it.

Sure. But I think the timing is kind of weird because more and more people are just not watching cable news. It's less valuable than it's ever been before. And even the reputation of these companies. Like, you know, it's interesting that like whenever I see something from CBS News now, just for a second, I'm like, what is, you know, there's just a hitch, you know, before you accept it as, you know, basic straight news, right? Which is not fair to all the other journalists that are there. Certainly not. And I just wonder how, you know, how that replicates with other consumers and viewers over the years.

So it's like, all right, you can take it, but it probably is already, you've diminished the news, the, the. the brand as it is. And that's not going to make it any better. People are just going to be like, all right, well, it is what it is. And you're right when you say it's an odd time to care this deeply about cable news. Yeah. But guess who watches lots of TV? Yeah, man.

Guess who gets annoyed by things he sees on television? Like, this is it, right? I mean, weirdly, we just came off of presidency where Joe Biden was mainlining Morning Joe. Like, you desperately care what was on Morning Joe every morning. You're like, okay. Well, they got some mojo back. It's just crazy that he doesn't care about newspapers like that. He kind of does.

He cares about the top line ones. He cares about the Times. He probably cares about the New York Post. Wall Street Journal. Journal definitely cares about the journal. Yeah. Do you think he's ever, like, checked out the Atlantic City newspaper in a long time? I don't know.

What is the Atlantic City newspaper? He probably cares about the Post, too. Can we name the Atlantic City News? One of us should be able to name that. I feel like it's the journal, but I'm going to. I don't think that's right. Look that up while I read you one more thing from Brian Stelter here. Brian Stelter of CNN, who's been covering this from inside the house.

But he has a good reminder here. It says it bears repeating that Trump does not get to choose who owns CNN. His administration can play favorite, slow down the process, sue to block a disfavored deal to use your wording, mess with you. Yes. I mean, that's what a lot of this comes down to at the end of the day. You can just gum up the works and make it. And, you know, I mean, the thing is, is that you can still sort of bend it to your will. Like, he can't pick, but he can have a tremendous amount of influence and who's there next.

And about the press of Atlantic City, the fourth largest daily newspaper in New Jersey. There we go. Thank you very much for that. Yeah. And look, let's say the Netflix deal winds up going through. Let's say that becomes a favorite outcome here. Then you've got a situation where Netflix potentially has to go to the Trump administration and just, do something. Again, like what he's trying to do here is exert leverage. He might not even know what the endgame is here. He might say, well, one great end game is that David Ellison owns CNN and CNN becomes more of a thing I like, which he, of course, would still complain about. But it could just also be like, I just want to be involved in here because there's something for me. He's learned from news organizations, from media companies, over the second administration that if I get involved, there'll be a prize for me at the bottom of the cracker.

box. Oh, I like that analogy. Also, I mean, let's just say that he can't even affect the news report as much as he'd like, right? Because nothing, he gets mad at Fox News from time to time, right? Yeah, a lot of the time. Yeah, they're not sufficiently subservient, but he could help somebody get paid, like somebody that he knows or somebody, you know, within his orbit, he could potentially set them up or line them up to get a job or get some money or get some money or get some influenced they wouldn't have otherwise had. So, I mean, there's a lot of things that he could do that, you know, he may not get all of it, but he could get a few things that might make it worth it for him.

And it's not like he's doing a lot of work. Like, he's getting a lot of the people to do this. So this is it, this is even something he has to really focus on. Let's put our full disclosure here about Spotify and the ringers deal with Netflix. Well, we can double up on that when we talk about the ditty dog here in just one second, but put that in here right here. Laura Rutledge and Justin Herbert. Yeah.

Here's a little media moment that came across our Twitter feeds and our television screens this week. So Monday night, we had a Chargers Eagles game, one of those great late season matchups of wounded teams. Lumping. Lumping to the finish. Limping teams. Cowboys lines out a little bit of that feel last week, too. Jalen Hurts throws yet another interception in overtime. Oh, man.

The Eagles continue to limp along. So ESPN's Laura Rutledge, who's working sidelines, goes looking for Justin Herbert because he is the winning quarterback. And part of your job is you got to corral the winning quarterback, right? This is a physical act as much as it is a journalistic act. You must go find that person, whether it's a coach of the quarterback. Herbert sort of blows her off at midfield and says, I'm just trying to. to celebrate with my teammates. But Laura Rutledge persisted, if I may coin a phrase.

And here finally was the interview with Rutledge and Justin Herman. What was it like to watch the interception there that sealed this game for you guys to get this win? Yeah, the defense played incredible. You know, they came up with so many big stops today. So, so proud to be able to play for those guys. And the way they compete down in, down out is really fun to watch. We know you were dealing with the broken hand tonight. You gutted it out.

You were hit multiple times. How are you feeling right now? Feel pretty good. Thank you. And then what can you say about the way that this team was able to pull this off and over time? You guys know how important this game was and how good the opponent was on the other side. Yeah, not the way we drew it up, but the battle in these guys, you know, it's so much fun. And I'm so honored to be a part of this team. And they never quit.

And, you know, it's just fun to be a part of. And we'll watch the film and have to get better at it. Appreciate, man, you too. But we'll have to get better at it and we'll keep moving forward. All right. Thank you, Justin. Yep, thank you. I mean, it's always awkward.

I mean, how often in your life have you ever seen somebody extremely excited to talk to a reporter after the game? Like, sometimes it happens. Besides Fernando Mendoza? Oh, man, Fernando Mendoza just can't wait, man. He couldn't flippin' wait to talk to that reporter. He's gas, yeah, he's so god-dogged, gosh darn it, excited about it. But yeah, I mean, the thing is, and you're always sort of aware of that. And I'm sure you've been in this situation before, Brian, when you're in a, even in a circumstance where a guy has won but not had a good game.

And Justin Herbert did not have a good game. He was 12 for 26 for 139, a pick and a touchdown. Ran for 66 yards. But, I mean, he probably is thinking about how bad he played. And yeah, I'm sure he did want to celebrate with his teammates. So it happens. I don't think it has to be, you know, there has to be a referendum on this, right? No, and I think what's interesting is because we saw it on television.

So what preceded that interview is the ESPN camera showing Rutledge trying to get his attention and trying to get him to stop. Yeah. And him not stopping. So you take what is a very normal journalistic situation, I want to talk to you, you don't want to talk to me right now. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to keep somewhere else on the field. Yeah, I mean, this is like every locker room ever and every postgame situation ever. And but we see it.

And we understand that, you know, in a very direct way that we might not, if it's not on camera, that like he's, he's messing with her, right? He's hurting her professionally because at that point she's just got one job, which is to talk to him and we can watch her trying unsuccessfully to get him. It's not the same if you get Khalil Mack instead of him, right? Like you've got to get the, it's either the coach or the quarterback. And you preferably both under those circumstances. And so, yeah, like he's, I mean, he knows what the deal is, man. He's been, he's an NFL veteran at this point. Like this happens after every game at this point for him.

Totally. I mean, that's, and most quarterbacks, I think, you know, they, they're boring in these situations. And by the way, people tried to say, well, did you see, you know, even when he finally consented how terrible his answers were. I was like, have you ever heard Justin Herbert talk? Oh, man. I mean, that's as good as it gets, folks.

I don't think he, he's never said anything that has like made headlines as far as I can remember. I don't think what he did there. That was the Justin Herbert experience. Yeah, he's not, he's not giving you any more even if he was in the mood to talk. Man, I mean, it's just funny too because he's a L.A. quarterback, man, he could have, he could have the world at his fingertips if he'd like. I mean, tall, you know, handsome, I assume people assume he's handsome. him. I don't know. He's got football Twitter at his fingertips. Remember, that was that whole thing, you know, him versus Tua? That was weird.

I forgot about that. I forgot about that. Yeah. I mean, so, but again, you know, I mean, after it's, it'd be one thing if you played really, really well and didn't want to talk after the game, because that would be a little weird. But the way that he played, I can understand him, like sort of being in his own head about it. And I'm like, well, we won this game, but I played like shit. But as you say, you also have responsibilities. I mean, you actually do have to talk to the press after the game. Them's the rules.

But you know, too, when it's a big foot, when it's a television game, you know, there's somebody who's going to be wanting to talk to. Oh, yeah. You can be brief. You can be as unenlightening as he was, but this is what we do. This is what the money is for.

And also, I mean, you, I'm like, I would never argue against the idea. that other media partners shouldn't have access to Justin Herbert under those circumstances, right? So, well, they're not in San Diego anymore, so I can't say the San Diego Tribune. But, you know, the Orange County, you know, whatever, the Orange County Register or the LA Times. Brian and Joel try to remember the names of newspapers today. That's right. And, and, you know, like, you, it's possible that you could make an argument that, like, he could say,

well, would it send it for me for talking to those people? But ESPN has given y'all a lot of money, man. Like this is a, like you are actual business partners with these people. You better sit down and talk to Laura Roitledge, bro. Absolutely. Have I ever told you how I would reinvent the postgame interview? No. What, what do you have in mind?

Okay, couple of years ago, do you remember Drew Locke, Missou legend Drew Locke had like a great Monday night game against, I believe it was the Eagles. He was playing for the Seahawks. Oh, yeah. Just like the game of his life. Okay, he's out on the field after the game with Rutledge's colleague Lisa Sultors. And what happens in that interview, and I've almost never seen this happen in a post-game football interview, is he was watching a couple of the big plays from the game because all sideline reporters, I don't know if people know this have a monitor down there.

Usually their producers carrying so they can watch the broadcast. So ESPN's truck starts rolling the plays and lock. is watching big passes he's completed and he's talking us through them. What did you see there? What were you thinking? All this kind of stuff. You ever watch golf tournaments? This is what golfers do do when they come off the course. They do the interview with the television and here's the putt on 15 and here's the drive on 16 and they just narrate you through it. Yeah. Yeah. So my idea is, why don't we do this basically every game? Hmm. I mean, even as poorly or mediocre, as mediocre as Herbert was there,

he did lead an overtime drive to win the game. He did have big runs in that game. Show a couple of those, get those queued up, and then just have him talk us through it because that is the stuff the print people are going to be asking in a couple of minutes anyway.

Here you can actually marry it to video. And it's cool, right? It's a better question than what did this mean to you, how important, how big was the defensive performance and all that stuff we hear in a post game? You actually get hard information. is the reason that doesn't happen

because it's more logistically impossible more logistically difficult than you think so I've talked to people on TV about this as is my want and I've been told it's really not because they all have these monitors the truck can have two they're going to have two or three highlights

are going to show at the end of the game anyway as you sign off right as you you know you do fun here's a couple of plays of the game you just pop those on there now not every game might have just a super obvious game winning pass type highlight. But just show me one or two plays and just have us talk us through it.

And the sideline reporter can be like, what were you seeing there? What, you know, what did you say in the huddle? Whatever you want to ask. And I think that actually gives us better, more interesting information just kind of solves the problem of what do you ask these guys right after they win a game? Yeah, no, you know, that's really interesting. And yeah, I would like that. Because, you know, that happens.

Like if, let's say you watch the game and it ends up on NBA TV and then the player will come up to the booth or he'll come to where the broadcasters are and sit with them and then they'll show him the players and he'll talk you through it. And like that's, it's a little bit later in the process. But yeah, if they have the technology and the capacity to do it

right then and there, then that makes sense that like we just let's at least talk about one key play, like one game turning play that you were involved in. And yeah, get that going. Because that would probably be better than, yeah. So, you know, so you guys have Cincinnati next week. Like how do you think the team

going to fill after the game like you know so like yeah they're not going to put their whole heart than that no they're not and it's just again just like i think it is actually a difficult thing as much as i like sometimes make fun of the questions to get asked because they're just like oh my goodness like really this was a question this does solve the problem because right now you've got the exclusive hit on this guy yeah he's not he's going to talk to you before he talks to anybody else who's about to tweet out his response so just ask the thing about what we all want to know is what happened on that play. What did you see? Like, you know, what was your checkdown? Whatever it is. You can ask you as complex as you want because we're watching the highlight and anything he says would

probably be pretty interesting. Absolutely. No, man, you got this TV here, Brian here. Integrate this into your broadcast. If it's not hard, they should do it. Want to talk about Jimmy Kimmel real quick? Yeah. Jimmy Kimball's got a new contract. Seems like it was going in the whole other direction a few months ago. It really did. And we couldn't tell if it was ABC or who would Jimmy, right, who would be like, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to be a part of this anymore. Yeah. He's got a new deal with ABC. It's going to be on television on his show through May 2027, taking this deep into the second Trump administration. Bloomberg reported that this extension was already agreed to some time ago, but then Stephen Colbert. got canned. And so it was not a great time to come out and say, hey, you know, I got a new contract. Look at me. Right. I mean, man, they so they've seen some value because the whole argument that people were making was that this stuff doesn't make money anymore or whatever. But I mean, what's the argument for doing this then? Is it they, they're bringing him back? Yeah. I still think it does, I still think they, you know, again, even like, contrast. parts of the media like late night, there's money to be made there, right?

There's money to be squeezed out of there. Right. Just because cables are contracting business doesn't mean you like shut down CNN. That's fair point. That's right. Yeah, because it's like why they just show a football game

on the, you know, WB network or whatever or whatever. Because they just say, well, might as well. I mean, it's better than nothing,

right? Yeah. And there is an advertising function too, like Disney movies, ABC TV shows, sports stuff. Like you can throw stuff on right and that doesn't get measured i think sometimes when they do those you know it lost tens of millions

of dollars you're getting free advertising that stuff winds up on social media because we know a lot of people aren't watching this live anymore but the clips wind up out there in the world have a big social media operation i don't know it is interesting by the way i had to look up when jimmy kimmel was pulled off the air do you do you want to just hazard a guess of what month that was since that feels like 19 media lifetimes ago what month is this this is this is this is December now right okay We're at Joe first nailed down what month we're in now. Okay, all right. We're in December.

So that seems like a summer thing, like late summer? You call it September 17th through 22nd. Damn. Yeah. You believe, it's really honestly hard to believe that happened in 2025. I mean, man, yeah. I mean, the Colbert thing seems like that was 2024 almost. You know, I know that it's not because Trump wasn't president then.

Right. The timing is important. year. Yeah. I mean, this is the longest year and the history of years in my life, probably. Because, yeah, things are just really paced out weird. Yeah. I mean, it's, I guess it's good for Jimmy. He seemed, if he longest, he wants to do this. I still haven't quite gotten into the late night thing. I probably, I mean, I think probably my last flirtation with that was, uh, Conan O'Brien in college. Conan Brown was a big college time watching like late 90s Conan was amazing. Yeah, man. Just like, I'm up. It's,

on. I'm going to do this. But I think it's a, I mean, I don't, I don't know how many things are promising signs, but hey, man, at least he gets to keep going on. He does. And I think from his perspective, which is actually, to me, it may be the more interesting part of it. It's like, hey, this happened. Am I like, goodbye? You, you know, you pulled me off the air. You blinked Disney, Bob Eiger, ABC. I don't need you anymore. Or is there a nobility? that we've seen from John Stewart's like I'm staying on the air I'm actually going to keep making fun of Donald Trump absolutely I want to be a I'm going to be a thorn in his side for as long as I can also sets him up real nicely for uh you know to run for office in 2028 that's right I forgot he's running for president actually that's right right right is he

we're going to get a Tim Alberta profile of Jimmy Kimmel now that we've gotten one of Josh Shapiro is that coming next since he's doing all the candidates in the Atlantic look man I'm just saying you know I mean that I'm sure, I mean, look, man, Stephen A. Smith thinks he's a potential candidate, so I mean, it's wide open out there right now. It really is. It's funny. You and David and I are going to do a people and media episode for the end of the year. And

we were sketching out like who's going to be in it. Honestly, I had just kind of forgot him Jimmy Kimmel's the name was involved again just because so many things have happened this year. Oh, yeah. That got buried. How did that get buried? Like, there's no, there's no possible

way that story could have gotten buried. I mean, it seemed like, I mean, just like we were at a real turning point in Trump's relationship with media and inserting himself into the stuff. And like, yeah, and I would just, we moved on. It's over now. We moved on. And here's part of the reason we moved on. We got a series of telos novellas. Oh, tell us novelas.

Love it, man. This is part five. If you are coming very late to this story, Telos is Ryan Liz's. Substack. He is a former. fiance of Olivia Nutsi published part five last night and the first thing I did was Ford Joel Anderson and what was your response to part five of this story? I mean this as much as anything and I mean at this point you know Olivia is not going to end up working for Vanity Fair anymore

but if you are to believe his claims in this post she really can't be trusted to work in media again or at least for a very long time like we're talking years away out of the business or maybe she'll find a job in conservative media who knows but i i think um i mean at this point also doesn't it kind of feel like just unseemly because like now i'm like oh i wonder if we're like it's almost getting so ugly that i'm like oh man like this is these are people that are really troubled. And not that I feel sorry for her, but it's just

like, this is, I didn't expect that we'd end up here. And then I was thinking about like, man, Ryan Liza happened to write this. Because this was, this is not humiliating, but it's just, it makes him vulnerable and exposed in a way that is just kind of jarring.

Like, you just don't see writers talk about themselves like this. It contemporaneous, I think there's enough humiliating to go around for everybody here. And, involved. I mean, it just feels like. Who do you think? Right. Let's rank some people. Who do you think is most embarrassed? Put a ringer idea of your

of you had there. Humiliation power rankings. Yeah, right. Yeah. Weirdly, Bobby Kennedy is not in the one or two slot on this list. He may not even be in the number three slot. Oh, she's skated, man. He's gone. So we, some, it's somewhere from Olivia Ryan, Vanity Fair editor, Mark

Wuducci for hiring for hiring Olivia. Who else is on this power ranking. Do you think the New York magazine editor deserves David Haskell? Yeah, David Haskell. Do you think he deserves anything here? In terms of humiliation?

Not humiliation, but just sort of like, all right, we were willing to work, you know. Well, I think the thing that I haven't seen him respond to this, but the notion she had in her book when you and I read it that she could write her way out of this, that New York Magazine's idea was like, hey, you've

committed a major your journalistic sin here but if you're just right about it maybe that could be your path back to you know being in the magazine's good grace so again i haven't seen him respond to that so we'll we'll wait for that too but that's somewhere yeah that's somewhere the agent uh rachel adler like i mean the work that they were doing on her like i mean the thing is is that if again if you were to believe the claims in here i guess i thought when you worked in um like a kind of a press shop or you dealt in communications that like the important thing is that you don't lie because that's the sort of thing that can be found out fairly easily and like it seems like at a lot of turns they went out of their

way to try to lie to reporters particularly Oliver Darcy who's one of the few people who is not covered in shame in this in this episode so if you're not one of those people who was forwarded this from me i'll just well just a quick briefing of what's in tellus novella part five This involves the uncovering of the relationship between Olivia Nudzi and RFK Jr. And all the fallout that happens with that. And Liz is laying out the story where Olivia has, again, and this is in his writing, his contention, this basic de facto crisis communications team that was talking to reporters and trying to figure out a way out of this jam. And if they weren't trying to bat away the story entirely, then they were trying to contain it or put their own top spin on it.

so that it made her look less bad. This is his contention in this post. And of course, he's got other parts going on here, too, because he's like going out of his way to say, I am not the person who told New York Magazine, told David Haskell, or who told,

you know, reporters about this story. In fact, I was trying not to. That is his also contention here. Because that's something that's also been an interesting thing in the air. Yeah, all that story.

Yeah, right. Karas Swisher is the person he says, who texts him and says, who texts him the last. letters RFK and says New York needs to know about this. Yeah. Yeah. And then all these other things in fault there too.

And also Ryan's trying to say, I'm not the scorned ex-ve-ve-aunce that I might have been made out to be in the media. Do you think that, did you ever assume that or think that is part of this? Because I did think that I'm trying to remember like before I knew so much information about this story. like what I thought his role in it was or like if he was um in some sort of a way harassing Olivia and trying to make her look bad intentionally um and again if you are to believe his claims that like it seemed like she tried to set it up very early on is like the bad guy here

like the one who exposed it all tried to get her fired not because of anything other than like he was scorned and wanted to humiliate her and I thought maybe I thought a little bit of that at first, I think. When I read this, I'm like, I could also understand, and maybe this is just being way too naive about anything that she could think incorrectly that he was the person who put this idea into the, into the universe, she told people about this. Oh, for sure. You assume there's not many people in the world who knew about this, right?

Like, whatever mental calculation I was doing in my head in the before times was probably about, well, how many people are even involved in this, whatever it is. But man, this is a lot more complicated. Right. And also, I mean, I could understand why she thought that. And also, like, I mean, apparently, and he points out that she had told four people at one point, like before they had told the New York Magazine, I'm just like, man, the lack of discretion here is just really sort of jarring because I'm like, man, you, everybody has so much to lose in this situation. But that's why I think that which kind of makes it sort of embarrassing and sad because it's like it's like the people involved, um, have. had some sort of mania, almost, right, that compelled them to do this. Well, I don't know. The motives to me still seem very murky here. Like, I understand, I guess I understand Ryan's motives. Yeah. Maybe more than anybody's, but I don't know. Man, I think that was one of the fuzziest parts of the book. It was like, why a lot of these things happen at all. Well, I mean,

I think that, I mean, without being too reductive, I mean, I just think that they, they did something that they weren't supposed to and they are trying to cover it up even after people know what happened and so anything after that was kind of fair game right now and Newtson by the way wrote about that in her book too what she was telling reporters you know

when when they were calling about this this is part of her account as well not just Liz's oh yeah that she was trying to finesse these media people and she they tried to scare Oliver Darcy who runs the great status news newsletter your status and they tried to scare him off the story by trying to scare him they might sue him you know or whatever and he might he wouldn't have the resources to fight back against something

like that so the fact that he was so dogged in spite of this is actually sort of incredible because a lot of people would have been like well you know what maybe this isn't this isn't worth it but clearly he he he knew that there was a story here and that's really impressive but but for everybody else around here man the the the lying I think is what is just sort of shocking because, again, I always just kind of thought that, like, you kind of want to tell a version of the truth, maybe not all of it, but lying is what usually gets people really in trouble, right? Whether they say it's not, it's the cover up that gets people in trouble.

And this is the sort of thing that it's just like, all right, you all seem sort of crazy is not maybe the word that I want to use, but you all seem, this is a very messy set of circumstances here. I think you can retreat to the word messy and be very safe with that. Max Taney tweets that American Conto sold 1165 physical copies in its first week for book scan. Damn. Not very many copies. Really? 1165.

Yeah. That's, that is shocking. What? I know. That's it? I know. Wow. I just, I don't know, man.

I mean, just imagine going through all this for 1165 copies your first week, man. That is, that is gutting. And to lose your job and possibly lose your career on the end of this. It's, I mean, this would have, what a, what a, I mean, the thing is, it's like, what a story, but she tried to tell it. Nobody cared. I mean, it's what, you know, it's like, like, we're part, we're, we're, we're, you realize we're part of the 1165 people. Yeah. It's not a very big, probably right next to me.

Not a very big club of people right now. And it's funny because it involves one of the most important people and federal government right now. There's a measles outbreak in South Carolina like right now, right? You could argue that there's a line between the agenda that RFK Jr. and he's been pushing in that right there. And it's like, nothing touched him, man. Like, nothing has really stuck to him on this. And it's just, I mean, it is kind of funny in a way and sad and telling that the woman, you know, suffered so much in this and that the dude, the guy with actual power,

the guy that, you know, the much older, much more theoretically mature person in this circumstance, like nothing has happened to him. Like nothing is going to. Nothing. I agree. I agree. I just don't know what it would be. I don't know what would be the ramification with this. He doesn't feel he's not embarrassed enough to step down.

He doesn't even feel compelled to like respond to it basically. Not really not. Yeah. Anymore anyway. I do want to save time for two things. Okay. One is college football because speaking of messy, we have an unbelievably crazy over the top media reaction spilling out after the final committee playoff rankings came out on Sunday morning.

I've talked a little bit about this with Shoemaker on Monday, but I want to hear what do you make of what is happening right now in college football? I mean, everybody said that this is going to happen when they expanded the playoff, that we were going to spend all this time obsessing about the 13th and 14th teams. And I mean, I think it's good for the sport in the moment. matter of speaking because there's no games right now. Like this week there's no, you know, there's Army versus Navy. But for the most part, and there's the FCS, you know, playoff games.

But still college football has like managed to seize a big part of our bandwidth in terms of sports coverage right now. And so, I mean, for all the people that are complaining about like the CFP, you know, the weekly show and the rankings and what happened to Notre Dame and all that stuff, this stuff is great for business, man. Like, it's fantastic. 100%. Like, why would you want this to go away?

I can almost understand the desire to expand the playoff now because I'm just like, oh, if they're going to be pissed about this. I mean, just imagine what they'll do with Team 17 and 18 if we go to 16 teams, right? And in Notre Dame, like, you know, did their Notre Dame thing. I mean, they've got like the perfect villain in this thing, you know? Oh, yes. Nobody likes, I mean, I mean, Notre Dame people. And I have Notre Dame friends, but you know that nobody likes y'all, man.

You know what I mean? Like Marcus Freeman did a good job or cover it up your reputation or whatever, but people don't like y'all. And like they're perfectly playing their entitled villainy right here. Like it's just it's great. It's great for business. That is to me the key factor here. And I think something that has gotten ignored is there's an enormous amount of incentive

for all media people here from your. national media people to your message board people to be mad at the playoff right we need to just go ahead and admit this and it's not to say that there aren't things to be mad at mostly i think procedural things this time around because there aren't really many good arguments to be mad at the actual field that the committee came up with right but my thing is like you have to understand we have to be honest with you know people that are listening or reading us and say you know being Matt is very lucrative for us in the media when it comes to the college football playoff.

How many people would pay attention if we were just like, you know, it seems like that was the right thing to do. The podcast would be over. How often? Yeah, it's like, all right, well, yeah. Let's break down the games. I think that's important. And to me, it's a little bit like Oscar nominations every single year.

If you're like, you know, the Academy, not bad, your podcast would end because there would be nothing to talk about. So that we are incentivized. Again, it doesn't mean we're wrong all the but, dude, like the people covering college football now of a certain age, which is to say my age and your age, they were mad at the Bowls, right, they were mad at the BCS, right, they were mad at the 14th playoff when they eliminated teams like unbeaten Florida State. And now they're mad at the 12 team playoff.

And their careers have grown the whole way. So yeah, of course they're mad now. Of course they're going to pick something to be mad at. because that's, that's the button you push right now. That is what works if you're in the media. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Everybody is like hanging on. I mean, again, and I would say, I mean, like, I think the anger in some ways is organic.

I mean, people have been fighting with me on Twitter about, you know, about this, right? You know, or even in our Instagram comments, like people have been finding reasons to be mad about this stuff. And again, I think it's hilarious. The one thing that I do want to say, and you, you, you tell you. tell me, you tell me if you think this is going to change. Do you think that they will actually get rid of that Tuesday show where they roll out the CFP rankings? I have never in my life seen a TV network get rid of a TV show that makes them money. Right. It's the whole they like cancel the, why don't we cancel the conference championship games? You can give them

money back? You're right. We know we short in the NBA season. Oh, seven billion dollars. You're going to go give some of that money back? 17 fewer games. And right. Yeah. Hell no. Absolutely not. Now, maybe they'll change it in some way or something like that. But, I mean, it was telling to see ESPN people saying that. Yeah. Because ESPN is the one that televised and makes the money off that. But I'm like, again, the Tuesday night show not only feeds ESPN, it feeds all these people that are mad. They record a podcast every Tuesday night. And they were mad about Notre Dame being head of Miami every week. That was lucrative to them. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, so many people do live podcasts. after that show and the rankings, and they're like, oh, I hate this. But it's like, bro, like, why are we mad at things that generate interest in the show? And I said this on Telgate, and I'll repeat it here, too.

I just think people have to grow up, man. Like, what is your problem? Like, I mean, again, and I'm going to use the same analogy. I have a three-year-old son, Desmond. I can't tell him things before they're going to happen, right? So I can't be like, you know, we're going to go to this, the special playground or we're going to go to a restaurant that you like because he'll get mad. You know, he's like, why are we going now? What's wrong? You know, I want to go. You know, he'll get

mad at me. So I have to wait until we're about to get ready to go before I tell him stuff. And that's basically what people are saying to the CFP. Well, if you had told us two weeks ago that Miami was going to be ranked ahead of Notre Dame, we wouldn't be mad right now. Get out of here. You know you would have been mad. You would have found some other reason to get mad. So you're telling me that like we got to treat you like a top. that we got a lie to you and set you know or arranged this in such a way so that you know that disappointed at the end of the year grow up like seriously grow up i completely agree and i also think like tell me the scenario that this would have ended in that would not have made you man that you would

have recorded that magic podcast and said you know the committee got it right tell me that okay noturday makes it head of miami we are so upset that you're ignoring head-to-head and trivializing the regular season. Exactly. If Alabama's out, we're ignoring the best road win of the season, Alabama versus Georgia, you know, before the conference championship game.

Here's another one. Have you seen people mad at that James Madison and Tulane are in? I spent half of my life hearing that undefeated Boise State was left out of a chance to win the national championship. Now we're doing the opposite. Now we're mad that the small teams are

in too. Okay. We got to do something to get this 12 and one conference champion out of the tournament. And I was just like, I mean, I thought the whole point of this was to give those sorts of teams opportunities. And again, you're not mad at James Madison. You should just be frustrated at the ACC for having a stupid way of determining their conference champion participants. That's, it's their fault, right? And it's Virginia's fault for losing to five lost Duke.

Okay. But that's why this happened, not because they were, they're so desirous of showing us James Madison versus Oregon next week. And there aren't plenty of things to criticize. But I think the other thing we have to do as media members is just make sure that we are looking at the scale of our anger, that we're telling the audience correctly how important something is. So what we're arguing right now is about the nine and the 10 seed in a 12 team playoff, both of whom lost multiple games. That's what we're arguing about. This is very, very different than Florida State going undefeated and not being allowed to, tried to win the national championship.

The scale of those things are dramatically different. So if you're just as mad now as you were a couple of years ago, you're misleading the audience because that's not the same thing at all. And also, I mean, Brian, to be honest, I wasn't that mad to Florida State guy left out of here. I was like, I kind of, I was like, I've seen, I've seen them play twice. I don't think I want to see him again.

Yeah. But if you were, I mean, like, if there were some people that genuinely were pissed off about that and not just Florida State fans. But, like, again, the scale of that is just totally different. Right. That's a team that is not getting a chance at all that went undefeated. This is not that. Won a conference championship.

Yeah. So, again, you're just misleading the audience by saying that these are the same thing. They're not. And not in that 12 team playoff. You're sorting through two lost teams. That's just not the same thing, folks. I mean, it's just like, yeah, it's like, no, I mean, we're supposed to get mad at Notre Dame because the two best teams they played on their schedule, they beat.

The best, the team they beat, the best win on their schedule was like the number 16 team in the country. And like, I'm supposed to feel sympathetic because they got left out. I'm sorry. Like, I just can't. You're not going to get me. I understand why Notre Dame fans are frustrated, but like, I'm just not going to get my sympathy. I'm sorry. No, but at least, you know, when the, uh, when it's the local reporters and the message board, I understand what you're doing. Oh, you know. Even on the Texas message boards, we tried to make the whole Texas as being left out thing work for like two days and then nobody cared. So they just forgot about it. But they are super serving their audience. They know what their audience.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And look, I wholeheartedly applaud it. Like, it's great, it's great for, it's great for us that love college football. Like, and again, so much of college football, my entire life is about the arguing. It's just about the arguing, man. You know, is Nebraska, do you, I mean, I'll never forget when Scott Frost was the quarterback for Nebraska, and he, like, made a plea after they won the Orange Bowl. I can't remember who Nebraska beat. And remember the year that Nebraska and Michigan split the national championship in 1997? Yes. I do. Yeah. Sorry, that was the Michigan team that had Charles Woodson and he won the and it was Scott Frost and Nebraska and they won. And they had to argue, Scott Frost had to make his argument on behalf of Nebraska winning a share of the national championship.

And I'm just like, there's just iterations of these arguments are in the entire time we've been college football fans and it will continue on forever. You're disingenuous. There's not going to be a system that will prevent this from happening. I'm sorry. The naivete was thinking that there would be a system. that would end arguing

or that we would want there to be a system that would end up. Absolutely. We'll figure it out. We'll figure out a way to make it to fight. All right. Sean Combs, the reckoning. Man. I mean, what a great so yeah, so people

have been waiting on this documentary that's on Netflix. It's four episodes now and it basically, I mean, it I mean, the central thesis is about, you know, as Diddy, has gone through these sexual assault lawsuits and whatever and then subsequently got sent to prison in connection with one of those cases that, you know, it covers everything that led up to

that and some of that, right? And I, Brian, initially was sort of reluctant to watch it, in part because when Netflix was rolling out the documentary, one of the people that was prominent there was 50 cent the rapper 50 cent what's your favorite 50 cent song Brian is in the club is not the right answer in the club is that the name of it in the club in the club I think that okay I think that

sorry my mic must have cut out there as I was in the name of that I thought you might go with minivan song yeah but okay that's fine minnie men is my favorite but anyway the club oh my god but I mean 50 cent is a long a long time

antagonist of Diddy and I kind of thought, I don't know how I feel about 50 cent being involved in this. But, you know, I was like, I don't know, I didn't know how it would impact the production itself, but that he was an executive producer with this documentary made me think that it wasn't going to be good. And then all of a sudden, everybody around me started saying, oh, this thing is actually really good. Or they're like, you just need to see it. Like, please watch it. And so we finally started watching it. And I made you watch it. And Brian, it seemed like you were really impressed with it. You went wild. I mean, so, you know, it's,

one of those things where I think impressed is one word, but I think when it comes to the modern day streaming documentary, the better word is mesmerized. Because I think a lot of people, and in this one, I consider myself, you know, part of this too, is you're not like chasing down and being like, has this person talked before? Have the, you know, who's written about this particular allegation and this particular part of the story? You just kind of like, watch. You just kind of like, watching it wash over you and paint this big four hour long portrait. Yeah. And on those grounds, I'm just completely mesmerized.

Yeah. Watched every moment of this documentary. Really? Okay. How much of the ditty life story were you familiar with prior to this? I mean, the broad outlines, but a lot of it was new to me, of course. Okay. Okay.

I mean, just the particulars of this and that and some of the characters were new to me, you know, but outside of the top line names. So I'm like watching it. If people want to know, there's four episodes. The first one is kind of the Diddy Origin Story. The second one is about the rise of bad boy in death row records. The third one begins to get into some of these cases a little bit that gets into the whole relationship with Cassie. And then finally, at the end, we come all the way up to this recent trial.

Right. And include lots of different things, not only the allegations, no, but allegations of him not paying bills, things like that. There's a lot in this documentary. I mean, so, you know, the backstory on this for me is that, you know, I think some people that watch this show know that I did a season on the Big Eam Pock for Slowburn when I worked at Slate. It's like, man, God, six years ago now. Times is crazy.

But, yeah, and so obviously this sort of stuff really fascinates me. And there were some things in here that were embarrassing to me that I didn't think about at the time. and things that were just like revelatory to me. Like the idea that Diddy charged Biggie's family for his own funeral. Like I did not know that until this episode. And I was like, damn, like that is. I mean, in terms of a character study of Diddy,

this is probably the best one ever attempted. And because, again, there's not been many of them. Like where he's successfully sort of been out there as this major public figure, you know, for the last 30, 35 years, but people have never really gotten below the surface that much. And people have finally started to chip away and this is the thing. And so like when you're trying to talk about who Diddy is

and the kind of person he is and you tell people, hey man, he charged Biggie's family for his funeral. And a lot of people blame Diddy for Biggie being in peril in the first place. Like it's like, oh, okay, like I'm finally getting a sort of a sense of who the guy is. So on that score, I learned a lot myself, just watching this. The other big score here is the contemporary footage they have of him. Yes. In the days before his arrest, again, that's the most recent trial.

So this is fascinating. It's him talking to legal team, comms team, sort of pacing around hotel rooms, or is that a hotel that he was in? Was it the park high in New York? I think, right? I mean, that stuff is unbelievable. and Alexandria Stapleton, who directed the dog, said this, it came to us, we obtained the footage legally and have the necessary rights. I mean, I'm not going to say that I have no choice but to believe her,

but it don't matter at this point. You know, if you did he, I mean, he was trying to prevent all that from getting out. What, but do you, okay, actually, how revelatory do you think those, those scenes are? Like, I'm actually just kind of amazed that he kept the videos going while he, you know, because the story behind it is that he had apparently hired a videographer to do a documentary on him before the cases hit. And then the videographer was still around. And I'm just like at that point, I probably would have shut down the production. But he was exactly as I kind of thought that he would be in those scenes.

What did you think? Well, you know, revelatory. I don't know if it's revelatory so much, but it just solves a documentary problem. Because all of a sudden, you knew you were going to have this great archival footage. you knew you were going to get the people to interview. And in this case, they have everything from childhood friends to associate, business associates, to even a couple of the jurors from the most recent trial that's in part forward. Really, that part's really fascinating too when they're talking about how they related to them in the courtroom and how they saw the case like that is fascinating to me.

Yeah, I was shocked that they got a juror, by the way. I was like, I was like, what? Yeah. And then there's, but that like just solves your narrative problem, right? this is somebody you've made these podcasts right so there's this idea that like how are we getting to the present or to the near present in this case and it's like oh here's him contemplating this thing that's about to happen to him in his life yeah and him and these i don't know how unguarded you could be when there's a videographer around but as close as he could ever be to being unguarded like and

talking through stuff and you're like oh my goodness now well now we're in the present and the past at the same time absolutely i mean i think that like the interesting thing about diddy is It seems like it is very common for him to have a camera on in his life. Because I was actually thinking about like even going back, we're children of the 80s and 90s. And it wasn't just common for people to have videos and cameras around all the time. And it seems like there's a lot of footage of him from times of his life. Like I don't, I have like maybe four pictures from college, right?

I don't know about you. But it was like people weren't. Yeah, people just didn't do a lot of that then. And so the idea that he has all this video, you know, from the early 90s. or even like when he's a kid and all these pictures and stuff, I was just kind of like, man, that's, he's kind of lived his life or aspired to live in front of the camera. So I could imagine him filming that stuff and not even being aware that it might be later used against him in that way.

Like how could he have imagined that, right? Yes. And it just gives it a real different feel because a lot of this archival footage, even I have seen before, you know, if you've seen the Nick Broomfield movie Biggie and Tupac, which I'm sure you watch when you're making your slow burn. Absolutely. Biggie's mom's in that movie,

that footage is in here. There's just a lot of stuff that just kind of recycles, but when you can pair it with new stuff, you're like, ooh, that's different. That part was, I never seen that before. And they got a lot of people to talk about him that they have not,

that, I mean, I knew that I was going to have difficulty when I reported on this story because I'm not a hip-hop journalist. I don't have any connections in New York. So everybody I tried to talk to, like I was basically starting from scratch.

But like Kirk Burroughs, one of the people that helped him to start bad boy. Like that's not somebody that I've seen quoted very much before. You know, I mean, he was the big one. I can't remember his childhood friend. Robert Patterson, I'm pretty sure. I think that's Robert Patterson. Yeah.

Tim Dogg Patterson. Maybe it's a Tim Dogg. Excuse me. Tim Dogg Patterson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like I had not really seen him. And maybe they, I don't know how they dug him up and got him to talk. they sure did. And then one of the first, a woman that accused him, and that case is working

its way through the course right now. And it's like very early in Diddy's career. Like he's not, he's a nobody in like this very low budget video where he's playing a pimp. And one of the women in that video accuses him of assaulting her later. And I'm just like, oh, they got her too. Like I'd not seen her talk yet. But I think the thing is, is that the reason a lot of these people were willing to talk now is it you can do it now like he can't he probably can't hurt you in the way that they thought that he could hurt them you know 10 15 years ago and so maybe people have just kind of thought and like all right I can talk about how he did me wrong now here's a couple of other observations about the doc yeah I love the 90s media tour that we see him going through oh yeah he's on

with rosy O'Donnell he's on with charlie rose yeah he's on the MTV New Year's Eve in 1999 when he was facing weapons charges and Chris Connelly, there's a name, turns to him and says kind of a tough week last week. He's part of the MTV thing and that's, that is a whole different thing

about, you know, the MTV's use of him and, you know, in these various moments. We see a lot of the tape of that too, which is fascinating. The James Lipton interview. Oh my God, that was mind-blank. Speaking of the 90s. He had his mom there. I kind of forgotten about I really forgot that.

Yeah, I was like, damn, he was on James Lipton, too. So, yeah, I was just kind of shocked at that stuff. I was like, oh, yeah, man, he really did that. And then even, I don't mean to say it this way, but a level lower than that, there used to be when I was coming up, so many local and regional hip hop broadcast shows or radios or like people, like probably now they just have like a YouTube channel or whatever, and they'd be interviewing people, man, on the street or whatever. but to see him, you know, rising up, like, you know, in 91 and doing the local news, the local hip hop scene thing.

Like, it was just like, oh, man, that was a really different time when there were lots of different kinds of media, right? A lot of different kind of people, even like hip hop magazines were different back then, right? Like being on the cover of Vibe meant something in the late 90s that it, you know, I mean, vibe doesn't even exist as a print product anymore. So, yeah, it was, it was nice to kind of live in that moment. again. Did you learn anything about the biggie and Tupac murders that you didn't know before? So there has always been some sort of dispute in terms with the biggie thing about the circumstances of his murder because again, his second album, Life After Death is about to come out. They're doing a media tour. They want to go out to L.A. because it's award season in L.A.

And so they go to this party and everything else and they're out there for a few days. But he's supposed to then, like I think on a Saturday, go with Kirk Burroughs to London for the European part of the tour. And the way that it had been explained to me, and Cheo Hedare Koker, who's, you know, legendary hip-hop journalist, had told me that, like, Biggie had said, I kind of want to stay in L.A. I'm having fun. You know, the women here, the weed, you know, the weather. I'm really liking it right now. But Kirk Burrough says that Biggie actually wanted to leave L.A. And then he was in the dock. He says in the doc that I really, he really wanted to go that he wasn't comfortable in LA and wanted to go and that Diddy made him stay. And that by him staying those extra couple of days that, you know, I mean, he ended up getting fatally shot during that time. So I did not know that there was a dispute over that. I just thought that they were being a little reckless, but I didn't realize that Biggie compelled him to stay at that point. So that was one thing. And I did not realize the extent of Diddy. jealousy of Tupac and how that may have been one of the reasons that he wanted him dead.

Something they spent a lot of time on in the stock. Yeah. And I've said this before in other places before, having reported on this before, what's the most responsible way? I don't necessarily doubt the claims that Diddy may have paid money to have Pock insured assassinated, right? Like I think that's, a credible accusation. Like I don't, I don't think there's anything behind it. But I thought it was just because he was scared of them

and not that he saw Tupac is an impediment to his friendship with Biggie and that he was jealous of Puck. And when you see them kind of side by side in this documentary, it starts to make a lot more sense. I'm like, I've talked about this before too.

Tupac was beautiful, man. Beautiful, brilliant, just had a way with words and people, right? Like he could just walk into a room and make everybody fall in love with him. Diddy couldn't do that. Like he just was kind of more of a nerd. And I actually have a friend, Jason England, who's a music writer and an academic, who's from Harlem and knows a lot of this world. And he's like, yo, man, nobody up there respected him.

Like, they thought he was a cornball. And you can really see it when he's side by side with puck. And so I kind of understand. I'm like, oh, okay. Like, I'm not saying that that's one of the reasons, but like that it's a plausible. a plausible explanation for his anger and wanting to see them away from Biggie. I had never really contemplated that before. And that comes up in the documentary.

So yeah. Last question for you. Do documentaries ever have narrators again? Man. So I didn't notice that until you pointed that out. Is it, well, because this is the way of the world now is you use your archival footage and you use your interviews to tell the story, and you don't have like an Uber.

Have you noticed that? Like almost every doc now in streaming is like that. One of the first narrator. One of the first documentaries I remember doing that. Do you remember the ESPN 30 for 30 June 17th, 1994? I don't remember that one. And they stitch it all together. It's the day that the OJ Chase.

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's the NHL thing. It's the NBA finals. And it doesn't have a narrator. And that was how they built it. Like, that was a big deal at the time. and it's just stitched together clips of that day. And it's really fascinating.

It's really good. And I didn't even think about it then. But man, I wonder if, I don't know if this is the financial thing or an artistic thing. Because sometimes you wonder if a narrator can sort of take you out of a doc. Like who is the right narrator for this documentary, you know? I know.

I think it's the latter. I mean, these are all really expensive docs. Like, these are not, they would not shy away from hiring. somebody but I think you're right I think it's it's a mood thing and this is not new in the history of documentaries at all it just feels like no documentary has a narrator now it was really striking to

watch the new or doc the other day and also on Netflix and julian more was narrating it and it was like oh I just haven't heard a voice come through in a long time and say now this now this now this but I think it I think it actually does create a certain mood because these docs now are all about music. They're all about archival sound. Of course, they hear you have lots of music, you know, because this talk is about music to some extent, right, that you can play in the background. It's just, it is mood to me as much as anything. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I'm just almost this trance, you know, and like, this is obviously a very serious subject matter. So you're just in this kind of very particular place, I think, mentally, emotionally maybe watching the doc.

Yeah, I just, I wonder how a voice would have snapped me out of it if it would have. I think it probably would have if it was a wrong person. Right, exactly, right. Like, the scoring was really good in this documentary, too. Like, I mean, some of it is like, you know, the music that was contemporary at the time and other stuff. And so, yeah, I thought that part of it was really, really good at least. So I still. Docs now have very moody scores.

They have really do. It helps. It helps. All right. Now, Brian. Night and day. Okay. Night and day, man, that's one of my favorite songs.

There we go. My favorite, I'll be sure. So I thought that first. Is there a good answer to that question? That's a fair point. Because there's a whole part of this that's like, you know, they're like, was he a good, was he a good rapper? And like people talk about it's like absolutely not.

I think it's Mark Curry, right? It's like, no. Mark Curry, one of the more interesting humans I've ever interviewed in my life. One day I have to tell you that story. He is, he's a fascinating. He was great in this doc too, by the way. Fascinated character. But, yeah, man, it was, I,

Please go watch it if you all can. People have been pressing me to watch it. Like, you all go watch it now because I think it's really interesting. He's Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Pretty some magic. By Bruce Baldwin. A couple of announcements, Joel.

We'd love you to follow us at Pressbox Ringer on Instagram where you can see the rundown for this show. Love that. I got to make that out today, by the way, and put it up. You have great handwriting. Oh, thank you. You do. I don't use my hands to write anymore. So whatever I try to do it, I was like, oh, that is a skill that is atrophied.

So I'm impressed. Coming up next week on the press box, one, we have a little bit of a schedule change. Shoemaker is now going to be on Tuesday. So the first press box of the week, we're moving it from Monday to Tuesday, which is way easier for us scheduling-wise. Everything else will remain the same. Just look for that on Tuesdays going for it. We're going to start that next week.

Joel and I will still be in the Thursday slot. And next week, Joel, on both Tuesday and Thursday, it's that time of year. Yola Boko Flood is upon us. I've got the package right here. You got it. You got the box. You told me not to open.

There we go. I'm going to show the, I'm not going to show the address. But yeah, anyway. So yes, I'm excited. One of mine came in and you got another one coming too. Oh, good.

Now, should I just open anything that has, that's coming in from you? Should I just open it right away? No, we're just hope we're going to open it on. Like I said, we've agreed. Now, I do have to ask you, where did you send this from? Because we're getting all kinds of stuff, as you imagine this time of year. You know, presents for the kids and stuff like this.

There's something that came in that said like Brian Curtis from Amazon or something. Is that? That's it. That's it. Put that one aside. And there'll be another, there'll be a second package. You and that's embarrassed. I don't want to admit that I was patronizing Amazon books.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sure Bruce will edit all this out. Yeah, just cut it out, Bruce, if you can. Anyway, that's next week. Yolo Buckel Flood. And then we've got a lot of end of year plans too. Joel, cannot wait to see you next week with presence in front of us and more lukewarm takes about the media.

Likewise, buddy.