The Press Box - Trump Presses the Press, Luka Doncic and the Fans, and Introducing ‘25 for 25’

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Hello, media consumers! Bryan and Joel kick off the show with this week’s class in J-School. Joel discusses Bryan’s appearance on ‘The Bill Simmons Podcast’ in which they talked about whether or not Patrick Mahomes will reach another Super Bowl (1:26). Then he gets into the Jalen Hurts media tour that Hurts himself appears disinterested in, John Rocker vs. Patrick Mahomes Sr., and Kendrick Lamar’s performance. (7:49). Then they go over the following headlines: Donald Trump’s full court press on the media (20:18) Luka Doncic’s fans are still upset (45:48) Jeffrey Toobin joins the New York Times (59:01) Journalism advice from a basketball coach (1:00:35) They conclude the show by introducing a new bonus podcast series called ‘25 for 25’ (1:04:35). Hosts: Bryan Curtis and Joel Anderson Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi everyone, it's Amy Poehler, and I'm launching a new podcast called Good Hang. In preparation for that, I asked some of my friends to send in some videos and give me some advice. Just be yourself, and the guests will come. Don't be the celebrity that this is their like sixth thing they're doing. I love true crime and cooking podcasts. Is there any way you could combine the two? Well, everyone has an opinion and a podcast. So, join me for Good Hang. It's rough out there. We're just trying to lighten it up a little. Media consumers, welcome to Press Box.

You've got Brian Curtis. You've got Joel Anderson. You've got producer Brian Waters. Coming up on a very big podcast, How has Donald Trump tried to sabotage reporters? We walk you incident by incident through the last three weeks. Plus, as the Lucidantia's trade finally made sports writers pay attention to the people in the stands. We will discuss Jeffrey Tubin being very back.

A basketball coach has good advice for young jernos. and we introduce our brand new press box series 25 for 25. But first, let us take you to a place where they don't just smoke cigars after winning the Super Bowl. They smoke them every day. In class, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to J-School. Brian, you do know what the J-School motto is, don't you? Puff, Puff, Puff, Pass. Anyway, I might have mentioned in a previous episode that I was insanely jealous of you

and everyone else who got to spend some time in New Orleans and joined the Super Bowl. And I tried to get over that. But even more than that, I have not had a chance to talk about the game with anyone since Sunday night, believe it or not. So I just, just for back, I have a four-month-old who will be a five-month-old by the time most people hear this. And she kind of dissolved into a screaming mess, and I had to stop tweeting and texting to turn attention to her. And in that way, I'm sort of fortunate the game was pretty much over after the first two possessions of the third quarter. Right? So, but yeah, I haven't had anybody to talk with about this.

And so it's like, you know, you mentioned, you went on Bill's show, and you talked about, oh, you know, usually there's a shelf life talking, you know, the Super Bowl until Thursday. You know, like when the Sports Illustrated piece on the game comes out. And so, like, this is sort of my chance to be, you know, Peter King, I guess. So whoever you think, you know, Dr. Z, whoever you chose to read in Sports Illustrated to talk a little bit about the Super Bowl. Okay. So I hope you all will indulge me a little bit. It is Thursday.

It's like the issue just arrived in the mail. Here we go. Just edition. Yeah. So I listen, Brian, to pretty much every stop on your media tour this week, including with his excellency, Bill Simmons, and our good. friend Dominique Foxworth. And I have to say, I was trying to impress everybody here that I knew Dominique. I was like, you know, Dominique was giving me some advice on some places to live in Maryland

and nobody really bit. So I just, oh, yeah, he really likes you got you too, Brian. So I guess it wasn't as big a deal as I thought. But I should mention that their podcast is one of a few handful of NFL podcasts I listen to, including ours here at the Ringer, to kind of get caught up on that stuff. We're big fans of them too, right? Yeah. When we met a Super Bowl party, this is like the media machine in action. Oh, what can you say? Turn around and here's Dominic Foxworth. What party was it? It was the volume party thrown by Colin Coward, actually. Nice. Okay. Yeah, and here's, here's Dominique. Here's his co-host, Charlie Kravitz, and we get to talking, and then this is how the sausage is made, folks. Yeah, yeah. A couple days after

the Super Bowl. You're sitting there on a big screen behind Dominique and Charlie talking about meta-media stuff. Hobnobin. Hobnob. See, that's the kind of stuff you miss when you're not allowed to go. But I do want to go back to something you said on Bill's show. And you mentioned something about how, like, nobody doubts Pat Mahomes, right? There's nobody. You know, you don't think there's really people out there that think that, you know, that he's enduring any real crisis. Or he's an inflection point in his career, correct? I think you, I think that's pretty safe. to say. You can say he had a crappy game when it mattered, but nobody's like, it's over for Patrick Bahams. All right. So I'm going to counter that there's degrees to doubt. And I'm going to say,

first of all, Bill sort of sowed some of that by questioning if maybe we've already seen the best of Mahones when you talk with him. He was like, oh, you know, there's this idea that he'll be getting back to the Super Bowl again and again, kind of like he has so far. And I do think it's sort of a tantalizing question because he turns 30 in September. And I know we've all sort of reconsidered what's possible at the position after, you know, Brady played to be 75 years old. And, you know, Aaron Rogers is still probably going to be looking for work at the age of 41. So, but it's not all that uncommon to see, you know, physical deterioration at professional athletes at that age. And it's a reminder, Mahomes has played 21 playoff games, which is basically an extra season and four games, right?

So everybody has like a life, only how many games are going to play, right? So I do think, though, to kind of nail down this doubt thing, I think the issue with doubt with me, Pat Mahomes, is people have always sort of questioned if he's the best quarterback, even in the league right now. Like I feel like there's always like, maybe it's Lamar Jackson. Maybe it's Josh Allen. Well, you know, Joe Burrow, man, he's putting up some numbers. And that's not doubt in the traditional sense that, like, is Pat Mahomes still going to be a good quarterback? But it is doubt about his place in the game. And I, because I'm very passionate about this.

I think Pat Mahomes is the best quarterback I've ever seen. And I want him to be acknowledged as such. And if you don't think that, that I think that that's sowing doubt about Pat Mahomes. No way to say. We can't say that Lamar Jackson had a better season than Patrick Mahomes is here, that he's the MVP of the league or Josh Allen as it turned out the actual MVP of the league? I think you can say those guys can have better seasons, but I think if there was a draft of NFL quarterbacks, you would, I mean, I'm not going to, maybe I should ask you who you

would take first before I call you a fool for not taking. To me, Mahomes is, my home's, my home is the guy. Like, that's not the question for me. Okay. And because he has a statistical season that by his standards or by the standards of other guys he's playing against the AFC. Look, if he won the Super Bowl on Sunday, nobody would have cared. We probably would not have been having a Josh Allen MVP conversation. Like, who cares?

Right, right. He's the guy. He went 15 and 1 in games that matter during the regular season. And if he won all his playoff games, postseason games, and oh, well, he wins. You know, he's the best. No, I totally agree with that. Okay, yeah.

And I develop sort of like these, I take up these campaigns personally. So it's like, to even make you feel better about this, I found myself rooting for the Dallas Cowboys at a point a few years ago because I wanted people to acknowledge that Tony Romo was a good quarterback. And I just thought a lot of the criticism he took was stupid. And I really wanted the Cowboys to win so that he could sort of, you know, disabuse his critics of the notion that he was not really good. But it never really happened like that. So this is, it's not just Pat Mahomes specific.

Sometimes I take up all these causes, right? But speaking of quarterbacks, Brian, I want to talk about Jalen Hertz for a second because I was thinking about this as he's kind of gone on this media tour. And he seems like he's really disinterested in being a part of it, right? He doesn't say anything. He doesn't want any of this. And so I have a comp for him that is going to maybe seem a little off the wall. But you ride with me for a second. Cindy McLaughlin.

You know who Cindy McLaughlin is, right? the four-time Olympic gold medalist, 400-meter hurdles, world record holder, and maybe America's most dominant spritter of this generation. Like, she's amazing. She's accomplished. Everybody has seen her coming since she was in high school. Like, everybody knew that she was a phenom.

And look, without being a creep, she's an attractive woman, right? So she has all the ingredients, but it just hasn't seemed like she's kind of become America's sweetheart. And I think it's because of something that is similar that is going on with Jalen Hertz is. Because Jalen, very cool, very handsome, very accomplished. We've known about him now almost a decade. But they don't give anybody anything, right?

And I think that like, I mean, maybe this is not important to them. Maybe it's enough just to be excellent at their sport and they want to go home and they want to be left alone. But I just, I wonder if Jalen could just give us. just a little bit more if he could have America eating out of his hand. So it's so fascinating because he's sitting there after the Super Bowl. He's doing this interview. He's got to have dreamed of doing forever. Bench during the national championship game.

Loses the Super Bowl by three points of the Chiefs. Now he has kicked the Chief's ass. Beat in Patrick Mahomes played better than Patrick Mahomes when it mattered. And he's asked, what does this mean to you? What do you feel? And he goes, I'm still processing. And in a way, that's like a totally human answer. But to your point, if he gave us the cliche, if he gave us the phony, I'm so grateful,

I can't tell you how meaningful is this to me, to my family and all that stuff, we would have lap that up. Even if we knew it was, I don't want to say insincere, but just out of the, out of the, you know, here's how you answer the question when you win the Super Bowl guidebook. Right, right. And we would have liked him more for being, for the cliche than we would. the kind of halting, I don't know what to say. I'm not sure I ever know what to say, answer. Yeah.

Yeah, it just doesn't take very much to give that, right? And you can still sort of have your defenses up and keep a distance from media and not fall victim to the rat poison. You know, that his former coach Nick Sabin used to talk about, right? But I wonder, and you guys have mentioned this before, that a lot of people say that Jalen is as much a coach, he's as similar to Nick Sabin as any player. he's ever coached and you can really see it then. But I wonder if Jaila is going to get a chance to sort of, you know, reinvent himself in media. Like that's the thing. Like Nick, because of where he was in his career and how great he was and he ends in the 70s, he gets to kind of slide into the media with Jalen, those moments are really fleeting. And there's always a bunch

of people shooting for those kind of positions at the end of their career. And I just wonder if like, maybe you could just give a little bit more, Jalen, you know, you could have the world at your feet. You know what's funny about him is he doesn't even look expressive while he's playing. No. Patrick Mahomes does. You know, you'll get those little fox shots and you get a lot of faces from Patrick Mahomes. I feel with Jalen Hertz, it's just like you get stone face when he's playing. 16 yards scramble, stone face. Brotherly shoving in the end zone stone. Like he's just a very, very level guy. The coolest customer there is. Yeah, which we would celebrate, you know, maybe in a different context, but it's funny.

On the other hand, I got a question for you. Is James Winston really going to become a media star? So that felt kind of inflicted upon us by Fox at the Super Bowl. They had James asking questions at press conferences. There was at least one reporter complaining that I saw on Twitter. He was like, you know, he asked like seven questions in a row. And we would also like to actually do our jobs here and ask questions. I know James is getting content for Fox.

That's cool, but maybe I would like to get a question to Nick Siriani in here. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there were so many videos of him eating bignets and basically just being a goofball at media. And I'll call it goofy here and something else off line. But look, you know, and to his credit, teammates really do seem to adore him. He does seem to be, he does seem to have matured, right? But look, I covered some of the investigation to the rape allegations against him when he was at FSU. And then people that know James' career know that he was suspended for three games in 2017 after a female Uber driver accused him of broping her.

So I was thinking about that in the context of this moment and how he sort of reemerged. It's like the fun-loving guy, this real character, you know, this NFL, this NFL, you know, jester, if you will. I know social morris have changed quite a bit. Maybe he could be the secretary of defense or something today, right? But one thing that James did that was sort of ingenious, he started laughing at himself, like eating crab legs, which I saw a video of a fan through crab legs at him and he started eating them. And it's a reference to when he was accused of shoplifting crab legs from a Publix in Tallahassee.

I mean, you know, who among us? A huge story in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Right, right. It was because it came on the heels of those rape allegations. It was like, this guy has not learned his lesson. But I was thinking about this, and I'm going to make another weird analogy.

It's sort of like what Kobe did in a way. You know how Kobe basically insisted on people seeing, Kobe basically insisted on people seeing him the way he wanted them to see him. So he started calling himself Black Mamba. And everybody was like, he's Mamba now. I feel like this is kind of James's attempt to rebrand himself. He's like, I'm a goofball and I'm going to laugh at myself and I'm going to force you to, I'm going to force you to not think about anything that came before and you're going to have to deal with me on my terms right now. This is the way I want you to see me.

I think that's exactly what he's doing and it feels really weird because it's bits. It's not sitting there doing analysis of football and I don't know that that would be any morally different, but it's bits. You know, it's riding around New Orleans. As you say, eating bignets. By the way, what an original idea. Go to New Orleans and take a picture of yourself or film yourself eating bignioles. guys you better you know you better be on the next time Brady rose because that's the funniest idea I've ever heard wow where did you come up with that one go get some Metsufei or something

yeah at least mix it up a little bit yeah yeah I agree with you I found the whole thing very strange and just and also the volume of it that was happening like every time I was on social media yep I'm like here he is again doing something wacky yeah man yeah it's just I was like all right I get it I get it Fox thanks um All right. Did you see the viral video of Pat Mahomes, Sr. and John Rocker, squaring off on Bourbon Street? No. Oh, my God. That happened? You didn't see that? Oh, my God. No. I'm sorry.

Oh, we should have talked about this before. No, but I just want you to explain to me everything that happened. I mean, there's not a lot of explanation. There's a video of John Rocker approaching Pat Mahomes on the street. And it looks like Mahomes kind of swats his hand away. And then, of course, that tempers flare and somebody has to get in between them and they're yelling at each other. So, oh, look, look, okay. So Brian Waters just put it up now and I'm looking at this. Brian's doing the work.

That's Home Senior in the red hoodie. And why is John Rocker in, in New Orleans at all? Why wouldn't he be in New Orleans? Okay. Yeah, they're escorting him away. Rocker is pretty, buff isn't the word, but he's stacked, right? Yeah, he's a big dude. They would call him a horse.

Yes, I think he's officially a hoss. He's a hoss. This is unbelievable. Isn't it great? Okay, so things flared up again on Tuesday when Mahomes tweeted, John Rocker is a minister society. Rocker followed up a few hours later on the website, formerly known as Twitter.

Mahomes is lucky he got away. I would have rocked him. He capitalized the R and rocked. And I bet he would have loved to. And then you know what happened? Barstall Sports says that Rocker and Mahomes, Senior, are going to officially fight each other at some event called Rough and Rowdy on April the 18th.

So those catchphrase heavy tweets did not turn out to be completely just off the cuff. Yeah. They were a prelude to a fight. Yeah, I'm just so, was this a stunt or was this real? I think you just read sounded like wrestling. Yeah, right? I'm going to rock you.

I'm going to rock. Capital R. Here we go. I mean, that sounds like this was all in the make. I don't know if the street confrontation, but definitely that, whatever happened on Twitter. I mean, if Pat Mahomes, Jr. ever gets to the Super Bowl, I just hope he can go one more without ever having a new cycle involving his father again. For his sake.

Is this going to be the end of the Chiefs Dynasty? theme and we talked about a lot of different things, you know, injuries. Yeah. The idea that, you know, Brett Veach just doesn't have anymore. Can't put a sport, it could cast around the homes. And then there's stuff like this, you know, you have to get, look, I'm a, it was a fan of the White House Cowboys. So like, things get weird.

Right. Several seasons in. Right. I mean, yeah, man, it just, we take for granted that that stuff will go on forever. It doesn't take much for, you know, if you lose a little bit at the margins, it doesn't take much for somebody to catch up with you. And I want to rest through this real quick, by Brian. Sure. Finally, Kendrick Lamar.

And I mentioned in the last episode that he's my choice for the rapping goat. There was a lot of debate around his halftime performance. And when you were on the show at Bill, he said he thought there was more commentary about that than the actual game. And I don't know, but I was thinking this, especially if you're familiar with Kendrick's work over the past 15 years or so. And it's why I'm still working on my favorite song. just to just be that out there.

You saw it on halftime. Yeah, that's her next week's show. Okay, next week. Okay. Give me some more time. Okay. To consult with the list, of course. And it's sort of why I think the choice for him at the Super Bowl was inspired and bound

to inspire this reaction. He could have done anything and it would have been offensive. Like, music is so fractured today. I wouldn't necessarily assume that Super Bowl fans are Kendrick fans, right? Like, there is a lot of Super Bowl fans who are Kendrick fans, but they're all. lot of Super Bowl fans who are not Kendrick fans. So I think it's kind of hard to separate. It was set up for this to happen, I think.

I think that's exactly right. Yeah, yeah. And which is, I mean, that's what sort of makes it inspired because they want people to, they want people to look forward to the halftime show and they want people to talk about it afterward. So did Mike Johnson Speaker of the House weigh in on this? Because I saw him saying he didn't like the halftime show. I mean, I just again.

That was real, right? That was like the Bourbon Street thing. I don't think that was KFAB. Yeah, I think that was a real thing. And look, I, like, somebody went up and asked Mike Johnson, what do you think of the halftime show? And Mike Johnson was like, I have an opinion for you right now about this. Fastball right across the plate.

Like, you know, I was like, oh, great, you're going to, I get the opportunity to opine on this. Thank you very much. But anyway, I, I enjoyed it. I didn't love it as much as I thought his Amazon stream show last summer, the pop out was a better performance because that was in front of a crowd that was friendly to him and the energy was a lot different. But the dude had Sam Jackson and Serena Williams out there,

critwalking. I mean, come on. I mean, come on, man. That's a big deal. So anyway, I think if we were in a different time, maybe people could acknowledge we tried to pull off there. But anyway, that is Jay School. If you want to puff, let me know.

All right, let's do some headlines. Headline one, and I want to ask you for some help with the wording here, Joel. Donald Trump's war on the press? Is that the word I'm looking for? Crusade against the press. Crusade against the press. I just war sounded a little control plus V to me. I wasn't worried it was too strong, but...

I mean, I don't think it's too strong. It seems appropriate, but if you were just looking for a synonym, you know. Yeah, the thing Trump is trying to dismantle the same way he's trying to dismantle the federal bureaucracy. Yeah. So many examples over the last couple of weeks. weeks. I want to walk through them with you one by one. And maybe as we do, we can think about a question that I think is really interesting, which is what should reporters do? What is the move here? A lot of people in the resistance generally have been thinking about that with Donald Trump's

actions, doge, all these things. But when we talk about the press covering Donald Trump, what is the thing you should do? What is the reaction to these various things? Let's start Tuesday. a reporter with the AP, that is the Associated Press, the Wire Service, Place You Know Well, Joel, tried to go into the Oval Office to an event with Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and the reporter was denied entry. The reason was that the AP is still calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico, despite a Trump executive order that it be renamed the Gulf of America.

The AP was shut out of an event on Tuesday, then another event Tuesday night and then another on Wednesday when Tulsi Gabbard was being sworn in as Director of National Intelligence. I thought Jake Tapper on CNN got it this well, imagining a future Democratic president who decided that the immigration and customs enforcement agency no longer existed.

What if a Democratic president in the future decides she's going to do the same thing? She's just unilaterally going to not recognize and dismantle ice. I mean, what if that happens? These standards, they get eroded. And anybody who's lived in Washington knows when the standards are eroded, whether it has to do with pardons or filibuster exemptions or executive actions, they never come back. They just don't.

So enjoy presidents deciding access based on compliance with the words that they like. It is a horrible new standard. And everyone applauding it is going to hate it soon enough. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's pretty strong, and I think that's right. I mean, it was pretty easy to predict. I mean, I think part of the Trump campaign was talking about opening up libel laws. Like, actually, he's been talking about that since 2015, opening up the libel law so that he could sue media outlets and everything else. And so this is just an extension of that.

And, you know, I mean, I think one thing that's, this is a little. doomer. Will there ever be another Democratic president? We'll see. The other piece of this is that Democrats, whatever you think of them,

they don't have the gumption to do that. They will not dissolve agencies. I mean, you know, Homeland Security, like that, I mean, that was a big bureaucracy that was created out of 9-11. That is going to be with

us throughout eternity, even though people have had doubts about its efficacy, like the need for it, any of that other stuff. But Democrats kept it and have funded it and gone along with the program. So I don't even think that's a question. Yeah, but it's for what the media should do. Man, Brian, I mean, I think we're going to be saying the same thing over and over again. I don't know. I'm pretty, maybe I'm accelerationist here and we're going to differ a lot.

But I think that there's an answer here, but I don't know if there's enough cohesion or stomach to do what needs to be done. Is that nobody walks into the Oval Office event with Elon Musk if the AP doesn't get to go in? Absolutely. I don't think people, I think they should all stop going. Because an attack on, like, it's so random.

It's not going to stop at the Associated Press. Like, as soon as you do something he doesn't like, reporting about something doing an investigation, he's going to take it out on that media outlet. And so either you draw a line now, or you're going to find out you're going to be shut out later. That's what's so interesting about this. And I feel like the catalog of examples I have in my head are all from sports writing

where the manager won't take a question from one of the reporters who's sitting there. And everybody in that room has a choice to make. You just keep asking questions like normal. Do you get the question from the guy who shut out and ask it yourself so that at least they get their question in? Or do you all just walk out of the room and just be like, you know, what, all good. Thanks for this. I don't want to pretend that that's the same as like asking questions to the president and Elon Musk, who is his chief deputy of doing stuff right now. There's also a

scenario, you know, where if those people don't walk into the room that all these new media, quote unquote, people that Donald Trump has wanted to deputize and empower will just fill the gap. And does that matter? I mean, it's an interesting question to me, but I'm with you. I'm kind of like, Aren't we having a conversation as a news organization where we're like, why are we in here? Right. If this is why people are getting tossed. And I actually think that, okay, let's say those seats are filled by OAN and Breitbart or whatever else. Okay, fine.

I mean, what Donald Trump has shown one thing that it's pretty consistent. He cares about media coverage and attention. And sometimes this is an outgrowth, like him lashing out is when it doesn't go his way. But if, I mean, I know this sounds crazy. Starve him of the media attention that he so desperately desires. You can still report on him without showing up to these things, right? And I wonder if that might be more effective than just kind of hoping it's not going to be your turn to be shut out. I want to underline just how absurd the complaint is here.

The AP put out a statement about all this and said the Associated Press will refer to the Gulf in question by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. So they were already going for a comma phrase, the Gulf of Mexico comma, now referred to as or however you do it. They were already okay with that. Right. But we are going to war over a comma phrase. Yeah, man.

That's what all this is. And by the way, we're all good now forever with. talking about cancel culture. And talking about people being punished because they make a bad joke or they say things to defend people. The AP has been canceled by the administration. Oh, yeah. That's what happened here.

They were canceled because they wouldn't call it the Gulf of Mexico or they would only call it that in a comma phrase. Get out of here with that stuff. I mean, that is, I'm all good with that forever. I don't think that I'm being silly here about wondering where all the free speech warriors are now. I mean, there were a lot of free speech warriors of the past half decade or so who were really concerned about, like, the alarming climate of discourse and people being shut out of debate and all this other stuff. And like, where are those people today?

I would just like to, you know, maybe, I don't know, maybe they got shut out too. Maybe they were stripped of their ability to type or something. But it would be nice to hear those same people speak up in defense of media outlets under the gun like this. we mentioned the idea of walking out of a White House event when one reporter's turned away. Here's another idea. CNN's Caitlin Collins goes to the White House and asks White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt why the AP has been banned. Here's that exchange.

The reason is the argument because the reason that the AP was barred, which they said was because they're not using the phrase Gulf of America. They're using Gulf of Mexico in line with their standards. And so the question here is, is this. setting a precedent that this White House will retaliate against reporters who don't use the language that you guys believe reporters should use? And how does that align with the First Amendment commitment that you were just talking about? I was very upfront in my briefing on day one, that if we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable. And it is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana

is called the Gulf of America. And I'm not sure why news outlets don't want to call it that, But that is what it is. The Secretary of Interior has made that the official designation and the geographical identification name server. And Apple has recognized that. Google has recognized that. Pretty much every other outlet in this room has recognized that body of water as the Gulf of America. And it's very important to this administration that we get that right, not just for people here at home, but also for the rest of the world. We got from alternative facts to this.

I mean, lies. Lies. Lies. Yeah. I mean, I'll, I mean, first. First of all, it's sort of disingenuous because it is any AP alum or any AP employee would tell you. The AP does not serve just an American audience. They serve an international audience. And so they're doing this in accordance with what everybody else in the world recognizes that body of water that we've put our feet in before.

I'm sure you've been to the Gulf of Mexico before, right, Brian? Many a time. I thought that, yeah. And so, I mean, it is the prerogative of President Trump to call it that, but like, that is not with Mexico, that is not with Jamaica. That is not with, you know, any Caribbean island out there is going to be calling that. And they serve those readers and those outlets as well, and they have a responsibility to them. So, yeah, I mean, lies. I mean, that was really incendiary, man.

I was kind of, I don't know. Maybe I've not heard that clip yet, but that was, that kind of took my breath away a little bit. It did. Somehow the L word putting it in there made an unforgivable situation even more unforgivable. Well, we're not talking about just a debate over what we call things. Like, right? Like, we can say that we want to call it this. We want you to call it this.

It's not called that anymore. And you got to call it when we call it. Like that is a fundamental difference. And that's a lie. And if you, if you say the lie, then you will be punished. Yeah. by us because you don't don't get to see Trump and Elon together in the Oval Office. So that's number one.

Number two is Donald Trump still suing media outlets. There was movement on his case against the Pulitzer Prize Board. I don't know if you've read, I sort of somehow the Trump media lawsuits all ran together for me. So I don't know if you are briefed fully and I'll just brief the audience even if you are, Joel, on this. But reporters won Pulitzer's for reporting on Donald Trump. and Russian election interference back in the reporting was in 2017. I believe the prize was in 2018.

In 2022, the Pulitzer Board put out a statement defending those awards. Because of course, Donald Trump says, how could you give the Pulitzer to that to the Russia hoax, whatever it is? Donald Trump is suing the Pulitzer Board and all this is via the Washington Post for that statement.

That's just what's happening here. That is how in the weeds we are. are with doing word police and lawsuits. Man. Also, we had the CBS thing, but by the way, the CBS lawsuit is also an amazing one. If people have not followed this. To repeat, Kamala Harris went on 60 minutes during the campaign. Donald Trump did not go on 60 minutes during the campaign.

And when Kamala Harris went on, she was asked about the situation in the Middle East in Gaza and BB Net and Yahoo. and CBS showed two different clips of her giving an answer to that. One on Face the Nation, one actually on 60 minutes. Now, that was confusing, perhaps, certainly not worthy of a lawsuit. And when CBS turned over the tapes and transcripts to the FCC, the Donald Trump's FCC, turns out the two statements CBS showed were both from the same answer. The answer was three sentences long.

In one instance, they showed the first sentence. In another instance, they showed the last sentence. Both answers were nearly identical, and by the way, had no content anyway. Like, Kamala wasn't getting into that, shockingly, in any detail with 60 minutes. Right, right, right. She was not engaging. But that also got a lawsuit. And that was funny to me because you and I have both done pieces where you wind up looking at your transcripts, right?

Of all the interviews. And how many pages do you have? A hundred? Hundreds. Yeah, absolutely. And you are selecting which quotes you're going to show or which quotes you're going to put in the story. And I'm like, Donald Trump is just showing how, you know, accidentally showing how these things are done. Look through everything.

You choose what material you're going to use. You try to show what's truthful, what was accurately reflects what the person was saying or intending to say. Right. This is what you do in journalism. This is just the work right here. Yeah. Well, I mean, the law is whatever. I mean, the law is so.

So I guess the law is only as good as the people who enforce it. And so he is free to sue. And it's really going to come down to what judge, hears it, what jury hears it possibly. And that's just, I mean, you know, that's really scary, man. You know, I mean, I mean, that this is the threat. This is what, this is a culmination, as I mentioned earlier,

of his, I mean, he said that he was going to do this, that he was going to go after media outlets and he was going to sue and do that sort of thing. And this is, this is, I mean, he's living up to it. And so, like, that's why trying to settle with him and all that sort of stuff. I mean, I guess, like, I don't know what, the right answer is because you could

usually lose that case depending on who hears it and where, right? I mean, we're in a different, we're in a different time. I guess is the answer to that. I mean, this is again, this is not like, you know, there's some wording in a story. They showed two different clips. And you can, by the way, argue, you should just pick

one clip and show it because it is kind of confusing to the audience. Right. You know, who was like, wait, she said, she said this. I thought she said that, whatever it is. But in terms of lawsuit material, what? I mean, what do you think is, I mean, we don't, I guess we don't have to game out what's going to happen. But like, do you share my concern that it may seem, it may seem frivolous, but that doesn't mean that it's not serious.

Yes. Is there a courtroom somewhere in America? Will that will work? Sure. Absolutely. But even to me, even like, I can imagine all kinds of kangaroo courts, especially as it comes to the press. Such a stretch. I mean, even then, could it, could it work?

So that's the only place I'm going with this thought experiment. But yes, to you answer your question, yes, I could absolutely imagine that winning in court. Or CBS just capitulating on the corporate level and going, oh, we don't want to go there. They're going to be like, oh, you're right. Maybe we shouldn't have run those clips. We should have just run one clip, right? To your brother. Number three, Trump's FCC, which I mentioned a minute ago, going after outlets that

has decided are unfriendly. number four X or Twitter Joel has become the in-flight magazine of the Trump presidency this was a great point made by Brian Stelter in his reliable sources newsletter he says this is as much

a made for ex presidency as a made for TV one Homeland security officials post photos of immigration raids State Department officials post TikTok style vertical videos of Marco Rubio's travels dot dot dot posting comes

to some members of Trump's cabinet, like defense secretary Pete Hegseth, who routinely promoted his Fox shows on social media. Now he posts video clips of his meetings, and on Tuesday, candid shots of his workout with green berets in Germany. Pete Hegseth, incidentally, also going after Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin on Twitter. Stelter continues here. The word is trickling down. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the acting deputy attorney general,

quote, personally called FBI supervisors in several cities to make sure they were enforcing Trump's immigration agenda and posting pictures of their work on social media. The point, Stelter says, is enforcing the agenda isn't sufficient. Posting the pictures on social media is also part of the assignment. You know, when there a time when people,

I just feel like there was a time maybe five, six, seven years ago, people really started taking up the claim that Twitter isn't real life and that like Twitter is such, it's limited to such a small percentage of actual Americans. Only so few people actually engage with it. And it's just sort of crazy. And it sort of speaks to, you know, this presidency. So we know that Trump narrowly this time has not even won a majority of voters in any election,

which presumably means that he probably does not have a majority of supporters in this country. Like, I mean, even people that would support his agenda. But he's still pandering or like catering and his administration catering to a really small number of people, man. Like Twitter does not even have the traffic that it had, you know, in 2019. And I mean, I don't know what to do. I mean, you know, this may be one of the few times that I'm willing to sort of join on with people like,

maybe social media was a bad idea, you know? Because usually I'm really skeptical of that sort of stuff. I'm like people will always find ways to sort of over-dramatize, like whatever, you know, the ongoing concern is, whatever the moral panic is, cultural panic is of the moment. But now I'm like, I don't know, maybe people may have a point about social media and Twitter's in particular. Well, circle around back to your original point, too. Isn't it real life, at least to a point if he is declaring that it's real life? He's saying we need the pictures of the immigration raids on Twitter. We need Pete Hexeth doing.

his full body workout and also criticizing the press himself. Yeah. I mean, at some point sort of becomes that, right? No, I mean, it does. And I mean, I guess the thing is, is it's interesting how it's not reflected in like traffic numbers, right? Because, I mean, they're clearly, they do think of it as important, but it's not like it's translated into some, you know, bonanza of engagement.

I agree. Yeah. So, I mean, but it's. I would say Fox News doesn't have that many viewers. If you think about the number of people that watch NFL games or something like that. But if your whole through line here is we're going to change the nature of reality, we're the news. They're not the news. We are now.

Then this is part and parcel of that. Look at what we post and that will filter down into Facebook posts. That will filter down to Fox News. Now, how many people are reading Twitter? this will become the official record, not what's in the newspaper. Yeah. Should I get back on Twitter, like, be really active then? Is it time to?

No. That is one of the concerns. I mean, I really, because I have been, I've moved over to a blue sky. First of all, I just got kind of tired of being called a low IQ, DEI hire on Twitter, to be, to be honest. But I also think that, like, there is something to be said for, like, not seating whatever accounts is the public square now. to one side of the debate, right? And, you know, not that not that I side with any particular side, but I am on the side of what I like to believe is like a thorough investigation of the truth and an airing of the truth. And it, it makes me wonder if the people that have fled Twitter,

me sort of among them, have maybe made a mistake with that. Elon Musk had a line when he was standing with Donald Trump in the Oval Office because he was asked about, hey, you've tweeted some things that have turned out not to be correct. And his line was, some of the things I will say will be incorrect and should be corrected, nobody's going to bat 1,000. Now, that would be a great standard to hold the media to as well if you're the Trump administration. Hey, you know, some of the things won't be right. We'll correct them. We're not going to bat a thousand. Oh, well, too late.

we filed a lawsuit over that thing that was incorrect or merely misleading. Wouldn't you like to see a record of when they've tried to correct those mistakes, though? I think if you're going to say that, then like, let's go over the things that you've made mistakes on. When have you gone to correct the record? I don't think Elon had a Department of Amplification where he went through his mistakes one by one. Also, Bogie Fisher, one of our alert listeners, sent me a screenshot of the first New York Times article that captured that meeting. and they rendered it. Nobody's going to bat 1,000, 1 comma,000.

Oh, man. And I was like, we need some, they need the baseball guy at the time's desk to step in. I was like I going to say, is that the result of them not being a sports guy, or is it that just how far baseball has fallen? Probably both. Yeah, right.

Sadly. Number five and finally, Trump's allies calling investigative reporting into Doge, quote, doxing. this has become a thing especially after katherine long who's over at the wall street journal wrote an article about one of those doge employees yeah and all of a sudden she's getting swarmed you had uh interim u.s attorney for the district of columbia this is all uh via the new york times great article by ken bensiger about this saying we will not tolerate threats against doge workers

or law breaking by the disgruntled by the way he posted that on x yeah and tagged Elon Musk. First of all, Ken's my dude. Used to work with Ken at BuzzFeed. He's a great guy, great reporter. Man, you know, this is an ongoing issue because on social media for, I mean, a long time, people have sort of confused what doxing is. They think that reporting things are saying with somebody, like publicly available

information posting it somewhere or mentioning it somewhere is. And that is not what doxing is, right? But it's just a continuation of the debate, but now it has real life, you know, real-world consequences now that that sort of misunderstanding. But sometimes it's not a misunderstanding. It's just a convenient way to attack media or people that are doing like investigative reporting work. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not surprised that this has come up and that they would want to take action. It's kind of, it is, it's scary, right? Because then you're like, as a reporter and you tell me, Brian, like, I mean, I, I, when I was at Slate and I did a season on Clarence Thomas, I went to Clarence Thomas's mom's house.

Right? And I was, yeah. And, you know, they could have, I mean, they could have accused me of doxing, like just saying, you know, like indicating kind of where. Stocking. Stalking, yeah, any of that kind of stuff. I don't, you know, now if I were to do that, I would have to think about. about, hey, is this juice actually worth the squeeze? And that's what they want to happen, right?

Yes. Do you think twice? You know, even if they never take anybody into court, even they never win a court case, get reporters to think twice. This just isn't worth it. Right. Right. Let's do something else.

Let's do something easier. Let's not pursue that. Right. And I mean, that's really insidious. And you know that that is happening. Like we don't have to prove it. You know that there are reporters that are thinking about that as they go about their work and that's what they want to happen.

Absolutely right. Absolutely right. And their bosses too. Oh, I don't want to run this up the flagpole. Right. You know, corporate just dealt with that lawsuit. I don't want to deal with this anymore. Let's do something else. I mean, I would just say it's, we won't necessarily know because it's just going to affect, we don't know the stories that we might miss as a result of this. And that's kind of the scary thing.

Headline number two, Luca Donchich and the fans. So on Monday, Joel, Mavericks had a home game against the Kings. And some Mavericks fans were ready to show how pissed off they are at GM Nico Harrison for trading way their superstar, their boy wonder. What a night it was, I just absolutely love the Twitter clip when the MAGs were doing a karaoke thing on the Jumbotron. And they go to this guy who's wearing like a ribbed sweater. with a beard and he pretends he's doing karaoke and then he just mouths the words fire Nico.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. And the camera just pulls out. Whoa. Never mind. Our guy, Jake Kemp at the Dumb Zone, actually interviewed that guy and two of his buddies who got kicked out that night. And as you might imagine, that did not sit well with already.

mad Mavs fans. No. No, because they're just, you understand, they feel completely powerless here. Right. Like we can't, you know, you can't go to Adam Silver and be like, actually, can you just call off the trade? Right, right. Hey, the guy wasn't in his right, the right frame of mind.

Like, let's just reel this back in. Sorry, you know. Yeah. And then you go into an NBA arena and you realize, and I was reading the rules, the rule can basically be interpreted. It says derogatory characterization toward any persons. So even if you go in there

and don't say a bad word, you're not threatening to anybody, but you say the words fire Nico, you have arguably done something derogatory toward a person. Now, any of us who have sat in a sports arena know that that standard is not actually enforced.

There's a million derogatory things. Even if they're just booze, even if they don't cross lines. They are derogatory in nature, especially the visiting team. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know what? It's like this, this moment has been so interesting to me because I always think sports writers don't pay enough attention to the experiences of fans. And this is not like, you know, connecting with the fans. Because sometimes the sports writer's job is just absolutely different. They're like, I don't root. I ask questions. I try to get answers. You're mad at me.

because I'm not like you. That's not what that is. I've always thought if you're a sports writer covering a team, you need to spend five games a year sitting in the stands. That's a great idea, man. You need to know what a ticket costs. Oh, wow, it costs $120 for a bad ticket to this game. You need to know what the stub hub fees are.

You need to hear what people actually say in the stands. You need to know what they see, what their in-game experience is like. And if it's different from yours and a sealed off press, box, I mean, where you have free food and all that kind of stuff and don't have to wait in line to go to the bathroom. I mean, I just think people get so divorced from that. Well, it was easier when every newspaper had two people to cover those beats, right? Like, there was one person that wrote the game story and did the hobnobbing in the locker room and everything else. And

you would have a flex person that would go get quotes, whatever, a deadline or whatever. And now, I mean, how many newspapers have two people covering an NBA team? That cannot be very many of those. That was the standard when we started when we started on our career, but that no longer is a thing. But it's a great idea. But then you just imagine that reporter being like, oh, yeah, man, I missed the second quarter because I was out there, you know, in this, you know, tailgating or whatever, right?

Hey, look, just go to a Wizards game. I mean, that's fine. Mavericks Wizards. Like, what are you missing? It can't be that important. And that's what the AP is for, too, by the way. They can do the game. Yeah, there you go, right?

You can take that AP copy and, you know, write your story. I just, it's just one of those things. And like, this is a particularly interesting moment with Luca because Bill brought this up on the pod the other day. Phantom has changed. We know this. People are fans of Luca. Full stop. Yep.

And then there are other people in Dallas who are fans of Luca and also the Dallas Mavericks. What happens when Luca goes to L.A.? How transferable is like, what? happens. Are you, is this just like a bad nightmare? And five years later, you're like, okay, I'm a Mavericks fan again. I think so, right? I mean, how many Cavaliers fans do you think actually left with Braun when he went to Miami? I think most of those Cavs fans probably stuck it out and still were Cavs fans. I do think that there are a generation of kids that are fans of players, but the kind of people that we're talking about, like these Maz fans, I cannot

imagine. And you know this. We talked about this. Dallas fans. People in Dallas rooting for the Lakers. Does that sound like something that will happen? Proposterous. And by the way, I was on Mavs Twitter last night when Kyrie dropped 42 against the Warriors and people were pretty fired up. They're pretty excited.

It's tough. Look, I'll give one example. And I'm going to bring up the Houston Oilers every week. Damn it. When the Houston Oilers traded away 38-year-old Warren Moon, let him go so they could elevate Cody Carlson. It was, I started rooting against the Oilers, Because I was like, what are you doing?

You can't get rid of Warren Moon. That is the foundation of this team. So I spent a whole year rooting against them, which was really easy because they went two and 14 that year. You got Cody Carlson who got hurt and we got a lot of Bucky Richardson. I don't know if people remember Bucky Richardson. I was a man. He started, he started some kids.

Mr. Aggie. Yeah, it was pretty bad. But you know what? I was right back on because, first of all, the Oilers drafted Steve McNair that, you know, not long after that. So I was kind of on board with that. But then again, the Oilers left so that I didn't even have a chance to sort of test that.

But I have a hard time. I would not have followed Warren Moon with the Minnesota Vikings or the Seattle Seahawks as a result. And that's me. I'm from a different generation. But I kind of feel like if you love a team, man, it's kind of hard to let that go because one guy leaves. I'm the same as you, but I do think the generational part is fascinating. Right. There are fewer people that follow sports in that straightforward way.

Part of the reason, by the way, we were following in that way because the media was local when we were growing up. We couldn't watch Laker games every night. Like those weren't on, those weren't on TV, those weren't available. You couldn't even read

about Laker games every night other than like a box score in the newspaper. So now if you talk to a generation of kids that maybe art is into sports, maybe you're into sports through video games or gambling or fantasy or whatever, just growing up in a totally different place,

can watch anything they want, can watch YouTube highlights at any time. And then you take a guy like Luca and go, you go to the lake, How does that play for them? I think it might play totally differently. That's a really fascinating observation because what is the way the kids would, or, you're not even kids, but whatever, would engage with the stuff.

They probably are reading, getting their news from like ESPN.com or the athletic. Oh, dude, I think, I think ESPN.com, that's the, I mean, that might be a wish on our part that they're going there. I mean, I may be, that made me to update my understanding. That might be old school to them. Well, because I remember the athletic was started as sort of like a way, to reinvigorate local sports journalism. It was found all these different cities.

And I feel like there are still local beat reporters, but I still feel like the emphasis is on the national aspect of sports, right? The emphasis is on social media clips and YouTube highlights and stuff like that. Right. And again, if we had access to that, we would have been watching that too. There's no judgments at all. Yeah. I wonder what kind of kid I would have been if I'd come around 20 years later now that you mentioned.

I love Houston so much. It's hard for me to imagine rooting for somebody else, just a player, but you probably would have happened. A couple more things on this. Listener's King Studeaug pointed us to an interesting reporter standoff over death threats. Death threats. This starts with ESPN's Tim McMahon on the NBA today. Tim, what security precautions are being taken here by the Dallas Mavericks?

Howdy, Malika, listen. This is a heartbroken fan base, and there have been some very unfortunate developments, regarding that anger, that anguish. Nico Harrison has been subjected to death threats. There have been racial ethics, including some of those. Certainly security is going to be beefed up. There will be protests outside the arena,

or at least those are planned. Security will absolutely be beefed up. Nico Harrison is not going to be in his normal seat in the stands. There's no reason to subject him to that kind of a security risk. So that has been definitely an unfortunate part. of this whole storyline. Obviously, the fans, anger, hey, they have every right to feel like they got a generational superstar ripped away from them, but clearly lines have been crossed.

Yeah, that seems like just a little bit too far here, Tim. Thank you for that. Then a reporter in Dallas Grant Afts that comes back and says, Dallas Police Department's Public Information Officer tells me there are no known threats at this time directed at Mavericks GM Nico Harrison. What did they say about the racial epitapheth? No comment. No comment on that one.

Okay. All right. About the racial appetites. And then McMahon goes back at him through the Hoop Collective podcast over on ESPN. This is an interesting story. I am not, of course, in the truther category that there are no threats against Nico Harrison. That would be unimaginable that there would be none. I do think this is one of these cases in journalism where numbers are your friend.

Mm-hmm. just to help people understand the context and the volume of what's happening here. Right. Right. Talking hundreds of threats against Nico Harrison, thousands of threats, dozens. I could believe, you could tell me if Tim McMahon reported it, I would go with any number there. But I think, like, there are threats against Nico Harrison. Okay.

So by the way, while ESPN played B-roll of the people doing the funny casket thing outside the stadium, why did those people get thrown as the B-roll to this thing? What were that? what were they, I'm sorry, what were they doing exactly? Were they making threats while they were holding the casket for the Maverish franchise? I just, I just find that that's where the story just feels like it needs to be nailed down to me. And if Tim McMahon, by the way, has said that ESPN's website is now a super fun site, as Tommy Craggs likes to say, so I can't find anything on there. So if he's reported that context, but to me, that would help that note.

Yeah, you know, I think, to your point, it's, I'm certain. that Nico Harrison needs extra security. Like, you could feel the anger, just talking to people and seeing how people are sort of discussing him there. And some of it, I mean, let's not, like, a lot of that anger is justified. Like, he is the face of the, he's the face of the franchise that took away the thing that they love. They deserve that anger and they should be able to have it. That's a righteous anger.

But you know what I actually thought about? So I actually got scared off death threats. years ago, like reporting when somebody says, oh, I've got death threats. Do you remember the case of Jim McElwain, the former Florida football coach? So in 2017, he suggested that he and other members of the program had faced death threats. They were in a middle of a really bad year that year. Like, he actually got fired a week later after they lost 42 to 7 to Georgia, right? But Florida took that claim so seriously that they, later released their own statement saying that McElwain had, quote, offered no additional

details about those threats. And they considered firing him for cause for saying that about those death threats. And so it always kind of stuck in my head when people say that death threats have been levied against somebody, I'm going to need some sort of verification on that. Like, what are you talking about? Can you give me a little bit more detail before I'll run with that? because I also think that's like a pose that people do on social media, the engender sympathy. Yeah, I'm getting all these death threats. People are, you know, threatening me and sending stuff,

and you kind of go look at their mentions. And it's like, you know, fuck off. You know, it's nothing, but nothing crazy. So, yeah, I mean, look, Tim has been doing this for a long time, far be it for me to critique how he's going about doing his work. But it's just, that's one of the things that occurs to me, that whenever somebody says death throats, that is a very serious accusation.

And you kind of need a little something else to back it up if you can. Yeah, or just some. specifics just again so we understand the volume i mean i would what do we think jerry jones's inbox looks like on a daily basis you know what do you think jerry jr i o l account what do you think he got a gmail jerry at aol dot com yeah yeah jerry three super bowls remember those at aOL dot com a couple quick ones for you before we get out of here uh headline three geoffrey tubin is back or back in print uh going to be a new york times contributing opinion writer according to Dylan Byers over at Puck.

Okay. There's some openings. Sorry? There's some openings over there. So there's, we heard a few departures. Yeah. And by the way,

I'm in, I think Jeffrey Tuben, Jeffrey Tuben in, Pamela Paul out. I mean, yeah, I'm, I'm okay,

Jill, I'm good. I mean, look, I, we're in a clearly in a different time now. And I think when Jeffrey Tuben went down,

I think there'd been some other, there was a lot of airing of like salacious details about his personal life and I think people use that along with the incident which was if I'm not mistaken he got caught on camera pleasuring himself in the middle of a staff meeting or something along those lines right? Yeah it was a very weird New Yorker work call yeah it was a very weird work call you're right damn what it was. I'll give you the New York Times wording here, exposed himself during a Zoom call. Yeah, I mean, man.

The employees of the magazine and WNYC Radio. I mean, that is obviously not good. And I think he, you know, I mean, a lot of people would pay that price and never come back from it. But if you think Jeffrey Tuben has something to offer to this moment as a writer and a thinker, then I guess like, you know, why not, I guess. here's headline number four journalism advice from a basketball coach whoa really Doug Gottlieb

no not Doug Gottlieb who was on Radio Row by the way down there in New Orleans oh I heard how his basketball season is still going on I don't know if you we're that weirdness but he was yeah

we should do a whole segment about that we should do you think we can get Doug on he might be available it turns out I should just walk up to him on radio row with my microphone Yeah, man. I mean, his season will probably be over fairly soon. So he'll have some time. Yeah.

For us and for Fox Sports Radio. This note, Joel, is Buzz Williams of Texas A&M. Oh, Buzz. Bucky Richardson's alma mater. He was addressing University of Missouri journalism students because the Aggies were up there in Columbia beating Missouri on Saturday. Now, when I hear coach gives journalism advice, I go to a bad place because I just imagine a coach.

lecturing us about clickbait. Oh, the Bob Knight. You know, most of us... It's bad advice. It's not good advice. This was cast as, I think, general career advice, but boy, does a lot of this stuff hit home for journalists. Read more than you think you should.

Two. Write down everything, comma, about everything, comma, all the time, period. Three. over the next 10 years build as many relationships as you can comma

and learn to connect the dots between those relationships four never turned down an opportunity to learn comma or to work good luck now one of the journalism students

was typing that out in real time which is why Buzz William sounds like an AP reporter reading his story to the desk over a phone with the commas and everything my favorite part of that pretty good advice on all four

of those planks no I think the only one that I might quibble with is write down everything because I just feel like this was shorthand is for we also have tape recorder they don't call it tape recorders anymore

we have what is that the memo the voice memos voice memos whatever so you can record things you don't have to write it all down but yeah I think that's absolutely right reporters notebooks in your talking the whole time we're in Atlanta. You're writing everything down. We all write everything down.

Not quotes. Yeah. I write down a lot. Stuff. Well, a piece of advice that I do give journalists is like, get, take a notepad, record the interviews, and make sure you're taking in the scene. Like, don't forget to look around and look at how people, people. So, yeah, I do. And I can't agree more wholeheartedly with number one. Like, read more than you think you should. If you can do it, like, it is, that is really the key. He'd say, yeah, man, Buzz, that's very, very thoughtful advice. I wonder if he's ever given that advice to the Texas A&M journalism students there. Probably would if they asked, I would think.

Are you, is this a dig at Aggie journalism students? Are we going there? So, you know, maybe Buzz can take that message back home to College Station. I'm going to read a headline from February 22. It's from thefire.org. Texas A&M spends hostile takeover of student newspaper as part of journalism program reboot. So, hey, look, man, Buzz, go help you. You're interested in helping out your journalism students.

You got some right there on campus that could probably use your support. So please carry that message and more to them and then to the administration if you can. Carry that message, comma, and more, comma. Back to your alma mater. Headline number five, Joel, and this is a little bit of a, personal announcement here for the two of us. We tease this a little bit before Christmas, but we are going to have a new series of bonus podcast here at the press box called

25 for 25. I'm fine. I'm excited. I am too. I'm getting very, very fired up about this. Now some explanation. This is 2025. And 25 is a nice round number that reporters love.

So this is giving Joel and I a chance to look back at the quarter century of reporting, blogging, announcing, TV opining, podcasting. And it also gives us a chance to figure out where this big, glorious, wounded industry is going to go from here. So you ask, what is 2025 going to be? Well, we're going to do our normal press box shows on Monday and Thursday. Those are not going anywhere. But these are bonus pods that will take two forms. first you and I Joel are going to make some lists yeah that's fun list making is fun

we've been so resistant to list making here at the press box I'm finally I'm glad I'm I'm happy to tear off the band-aid oh yeah I mean it's cliche but then like when you actually get into the list making place like this is kind of cool you know it is fun you and I need to do the best sports writing of the century absolutely so far oh which would be a very fraught list I trembled just as you said it. I'm like, oh, man. I've already got a few things. I've already got a few down. I've already been making some phone calls. Buzz told us to read more than we think we should. So this is just in time. We'll do some other list too that we'll keep under wraps for the time being. That's one kind of 2025 for 25 or 25 podcast. The second is we're going to do interviews with

people who've had interesting 21st century media careers. We're going to revisit where they've been. and they're going to help us figure out what the future holds. Now, the first of these we're going to tape tomorrow. It's with FS1's Nick Wright on the future of sports debate. So excited, man. I'm a big Nick Wright fan. I think I've mentioned that here before. I listen to his podcast.

His is one of the few podcasts I listen to every day. So I'm ready for him. He's a Houston guy. He's been from Houston, too. So I'm excited to talk with him for real. He had a bad weekend. He think he's going to be up to this tomorrow? You know, I will say that when it was time to reach out,

we said, let's just give him an extra day. Like we had talked to him a week before. He kind of got busy at Super Bowl week. And they were like, hey, have we heard from Nick? And it was like, oh, no. And that was Monday. And it was like, let's just give him one more day before we reach out. Give him a little room before we try to nail down the time.

Yeah. If you don't know the career, Nick Wright, Joel mentioned Houston. He did sports radio there. He did sports radio in Kansas City. He's now one of the hosts of First things first. He's got his own podcast. What's right?

Love the Pond. He's going to walk us through the way sports debate moved from the radio to morning television to podcasting and next to streaming. If it is indeed going to exist the same way in streaming, what about you? One of these questions I have is like, we've created this whole world that is for TV channels. Like, why do we have those shows in the morning?

Because we have a TV channel and something needs to come on from nine to noon. Right. But what if we don't have a TV channel? You can just watch anything you want at any time. Yeah. Are people going to still seek out that in the same way? Does it need to change? Does it need to be different?

Is it going to survive? And I hope he can help us figure that out. Yeah. I mean, I guess we don't even know what the real audience is for that yet because it hasn't been on streaming where you would get those metrics and all that data. So yeah, it's sort of weird inflection point right now. I can't, I'm kind of excited to see. like where he thinks this is going to go.

So we'll start with Nick Wright next week. A bunch of people being reached out to already for future 25 for 25 interviews. I cannot wait to do this series. This is going to be amazing. So much, so much ground to cover. Also, you know what's kind of crazy? I mean, I've had the experience since we've been on this show, so many people listen to this show that I would not expect. Because, you know, media is just very, people want to know what's going on in media.

This is a real, it's a, you might hear your. name or your employer or former colleague or whatever. And I almost want to put out like a call. Like if you think you got something interesting and say, but that, no, I don't want to do that. That's a little. Yeah. But you know what? People, people will find their way here. I find you don't even have to put out the call. You don't even have to ask. Yep. I mean, if you hit us up, you are on our radar. Put it that way. It doesn't hurt if you let us know, you listen. You know what I'm saying. So you is Joel Anderson. I'm Brian Curtis. Protect By Brian Waters. Joel will do that interview. Tomorrow will publish you.

it Tuesday. And then I will see you the week after that with more press box. Looking forward to it, man.