The Press Box - Trump vs. LeBron, the Ohio State Scandal, and Counter-Trolling | The Press Box (Ep. 508)

Episode Date: August 7, 2018

The Ringer's Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker take a look at Donald Trump's new feud with LeBron James (03:15), Urban Meyer's administrative leave and how it's been covered in the media (23:00), and the New York Times' hiring of Sarah Jeong and the unearthing of her past tweets (37:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the press box. It's brought to you by the Ringer podcast network. David, I was listening to the Bill Simmons podcast over the weekend. Or attention-filled BS podcast, by the way, with he and Juliet Littman were going back over the Ringer's top 100 television episodes of the century with Bill giving his notes. This is like a whole new form of Ringer podcast. Bill's sort of retroactive at it.

I want to submit one of my press columns for this next. This is great. If you want to hear more of that, also check out The Watch. where Sean Fennessee and a band of Dobbins were discussing the list. You can listen to the Ringer NFL show where Mays and Clark are radioing in from the road, GM Street, where Mike Lombardi and Tate Frazier are already in midseason form, plus the Masked Man show against all lots, one-shadding podcast, binge mode, deep breath, Dave Chang show, Ringer MLB show, House of Carbs, Larry Wilmore, on shuffle, and many more.

And now the press box. David, Apple, Spotify, and other online services took down much of the work of Info Wars, Spiricist Alex Jones today. What I want to know is what other online privileges could Alex Jones possibly lose at this point. Damn, this could get real sketchy, real fast.

Wait, does he still live in Austin? He does. Or thereabouts. I cannot say enough good things about the Alamo Draft House mobile app. I can imagine that having that removed from his phone would be real, it would just ruin his day if he's an avid user of it.

I thought you were going to say the University of Texas rivals.com message board. That's another good one. Is he a big UT fan? Maybe. He's got a lot of time on his hands now to do this. I don't know. Could he lose his Slate Plus account?

Is that possible? I don't know how he's going to listen to all the bonus segments of my favorite podcast that way. Yeah, CompiServe email. I wrote down a couple of other things. Do we think Alex is still on Friendster? Yeah, I have no idea. I have no idea. I'm sure that he has apps that I've never heard of and I'm probably better off for it.

Our only online privilege is this year podcast. This is the press box, a part of the Ringer podcast network. The Pressbox is the media podcast. We are not allowed to sell fake news t-shirts at the museum. Or go to the museum. Or speak the museum's name in any context, positive or negative. Let us never speak of it again. We are Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the Ringer.

And as you peruse the Ringer this week, please check out Jordan Kahn's piece on how country music, Stardom in Nashville has changed. Fantastic. Megan Schuster on the coverage of the urban. Meyer scandal and Kevin Clark on the birth of the wildcat offense in the NFL. If you want to check out our stuff, David wrote about the end of wrestling's Monday Night Wars last week.

And I wrote about the Cape Cod Baseball League, which now doubles as a finishing school for young play-by-play announcers. But David, I've got three big topics for you today. First, Trump versus LeBron. Could anything be more in our wheelhouse than this? We break down Friday night's tweet storm. From second, we talk about the case of Urban Meyer, Ohio State Coach, particularly how it's being prosecuted and defended in the media. And finally, Sarah John got hired by the New York Times.

And then bad faith actors dredged up her old tweets, what in the name of James Gunn is going on here? Plus, as always, our overworked Twitter joke of the week. Let's start with LeBron and Trump, David. You've probably asked yourself this question. When will there be a political cause in this country that brings together John Kasich, Carl Anthony Towns and former Iranian president Mahmoud Amaddinajad

We finally have it Because Donald Trump was watching CNN Friday night Doing his Trump after dark bit With the network he says is full of fake news When he stumbled on to this Don Lemon interview with LeBron James Let's listen Do you think he uses black athletes as a scapego

At times At times And more often than not I believe he uses anything that's popular to try to negate people from thinking about the positive things that they can actually be doing and try to just to get our minds to not be as sharp as possible right then. Just to, you know, either from kneeling, from football players kneeling, you look at Kaepernick, who was a, you know, protesting something that he believed in. And he did it in the most calm fashion way possible. Very respectful. had it, he did all

his due diligence, he was knowledgeable about it and everyone knew why he did it. You look at all the NFL players that still kneeling and things of that nature. You look at Steph, you look at, you look at, you know, Marshawn Land. You look at all these instances why he's trying to divide our sport. But at the end of day, sport is the reason why we all come together.

You'll know, David, how measured James was in that interview compared with the Trump tweet that followed, and I quote, LeBron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made LeBron look smart, which isn't easy to do. I like Mike,

exclamation point. I have like five things I want to talk to you about with this. Please just go through. I don't even know where to start. So let's start with racism. That's where I want to start. Okay. Remember what Jamel right into the pool?

Yeah. Remember what Jamel Hill was going out of a limb by calling Trump a white supremacist? And that was even people who did not vote for Trump, I remember coming up to me and saying, well, you know, I don't know. I just, uh, I, I agree. I'm on Jamel's side, but she may have gone too far here. Did she, did she go too far? Did she really go too far? I like the Soledad O'Brien tweet. Okay, reporters who've been holding out on calling the president a bigot, you're now freed up. What do you, what do you make of that? I don't know. I mean, I, I'm tempted to, I'm tempted to agree with that point of view. I don't, but I don't think that it's, I don't know, I guess I didn't see, I guess this, this tweet to me is more, if you're of the opinion that, that, you know, he has, you know, racism at his core, then this is great evidence for that.

But I don't know that this was, you know, this is a smoking gun in my mind. It's just so, it's just such a, it's just so much idiocy. But I don't know that, I mean, it. I think it's, what I think you hear what LeBron and Don Lemon are talking about there, right? It's the litany of African American athletes, right? That at this point, it was weird because Jamil Smith actually wrote a thing in Rolling Stone before this started saying, noting that Trump had actually gone out of his way not to attack LeBron.

Yeah. Even after LeBron called him a bum in the Steph Curry thing last year. But he did now. So now LeBron is on the same list as everybody else. I think it's, I think this, I mean, we've talked about this in various forums, but I think there's a sense with the media that it's very, it's just so unbelievable that the president of the United States would be a bigot. that just blows their mind to think that. And we can agree there's lots of kinds of bigotry, right? We might say one form of bigotry is making sure that certain people can't vote in elections.

Yeah. Another form of bigotry is taking resources away from one group of people and giving them to another, right? But that's all disguised in its way. This is just the President of the United States saying stuff. And I think there is, you know, still for a lot of people, I know we're nearly two years in now, but it's like they just can't believe. that that's the case. And yet, here we are with every single tweet. Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's, it's really mind-blowing. It's sort of crazy. I think that, I'm glad that we, that we jumped in on this end. I have a lot of, like, minor, just all of my, like, minor questions, I guess probably would have obscured this conversation. But yeah, I mean, it is, it is, I've seen a lot of people, a lot of pro-Trump voices online on Twitter in particular

who were sort of defending this with just you know hand waving what about us men and it's an easy I guess I guess it's sort of easy to say you know in a very tone deaf you know if you want to make an excuse for him you say well how could he be racist

he says he likes Michael Jordan right I mean that's like the most basic form of that's the most basic form of like I have friends who are black right or or or you know he's talking about what the guy said it's nothing whatever I mean I just don't know how, I just don't know how, first of all, there's this weird thing. I thought he only watched Foxx, there wasn't there a news last, a news thing last week about how he got mad at

a staff for not turning on Fox News on Air Force One? Yeah, that was a couple of weeks ago. CNN was on. Now he's just, now he's just hate watching CNN just for the sole purpose of like going after LeBron James and Don Lemon. I don't, I mean, I know that he's always watched CNN. But anyway, to be, to watch that segment, regardless of what you're, I mean, if you feel like you have an adversary relationship with Lemon, that's fine. But like to watch that segment, if you if you watch it even in pieces or in full, and to have a story about one of the most famous athlete in the world, building a school in his hometown be distilled down to, man, he sounds like a dumb dumb.

I mean, if it's not racism that's fueling that, I don't know what to say. Well, that was actually my second point was the timing of this. We've talked before about how LeBron has kind of gotten almost, what do you think, like 90, approval rating between beyond just the general public at the last couple of years, just with the basketball stuff and some of his social activism, right? And now, at least let's say 90% in our slice of the Twitterverse, but now he builds his school. And I heard sports radio guys this week saying, man, I'm still mad about the decision, but

LeBron is a really good guy, you know? Even people that were still sore about the decision were now on his side. So you got to like 95%. And this is when the attack came. Like this is when he decided to break his silence. And that shows tone deafness, right? It shows blindness to the, to, I mean, you're just, you're the idiot for not being aware enough to understand the base, you know, the conversation that's going on in the world

at that moment and on the channel that you're watching. But for that to just be your reaction without even taking the time to wrap your mind around it. I mean, that's what's really, that's what's really crazy. It's funny because you were right after that announcement was, I mean, right after people announced, I mean, the announcement was made about LeBron's school and all the images were coming out and people were praising him. Yeah, people were, I saw some fake tweets going around of like the fake Skip Bayliss what he's going to say. Like LeBron is, he's being distracted from his championship run in Los Angeles. He should be concentrating on his team. That's a good job. Yeah. And but there was just absolutely, I mean, of course, absolutely nothing like that. And they like adversaries on the court, like, Isaiah Thomas are coming out saying that like you're an inspiration, you're what every athlete should be, right? And I mean, it's like, just like you were saying. It's the most objection-free moment in any professional athletes' life since like

1995, you know, or something. The funny thing is when you, but then going to, when you think about what athletes were, like the last time that we weren't, that we were as a nation not concerned with our athletes' politics. And this is certainly what Donald Trump was referring to when he said, I like Mike. is regardless of Michael Jordan the actual person, who he was the most famous athlete in the world, certainly before LeBron, if not still.

It does he does hearken back to a pre, a bygone era of, you know, stick to sports or at least stick to marketing your tennis shoes. You know, there was the famous, quote, attributed to Michael Jordan,

who knows if you ever said it, that Republicans buy sneakers too. Right. You know, Jordan was famously, probably apocryphal. Probably apocryphal. It certainly describes Michael Jordan's attitude toward politics for a long time.

Yeah, and he was loath to get into, I mean, to say anything for fear of, well, I don't know if he was worried about, you know, about segmenting his own fan base or if he was just not interested in it. But, you know, that's not the world we live in anymore. And I think it's a good thing that we don't. I mean, we see Michael Jordan himself came out in very, I mean, very, you know, in a very low-key way defended LeBron's that he was, you know, he respected everything LeBron does. and he's certainly made some statements during the time of the Trump presidency that, you know, are unusual based on his history. So he's trending in that direction. We just don't live in that world anymore. Yeah.

I mean, I was going to ask. So Jordan was where I was going to go next. The quote was, I support L.J. He's doing an amazing job for his community. Now, were you surprised if Michael Jordan ever wanted to come in a little bit stronger on politics, right? this was the Alleyute ball thrown tossed toward the basket

right and he's the only one sitting under the basket everybody there's nobody his audience is pretty much all with LeBron almost everybody's with LeBron right minus a few Trumpy actors in this

you surprised he didn't go farther than that I'm not surprised I mean I think what we're just talking about like I don't think I honestly don't think from what we know of Michael Jordan that his decision to be apolitical for most of his life was was a craven, you know, marketing-based decision. And if it is, uh, I don't think that's really distinguishable from Michael Jordan the person. I mean, I think he is a creature of this marketing complex. I mean, that's,

his, his humanity and his, uh, sales numbers are sort of indistinguishable at this point. Um, so it doesn't surprise me. However, uh, I mean, and I, and I guess it should be said that like, if he I think he probably thought he was being a little louder than he was you know I mean when someone it's like when you're

when you're sitting in a room and you haven't spoken for six hours because you're just like typing me in your laptop you think you're yelling when you're just being really quiet you know I mean it's like I think that he thought that he was probably making a bold statement

to an extent that he wasn't and it should be said that like it did sort of it did sort of slot in for a bold statement and a lot of news reports about it you know I mean like it didn't it didn't really matter It was like that thing he told the undefeated about police violence.

It's like Michael Jordan has broken his silence and then you read it. There wasn't like a, you know, wasn't much of a statement. Yeah, like the sort of ABC way that all these like, you know, outlet stories have covered it were just like, and then Michael Jordan responded in favor of LeBron James. That's sort of all you needed there. But to go back to your original question, yeah, I mean, regardless of what, how uncomfortable this might have made him or what they're, what he had to lose, thought he stood to lose.

I mean, you're right. This was, you know, Tony Kukuk coach just, like, lobbed up at a half-court alley-up and Jordan should have just slammed it home. Or Tony Koo-coach is standing between MJ and his prime in the basket in the Olympics.

In the 92 Olympics, right? But yeah, I mean, it's, I mean, I think that the, actually one of, I mean,

who knows if this is true? My personal opinion is that LeBron's, like, you bum tweet was actually like one, like a transformative, tweet in the world because it's sort of established in a weird way, at least for people who are, you know, who support and respect LeBron, that there's a way that you can be like entirely dismissive in a way that's sort of irreverent and funny enough that it doesn't feel horribly

mean-spirited. You know, I mean, like to call the president a bum, you know, in a vacuum seems like a pretty, like one of the most political things you could do. But I think that it like, he sort of proved that there's a way that you can be like, that you can strike exactly the right tone and balance in a tweet. And, you know, Jordan certainly hasn't learned that part of it. Yes. Here's another part of this that's fascinating me is that Trump waiting into the MJ versus LeBron Goad debate, however indirectly.

I mean, there's something about Trump that is such a trending topics presidency. And he did this way before he was president where he would just be like, this is popular on the internet right now. me weigh in on, let me congratulate Deadspin for the Manti Teo story. Like I have no interest. I don't know what this is, but I'm going to just, you know, weigh in on this on Twitter. But he has this bizarre and uncanny way of being like, you know, everybody's really wrapped up in this LeBron MJ thing. So I'm going to use somehow use MJ to make this point, which again, it's like what other president, other than like Obama in a non-evil way, what other president would possibly think? think to go there. It's the sort of, I mean, a lot of people talk about this. I think Bill talks,

talked about it on podcast recently, the sort of like, even my mom knows what I'm talking about when I were, when I refer to this story. Even my mom knows who this athlete is. That's sort of the bar, you know. I was talking to somebody not long ago about a CEO that's, you know, similar to Trump in some ways. And they used to always joke on Sundays when a big, when it's something big would happen watching, you know, the coworkers would be watching football together without the boss and the measure of a truly important play was if it bubbled up to the boss's consciousness because he didn't care at all about football but he would like know enough to come in and be like, hey, did you see that catch? I kind of feel like that's a lot how, you know, Trump's Twitter action is,

is dictated, although, you know, I can't imagine it's, it's hard to imagine that it's like really deliberate, you know? It's hard to imagine that there's too much thought put into it, but it's so maybe it's just that bubbling up to the top. Yeah, somewhere in his brain. Finally, the responses to this tweet, which, as I said, everyone was coming off the top rope this weekend. Only it was number one. This was number one with the museum, criticizing the museum for selling the fake news t-shirts was was a close number two. Melania Trump, for instance, saying she'd be open to visiting the I Promise School in Akron. I found, I found this is, see if you see, see what the through line is here.

Tweets from Zach Braff, conservative provocateur Stephen Miller, aka Red Stees. Bradley Beal, nation contributor Barbara Aaron Reich weighing in. Amadena Jod, who said, Mr. At Real Donald Trump,

in my opinion, everyone, especially a president, should love all and not differentiate between them. I love at King James, hashtag Michael Jordan and all athletes

and wish them all the best. Amadina Jod, taking the high ground. I think my favorite, though, was from TV writer Jen Statsky, who said, if you're a citizen in the United States,

the correct response to this tweet is that your chest literally feels like it's going to explode with shame, which is probably, probably I think, something most of us can get behind. Yeah. When I first saw the tweet,

I got to be honest with you. I thought it was just a real dumb, you know, unfortunate thing to say, but unfortunate in sort of a lowercase way. Like, I did not expect the level of like a probrium that's come up,

the kind of unified front of, of, of, of just disgust at this tweet. But maybe that's because I've been, I've been sort of, you know, I've been, I've gotten just too used to this sort of madness too. But there is something about, I mean, it's kind of, it's not the most offensive thing he could possibly say. Um, in, in terms of subject matter necessarily.

But it is like the, as we were saying before, the most like universally like agreed upon subject in the world right now. Like people are, people are more behind LeBron at this moment in time. for what he's done in Ohio, then anything else I can think of. And for the president, just to not even go in with like a real opinion on it, just to be a dick about it. I mean, I think that's the real thing, right? It's like no one can disagree about this subject. I mean, this is like photo bombing a sweet wedding photo or something.

Like, I don't know the level of the, it's just so ridiculous. It's just like, why would you? But I think he found, he surprised me because he found bottom and I didn't realize this was going to be it, or at least bottom of this point. My pal and yours from high school, Eric emailed me and said that Trump may have actually settled the M.J. LeBron debate himself. By weighing in for Michael, he may have settled it the other way. Oh my gosh, you're right.

Which I totally love. Now, that would be a historic achievement. Perhaps apropos of nothing, it was just announced by variety that LeBron is producing a docu series called Shut Up and Dribble for showtime. Perfect. So Donald Trump, hopefully we'll get a producer credit. along with Laura Engram for that series. Yeah, absolutely.

All right, David, now it's time for our overworked Twitter joke of the week, where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Speaking of Trump tweets, did you see the one about Al Capone or as Trump called him Alphonse Capone? Who was treated worse? Alphonse Capone, legendary mob boss, killer, and quote, a public enemy number one, close quote.

referring to him only as the way only his mother refers to him is really just a bizarre look. Or Paul Manafort, yes, there was some people that were saying the real tragedy was that Donald Trump was not close enough to Al Capone to know him as Al. Anyway, it was an overwork Twitter joke to respond.

Well, eventually we saw Al Capone's taxes. That's via Ethan Glor. News coming down the wire as we record this, as we mentioned earlier. Is it Apple, Google, Facebook, and Spotify according to the New York Times. Erased most of the posts and videos on their services from Info Wars, Alex Jones.

It was an overworked Twitter joke to write, Alex Jones has finally lost his war against info. That's thanks to Kieran Davis. There's a piece by Rolling Stones Tim Dickinson, which was summed up like this on Twitter, the National Rifle Association, the NRA, warns that it is in grave financial jeopardy, according to a recent court filing,

and that it could soon, quote, be unable to it. exist, close quote, to which many people put on their smarmiest, very, very concerned voice and tweeted thoughts and prayers. Even Steve Kerr got in on that act. Thanks to Ryan O'Donnell and Pandeyore for that. And finally, David also just in, former, as we record this, former Trump campaign deputy Rick Gates, Rick Gates, right, testified in court today, according to Reuters that he committed crimes with Paul Manafort. It was an overworked. Twitter joke to type. I guess Rick rolled.

That's from Russ Zimmer. If you combined an aging internet prank with the Paul Manafort trial, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, David, our second subject today. Urban Meyer. Should we talk about what happened first in this case? Because it's a little complicated. Brett McMurphy, college football writer, reported that Zach Smith, the wide receivers coach who worked for Urban at Meyer at Florida and Ohio State,

had domestic violence accusations at both places. Last Monday, Meyer was asked at Big Ten Media Days about the 2015 incident which occurred when both coaches were at Ohio State and he said he didn't know anything about it. Now that's

important, right? Because it draws that sort of journalistic line in the sand. The easiest way for a straight ahead reporter to get a scoop is to prove that somebody's lying, right? So McMurphy, the reporter, gets in contact with the alleged victim, Courtney Smith, wife of Zach Smith. He interviewed her. He collected some texts and other communication she had that

showed her messaging Meyer's wife, Shelly, about the abuse, right? So then it becomes very, very, let us say, there's not a lot of a chance somehow that Shelley Meyer knew about the abuse, but Urban Meyer didn't in this case. Here's part of an interview that Courtney Smith did with Stadium. So to be clear, none of the coaches' wives knew about the physical abuse. At that time, they did not. In 2015, I came forward with it. I told Shelly, I sent her some pictures. I spoke to her on the phone.

And that was because at that point, we were legally separated. And enough is enough. If I leave the marriage, I'm hoping this is gonna stop. This has to stop. And that was my final cry for help of it's time. You guys need to know. this man needs help and I need to be protected.

So I did tell them. I gave you of them. All right. So Meyer now backtracks and releases a statement saying, whoops, I misspoke at media days. I did know about the 2015 incident and I reported it to the proper channels. Okay. So you're following me here?

Meyer says he didn't know about it. Brett McMurphy shows fairly conclusively that he did. Meyer then comes back and says, I did know about it and I reported it. And presumably it's Ohio State's fault that nothing was done about this. Then to further complicate matters, Zach Smith, who was accused of domestic abuse, goes on ESPN and does an interview. And he says this. What would you think if Urban Meyer does lose his job because of this? I'd be heartbroken for Ohio State, for the players, for, you.

him and his family because it's not right. It's not. If that happens, it's dead wrong. Coming from somebody who knows, I was in all the meetings, I know exactly what he knew, I know exactly what he did. If he loses his job, it's flat wrong. And this is a guy who fired me. It would be a crime. So there we are, David. I don't know if it's even worthwhile to pick through all this more than just talk about the way this case is being prosecuted in the media and the way that Meyer and his defenders are trying to defend him in the media. But I think it's first, I think it's first interesting to talk about this is, this is now, what we're dealing with here is what we've talked about with various crimes of this nature

and accusations of this nature, right? We're all trying to figure out what the rules are, right? What does, what is Urban Meyer's responsibility in 2018 if he found out something like this was happening with a coach in his program, right? and if he covers it up or if he does nothing or then what should happen to him, right? This is what we're all, this is the big issue here that we're all sort of

trying to figure out. Yeah. I mean, if nothing else, I'll say that, you know, Ohio State has been, has at least signaled in the right direction that they're going to take care of this investigation quickly and be completely transparent.

Now we'll see if that actually was going to say. Like all the other transparent. investigations we've had lately. The CBS one we're still waiting on, all that stuff, right? That's, that's, every investigation is going to be transparent, right, until it isn't. Yeah. I mean, right. I mean, like, you know, my alma mater, Baylor University set the bar for this incredibly low

when they like had a law firm do a big investigation and set it all on fire. It was the less to anybody get their hands on it. Yeah. I mean, I just say that because there's a, there is a huge moral component to this. but I think that, you know, as I've said before, there's also this sort of, um, there's also this sort of psychological component where it just,

if it feel, if you as a fan of the sport feel like you're getting misled or feel like you're getting screwed around with, then like, then nothing that they do is going to, is going to be good enough. Mm-hmm. Um,

and so transparency is actually is really important. Even if you're transparent, even if you're, even if you're, even if the end result is, we're going to fire our AD and keep our winning coach and just because that's what we've decided to do, I would feel better about them saying that out loud

than putting up some sort of facade about, you know, an investigation that goes in circles. It's tough with college football because, as, and I saw Jessica Luther tweeting about this this week, it is so wrapped up with fans in Chadenfreude, right?

And with hate for Urban Meyer and Ohio State and all these things. That, you know, and with Ohio State fans, as we saw on Twitter and some of the weird, message board posts that is the opposite of that, right? You guys are, you guys don't care about this.

You're just mad. So there's just, it's very hard to, outside of reporting like McMurfys and investigations, all that, it's very hard to untangle like what people are actually feel about this. Sure. So much performance about it.

Yeah. I mean, and that's, and, and honestly, the, the fans, the, the fans of Ohio State are, you know, I mean, are, you know, clearly I mean biased in this situation I mean no as any as any fan base

would be but it is interesting to think of what they would be what the reaction to be if this had been you know Michigan under the microscope or something

to that of that nature that's an interesting one but I think it'd probably be mostly the same to be honest high estate has a little bit of a bigger history of firing their coaches

and that was another thing you saw this week's like oh Jim Trussell got fired because his players traded their rings for tattoos so why wouldn't you fire Urban Meyer for this. No, I mean, these Ohio State fans,

I don't think would be as forgiving of the coach if it were a rival school. Oh, no, no way. But the, but the, but as we're speaking this, someone just tweeted as we're having this conversation, let me pull up this tweet real quick. Erie Wasserman tweeted a picture of a protest that is going on at this very moment at Ohio

Stadium. Pro-Meyer or anti-Meyer? Pro-Mire and entirely anti-E-SPN and Paul Feinbaum? Oh boy. Saying to Paul Fein- Is OSU owned by ESPN and Feinbaum? Which could be read in two different ways for both sides of this, both sides of this situation. But we, you know, a lot of we love coach, E-S-E-C-Frauds, Miss My Coach, ESPN equals fake news. We've finally

closed the circle there, close the loop. The irony here is that people, ESPN, apparently their college football employees were at a like seminar, an annual seminar when McMurphy published this story on his Facebook page. We'll talk about McMurphy in just a second. But so there was a lot of like, why isn't ESPN touching the story with a 10 foot pole? ESPN, of course, a Big Ten rights holder. So are they going to, you know, the Urban Meyer worked at ESPN when he was between Florida State and Ohio State, excuse me, Florida and Ohio State. So is he going to, are they going to come down on their old buddy? Kirk Herb Street, who's most popular, you know, the most famous college football commentator in America, bigger than Fine Bomb is an Ohio State quarterback.

So ESP has actually been charged with the opposite. opposite thing, right? And rumored to be a prospective coach there several times too. So, yeah, I mean, they're all very tied together. But yeah, the fact that they were all in the meeting, what it was four hours before they got anything up. And it was the first ESPN comment was like the Dan Levitard show or something four hours later or was it his TV show. Something like that, yeah. But yeah, I mean, that's just a bad look.

This is an unnecessary look inside the, you know, inside the conference room. but like you and I can sympathize with that. I mean, we've all been in meetings where like something breaks and we don't know quite what to do. And is that severely unfortunate if that's entirely true. But I always find it sort of weird, too, that it's like, again, and I say this is somebody who covers the press, but it's like 30 seconds after the story broke. The story is not, you know, here is this horrific case of alleged domestic abuse. The story is, how will ESPN cover this, you know, just like 30 seconds later? Right.

You know, and you're like, shouldn't the story still be about domestic abuse and enabling it? Right? And covering up for it. I mean, again, I understand. That's my beat. But it just always blows my mind. Yeah. I mean, and I think that ESPN's slowness to report would have been forgotten by now had it not been for the fact that they got the sports center interview, which we played a clip on earlier.

And Meg Schuster, Megan Schuster wrote a great piece about it today for The Ringer. Yes. just like the way that they touted this thing by you know by tweeting it out as an exclusive tweeting out set photos you know to tease it stretching it out over four segments of sports center

and then closing on the I mean I get it the most urban Meyer is is the most noteworthy part of this story or the most newsworthy part of the story but but it's not but his continued employment as the kick just seems like it just felt it just felt so gross you know I mean it just it just it was just

ridiculous yeah and I think Megan pointed out made a great point which is that I saw some people on Twitter saying they shouldn't interview this guy right you shouldn't put this person who's accused of various crimes on television I disagree I think you do want to interview this guy but you have to it skeptically right and what what Megan pointed out in her piece was there was very little skepticism. There was very little challenging him on points, many of which frankly sounded ridiculous. You know, there wasn't, you know, again, like comparing, you know, confronting him and holding him to account. It just, it felt like a very like, here's his side of the story, see you later interview. And that that's not going to work. Let's talk about Mc Murphy too, because

he was laid off from ESPN last year. Yeah. I believe in the April round of layoffs. college football reporter. He's got one of these ESPN deals where he's being paid, but he can't take another job without forfeiting the money that was left on his contract. You know what that's like. So he actually published a story on his Facebook page. I said in various interviews that he got some editing help from his friends, put it up on his Facebook page, did all the investigation.

And that was pretty amazing. And of course, getting an exclusive story that ESPN and anybody else on Earth, would have loved to have gotten. And, you know, so if he is savoring the irony that ESPN essentially paid him to go away and he used his vacation is not the right word, but used his time, his time after leaving ESPN while still on the payroll to break a giant college football story, which then ESPN was playing ketchup to match, then he ought to savor that irony and have a beer or a glass of lemonade or whatever he likes to drink for a few minutes and enjoy that feeling.

Sure. I mean, I think that it's easy to see him getting motivated by the subject matter here. I mean, anyone, I should hope that any good reporter would be, would be spurred into great, you know, righteous fury and action to, to, you know, pin the story down. But there did seem to be a little bit of, I mean, a little bit of that righteous anger did seem to be directed at ESPN too. and if that helped fuel the fire, then more power to them.

I think what people are reacting to here is these coaches are so big, you know, in this kind of anachronistic way in American life, they're so huge. By the way, and one sign of that

is that everybody calls Urban Meyer urban, just even in the media. Old Urban, da, da, da. And I'm like, you know, if we're complaining that these guys are so big

that they could potentially and allegedly cover up allegations like this, maybe we should just not call them by their first name. Maybe that's a bad eye. Maybe that's sort of making them sound even more like a king within American sports than they already are. But these guys are so big.

And I think, you know, part of the angst you see with the media is even if the worst case scenario here is true, is that enough to get Urban Meyer fired? Or is he too big for media scrutiny, right? Too big to fail, too big to whatever you want to call it. And even if he gets deposed to keep the king. metaphor going on here. Even if you take off his head, you know, the king that there's no guarantee that the king that replaces him is going to be any better, right? And almost certainly it won't be.

It's just, it's just, you know, a similar despot saying different things. Or that he won't get another job in like a year. Well, he would. He would definitely get a job. And I think that's, in some ways, that's like the rationalist, like, the, you know, the good defense, I mean, the rational defense of this, even if, even though it might be indefensible on a moral level, is that. that he's going to be coaching for a major program in two years.

Ohio State is basically deciding whether or not it's them. Yeah, it does bring out, you know, I like to stare clear of what about isn't, but it's so dumb firing coaches for like NCAA, you know, when we treat NCAA violations like major crimes and misdemeanors, the urban Meyer situation shows you how stupid that is. Yes. And it shows you just like what a fake moral crisis you reporter has cooked up and convinced the rest of the public is a real moral crisis. And then you get something like this that is truly a real one. And you go, oh, that was really dumb, right?

You know, that was really silly. And that was silly to treat that like the end times. All right, David. Let's get to our final subject. The New York Times hired Sarah Jong, who writes for the verge or did write for the verge, for its editorial board. And then some bad faith actors combed through her old tweets. We'll talk about those tweets in a second. But to move on with the narrative here, the tweets then passed through what we might call the alt-right human centipede of Mike Servich.

Paul Joseph Watson, the Daily Caller, and then on to Drudge. Andrew Sullivan wrote a column for New York's website, wondering if Zhang is a racist, if he ultimately did not call on the Times to fire her. The New York Times decided to that they were standing by her. Essentially, they said she can't tweet like that anymore, but we're sticking by her. Zhang said she was, her tweets were a result of what she called counter-trolling. Essentially, the people have been harassing her online and that she regretted mimicking the language of her harassers. What was your first impression of all this?

That's a broad way to start things off. because it is because I know what I think about this, you know. Here, I'll start. How about that? A couple of notes on this. Remember when we were talking about Kevin Williamson, the Atlantic a couple of weeks ago? And I said, I think an underrated part of this, I think what everybody tries to do, including the bad faith brigade on Twitter, is to say, where's the line, right?

How can you say this on Twitter and not get fight? from your job. And I said with Kevin Williamson, a big part of this is how coworkers at the Atlantic feel about working with it, right? Journal, you know, offices are not a hypothetical moral question, right? They are actual groups of people. And I think that is big here too, right? Because I, I am guessing, I haven't, you know, done a full survey, but I am guessing the white men at the New York Times. who she comically tweeted about are not saying we cannot work with this person. They're saying it's fine. And that ought to matter, right? It's a little bit like the Guardians of the Galaxy cast coming to James Gunn's defense, right?

They're not, they're not offended. They don't think he should be fired. Now, again, is at the end of the story? No. But that's a huge data point in these stories that I find, for whatever reason, nobody talks about as much as they should. Yes. I think, I mean, to go back to where we started here, you know, what do you, what do I think about this? I mean, I think that, I mean, first of all, my first reaction was, was exhaustion because I, you know, we were just getting past the James Gunn thing and I feel like it was, you know, it's a, it's a tough subject because what I think and what I like, what I sort of mean are, you know, not always in alignment.

And I don't know, um, you know, Kevin Williamson's a good flashpoint. There's a lot of these that we've been through. And I think that, um, I think that,

you know, it's, Roseanne is the other one that people bringing up, you know, with the James Gunn argument a lot. Um, that there's, you know,

there, there are examples of this on both sides. Um, and, and the fact that one that, that the people trying to take down, um, you know,

they're trying to go after the New York Times or Disney, whoever else, for, in this case, Sarah Zhang, the fact that they're arguing in bad faith, and they are 100% isn't necessarily the end of the story, right? I mean, that shouldn't be, that doesn't necessarily define the outcome. But, yeah, I agree with you. I mean, to be offensive, someone has to take offense, right? And in this case, it has to be, you know, it does need to be someone close to the story.

It does need to be, you know, it is, you know, the co-eatose. coworkers, I mean, it is the co-workers that matter more than some ambiguous voices online. And I think that at the end of the day, you know, I mean, we talk about, we talked about racism, you know, in the opening segment here. You know, people will disagree, but like racism, along with many other, like, things that are not definable by like, you know, in a concrete, physical way is not necessarily a fireable offense. if only because it's so hard to define, right? Even if you, I mean, I'm not saying it should be a fireable offense or whatever, but, I mean,

should or shouldn't. But I think that the, I think that the feeling was like, you know, she was joking and the New York Times is okay with that. Her prospective coworkers are okay with that. And the problem with Kevin Williamson was that it was decided that he had not, he had not actually changed his mind and these things that we were saying he was trolling about, he was being serious about it. He couldn't even give a clear answer about it after the whole thing was over.

Yeah. He was still ducking. actually saying what he had, what he thought about that. Yeah, it's very, that part of it was, was, you know, very strange. Yeah, I mean, I think in general that this is not, I think that what is slightly reassuring about this situation is how, is how, is that the New York Times didn't back down, that they seemed to be prepared, that her current slash, or former slash current employer was, the verge was not, the verge is correct, right? Yes. Yeah, the Verge came out, the editors came out in defense with a really well-put-together statement about, you know, how we shouldn't back down to this kind of pressure.

And following so close on the heels of the James Gunn situation, which, you know, though he had a lot of really gross tweets a number of years ago. But it seems like the era of trolls getting people fired might be coming to an end. and I think the world will be a better place if we move past that. I would love that to be the case. I think we're, I think we, you know,

the era of trolls getting people instantly fired maybe coming to an end. But as we've seen with James Gunn, right, it's not, it's not quite, you know, we don't have a lot of, we don't have a lot of happy data points. You're right about that. To your point of looking for a silver lining here,

here's mine. The times, New York Times is now hiring people who didn't spend their life auditioning to work at the New York Times, right? Yeah. If you were auditioning, if you were one of these people

who graduated from the New Republic finishing school for Future Times reporters, you would monitor every tweet you ever did to make sure that you were tweeting in just provocative enough, but not so provocative that that job would ever be taken off the table, right? Even if even the tweets were, as we agree wildly willfully misinterpreted, right?

The Times is now hiring people that didn't maybe grow up wanting to do that, didn't think that was the end goal. And that's a good thing. And guess what? That comes with, right? That's going to come with, oh, look with this person. This person tweeted stuff that may not be in the portfolio of your average

timesman and times woman. And to me, that's just in, and we're going to have to take some shit with that, right? and we're going to have to, you know, issue a statement and deal with it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That, I think, at the end of the day, as nauseating as the argument is, is sort of a silver lining.

Yeah, I mean, I think that the, we had a conversation in the office about this subject the other day. I agree with that silver lining. I think that the time's complicity in it, and I don't mean to make it sound like a criminal act, but the fact that the time seemed very aware of this and very prepared for, you know, for the sort of this,

you know, with their response, as did Sarah Jong, um, uh, makes you wonder how if, if, if we've, you know, if this was already discussed, one hopes that it was, if they were prepared, you know, actually prepared and not just quick, you know, not, didn't just react quickly and, and capably to it. Um, but there is a sort of like, it, it did seem very formal. And I'm not mad about it because I'd think that, that, that we got to the right place in the end, you know, but there, but it did, but there was a little bit of like, um, you know, um, um, you know, I like the the counter trolling argument is just sort of like I don't know if the counter if counter trolling is the new like you know athlete saying that my my my Instagram was hacked or something that like there that there are like appropriate ways to just to just to say you know I was an edge lord on Twitter for a while like that if there's a certain way that you have to say it to like to get past this moment that we can so we can all move forward right but I but but if that's what it was then then hallelujah because we before before we've

kind of it's interesting to me and silver lining you know this definitely falls in the silver lining category that we have that we have found a way to acknowledge uh saying you know really snarky sarcastic uh out of context problematic things um is part of being a human being online right now now listen our boss sean finessey will tell you that the answer to all of this is never tweet uh and a lot of bosses i'm sure would tell you the same thing but um but you're right auditioning for the New York Times for your entire career is probably the worst you know it probably makes you like the worst possible applicant for a New York Times editorial job well I think you're really hitting on something there with counter trolling because it's

like it is in a way you you look at some of the tweets people brought up some of them were some of them were literally in response to an Andrew Sullivan blog post I believe it was at the time and now Andrew Sullivan is it's citing them as evidence of her potential racism, right? She was clearly counter-trolling at the time, right? Yeah. But you're right. That does become kind of a institutional piece of PR cover to explain away a lot of stuff

that someone could bring to your doorstep, right? And say, look at this. Look at this. Look at this. And if it works toward, you know, I don't know. I mean, you're right. And it is weird, but that apparently. is the new response, right?

I was, I was hacked. I was counter-trolling. And, okay. Right. Now let's move on. Yeah, I mean, it's funny because the other thing about counter-trolling is that, like, we think of it as a specific provocation. As she pointed out, people send her hideously misogynistic and racist tweets all the time, right?

So are you just, what if you're mo? We know people like this on Twitter. what if you're just just just default mode is countertrolling like all the time sure i mean that that also explains a lot of stuff right so that's a fascinating question and that seems to be like way kind of like a way bigger question than uh this whole hiring thing in the new york times but anyway fascinating yeah no i mean i'm sure we'll be coming back to that again and again and yeah i mean i think that you know i don't one one thing that i think is is probably you know, leaving some of the more serious issues aside just for a little, hey, this is

the press box podcast moment. Isn't it amazing that we live in a time where the world at large is aware when the New York Times hire as an op-ed writer and that every, and that there is a like immediate Twitter, like online media cycle evaluating this hire review. Even if there were, take away the people digging up the, you know, the problematic tweets. it's just it's just bonkers that like we know that we like like like like it's not that long ago that she would have just popped up on the on the you know editorial page and nobody would have and nobody would have you know had any concept of when her contract began or when it would end or like that she was a contract employee you know if she was a full-time employee or contract employee

it's nuts it's so nuts dude and you know you i've talked so much about how we entered this world of transactions or transactions were like the defining feature of sports more so than the games and everything, but that's everything now, right? Some personal news is like the thing that just stops Twitter for a day. And you're right. By the way, how many people has the Times

opinion operation hired, too? How many people are contributing opinion writers now? There's so many. But everything, it's like, oh, what a coup. Oh, look at this. Again, every writer who changes publications. Yes, it is a giant story. All right, that's the press box this week.

thanks to our ace producer Jim Cunningham speaking of next week David we'll be back with another edition of the press box we'll see you then buddy I can't wait well how could he be racist he says he likes Michael Jordan oh boy isn't it amazing that we live in a time where I was an edge lord on Twitter for a while fascinating