The Press Box - Trump's "Lies," the Strange Case of Ali Watkins, and Stephen A. Smith | The Press Box (Ep. 484)

Episode Date: June 19, 2018

The Ringer's Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker sit down to sift through the blame game regarding children being separated from their parents at the border and how the media writes about "lies" (04:15), the Justice Department seizing 'New York Times' reporter Ali Watkins's emails and cell phone data (14:00), the recent profile of ESPN's Stephen A. Smith in 'The New Yorker' (28:00), and how the media handles celebrity suicide (37:00). Credits: Hosted by: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Produced by: Jim Cunningham Brought to you by: The Ringer Podcast Network Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This summer there is a huge soccer tournament, David, and if you were watching this weekend, you might have seen Iceland come out with a one-one draw against Argentina. So the U.S. men's team didn't make it. But Iceland did. And I can see all this fandom transferring from the American team now with a draw under their belt to Iceland. Since you can't cheer for the U.S., we must raise a glass of Reka vodka and cheer for Iceland. Go to reika.com, R-E-Y-K-A-D-com, to get Team Iceland gear and find a viewing party near you. Real fans drink responsibly.

That's Raka Vodka, 40% Alcohol by Volume 80 Proof, distilled from grain, copyright 2018, William Grant and Sons, New York, New York. David, we learned this week that after 27 years, that landmark of 90s culture, the Jerry Springer show, may come to an end. what I want to know is what was your favorite memory of watching Springer? Oh man

it had so much of my so many of my formative years were just filled with Springer. Yeah specifically like three o'clock on a weekday. Yeah. It was timed perfectly for like a college kid

to get out of class before you go to the dining hall to come back and just like you never turn it on. It's just like on in the dorm just a seemingly eternally. I'm scrolling through right now and just like I'm just the names

of YouTube videos are enough to keep me, I mean enough to like, I'm going to spend the rest of the day doing this, but you slept with my stripper sister. That's an easy, that's a gimmy. I'm happy I cut off my legs. It's a good one. Naked peekaboo, one of the craziest Springer moments ever. I believe this is a fairly

recent one. I have no idea. The funny thing about the legs is I'm happy. I'm sad I cut off my legs would also be a great episode of Springer. Anything works for Springer. daughter domination? I think my favorite all time is I married a horse. You remember that? It was in quotes as a title.

I think I sit there and Jerry's kind of like, you know, you've fallen in love with some. I understand you've fallen in love with somebody, which is very vague, right? He was only given so much information by the producers, or at least that's the setup. Yeah, that's like, well, let's just bring him out. I have no idea what's going to come out and the horse comes out. I think the amazing thing, too, is back of the day, if you wanted to see good-hearted Americans fighting Klansmen, you turned on Jerry Springer. And now, if you want to see Goodhearted Americans fighting Klansmen, you turn on CNN.

You turn on the news. That's fantastic. You read the newspaper. Shouts to Lori and Dory that conjoined twins who, Jerry, let's fulfill their dream of singing a country song. That was a sincerely touching moment in my life. We are your guard against the coarsening of American culture. This is the press box on the ringer podcast network.

The Pressbox is the media podcast where you're not allowed to pretend to be an expert on international soccer. We are Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the Ringer. Your ringer syllabus this week should include Ryan O'Hanlon, write about the opening of the World Cup. He is an actual expert, by the way, David, on international soccer. Our updated NBA mock draft, Kevin O'Connor's piece on Luca Donchich, I said that right, didn't I? Also, Robert Mays' oral history from last week on Gaslight Anthem's The 59 Sound. I loved that one related.

If you thought Mays wrote tenderly about offensive linemen, baby. you ain't seen nothing yet. That was an amazing work of love. The moment in the office when someone said, we were putting the story to bed and someone was just like, Springsteen just called Mays. And we're all waiting with bated breath to see what quotes we would get from Bruce. That's fantastic stuff.

That's like Trump calling Maggie Haberman at the time. It's our equivalent. It was just like that. David, I got four topics for you today. First, the Trump administration's opposite day approach to the story about the children of immigrants being separated from their parents. We'll also talk about these strange cases. of the Justice Department and New York Times reporter Ali Watkins.

Third, Stephen A. Smith has become an elder statesman, David. What does this mean, et cetera, et cetera? And finally, I have a few things I want to say about the way the media covers suicide. Plus, as always, our overworked Twitter joke of the week. But how'd you spend your weekend, Brian? Well, not watching the World Cup, David. I spent my weekend watching Donald Trump and his administration. Lie.

Yeah, lie about the claim that Democrats and not Trump were the ones who, to blame for are immigrants being separated from their families at the border. But this is the rub, right? Saying why is the macro and micro problem here, whether the media can say this or not. Let me read you from the New York Times' story. This is Julie Hirschfeld's Davis' piece on Saturday. This is the guy thing that makes people mad. Does this make you mad?

President Trump on Saturday repeated his false assertion that Democrats were responsible for the administration's policy, blah, blah, blah. he is consistently dissembling about why this is occurring. She goes on to say he's asking the public to discount what it sees with its own eyes and instead believe his own self-serving version of reality. Mr. Trump, however, preferred and has not tried to justify the family separation policy, preferring to pretend it is being forced upon him by his political rivals and sometimes to ignore it altogether. So that's the times being tough, right?

not exactly saying the word lie. That's a pretty withering treatment, right? Sure. If a person reads that. But there's still, I feel there's two things going on here. One is tons of anger being directed at the administration. And then a smaller but fairly concentrated amount of anger from liberal Twitter being directed at journalists. Yes.

For attempting to cover Trump and any kind of, you know, let us say, I don't even think it's even handed anymore, but just in newspaper style. Yeah. without just pointing to make you say you despicable liar you yeah i mean it's it feels like right the liberal twitter um i mean and it's not isolated to liberal twitter but but that but the argument that that that you see a lot is that you know they should call trump's lies i mean it would trump they should identify trump as being a liar and the things he said as being lies when that when that is you know the truth um i forgot who was that called out maggie haberman last week did we talk about that on the show or was that just something we talked about before we went on the air?

I don't even remember. But there was, you know, Haberman was sort of trying to draw a line between, trying to draw a distinction between things that are untrue and, like, lies. Because she said she's interviewed enough people with knowledge of the way Trump's mind works to know that it's not the same. He's not necessarily lying, even when he knows he's saying something that's untrue. That was when the administration gave an off-the-record briefing to the press, which is standard practice in any White House.

And then Trump tweeted that the press had made up this anonymous source. When in fact, the anonymous source was authorized by the White House. Right. So is this question, is Trump just like wildly ignorant, purposefully ignorant, actually lying in all these great age? Yeah. I mean, I think in that specific case, it's pretty easy to imagine that he just didn't like the story that came out of it and it was anonymous. And so, like, that's an easy argument to make regardless of how off the wall it is. and regardless of how much you're aware that it's untrue, right?

If you're President Trump. I do think, you know, you passed me a blog post from Splinter News that laid out a series of AP, AP News, breaking news, breaking news tweets. And all of them contain some level of misinformation coming straight out of Trump's mouth. Yes. Yeah. Just essentially like a quote, Trump claims X or Trump says blank. And that's the entirety of the tweet. But I think in some ways it sort of distills the problem because I'm sure, I mean, and AP news, it should be noted at the end of that, at the end of that piece took down the tweet that, the specific tweet that, that, that spurred the post, right?

David Huberti is the name of the author. Yes, I'm pulling it up right now. So, but, I mean, I'm sure from the AP point of view, the Trump says colon or whatever, and then the quotation marks on some level or imply that it's not. true to them on some like very some a very sort of milk toast way that's the that that's that would be their defense well i think it's more probably just like they're a wire service and the president said x is something that a wire service has you know important person said x is something wire services do the problem is that you just get a crisis when important person is just lying all the time sure and and we're in you know for all the kind of strum and drawing about it like in the past over the

past five, ten years or whatever about how Twitter was not a, you know, good enough, the appropriate outlet for digesting news. I mean, these news agencies did direct the perception of everything that was going on in the world, by the way they wrote their headlines for decades, right? And for so many people, they're never going to get past that tweet they see. It's not even a tweet. It's a push notification on their phone. I mean, that's, you have to kind of go after Twitter in a certain sense, But these are, you know, all these breaking news alerts just pop up on your phone all the time now. So, I mean, I think that there is a, you know, I understand the call for more precision in the way that these breaking news alerts are put out there. Yeah, and the breaking news alert, the AP thing is sort of, we had this problem with the CNN, Kairon, right, like two years ago.

Trump says X. Right. And it just like, and then the story rockets around and no one says, you know, and then the Kairons got adjusted, right? Trump falsely claims X. Am I being Pollyannish in saying that this problem has gotten a whole lot better in the last couple years? I think the splinter piece is certainly right about the AP feed. But it's like the media like everyone else on the planet didn't know how to deal with Trump in 2015, 2016. It slowly got better and better and better.

And now it's like we have to hunt for something like that. You know, it's harder to find. Right. The media is pretty good at constantly saying that Trump's not telling the truth. I think the, I think the scarier problem is that there are a lot of people who either just don't, who know Trump is lying and just don't care. And that's actually what people are mad about, right? The media's old power is, I have proven that this politician is lying. Right.

This politician is in trouble. He's going to have to go apologize. He's going to have to do something. And in this case, it's like, we have proven Trump is lying, but nothing happens. right right he doesn't apologize he never admits it yeah and we just keep go and and we keep going on going on and it's sort of like the media's power has been taken away you know from it in this sense and i i think that's actually what scares people in the press the most it's not that the press is just messing this up it's that though that's certainly part of it it's just that their historic

power in this regard is just gone and they're torn between uh kind of digging their heels in you know, kind of attacking, if you, you know, if you go harder, Trump lies, colon, and then the quote or something, you know, that might speed up the, I mean, that might, you know, make you lose even more power, you know, I mean, there's that, I'm sure there's, that's, that's the question that a lot of these agencies, a lot of these organizations are asking themselves. Right. Then you, then you, do you kind of? Do you play nice and hope that, that, you know, the sun, the sun shines on you from the Oval Office and that will help your, you know, help you going forward? Or do you, do you, do you proceed, do you risk being perceived as a partisan outlet, you know, by going hard right?

That's the thing. Dean McKay's talked a lot about how judiciously they want to use the word lie, right? They used it when Trump sort of called off, belatedly called off the bertha thing with Barack Obama. Oh, right? The birther lie, right? That was a big moment for the paper. But it's sort of like, you know, it's harder for them, right? And the AP, because these are nonpartisan outlets. Most people think, right? And so the idea is, you know, it's a hard for like they're just trying to say like, how do we say this guy is like, do you without actually using the word over and over again?

Yeah. Yeah, no, it's definitely a tough situation. And I just, I agree with you in some sense that it's been, you know, in some ways it's gotten better. But it's a hard, it's really hard, you know?

I mean, I don't think that the word lie in particular has so much power that it should, you know, that's the one that should be used above all else. But certainly, you know, we've got more than 140 characters on Twitter now. I think there's some room for, you know, clarification when someone says something that's demonstrably untrue.

Sure. The other thing is interesting thing is there are all these gradations of it. This is Benji Sarlin, who's an MSNBC, my old coworker. He says, one White House faction seems to be lying about the family policy because they're trolling, Trump. A separate faction is lying because they're embarrassed by it, Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security. And the third faction is telling the truth because they're proud of the policy. Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller.

Right. So it's a basic thing to untangle. Yeah. Not just like you're doing this, but like how do we untangle all the gradations of it? All right, let's move on. Yeah. And also, specifically to that policy, I mean, it definitely, Sarah Huckabee Sanders has been, you know, is obviously taken some time off from the press briefings because of it.

Taking some time off. Yeah, exactly. I don't mean to be too vague. But there's been a lot of people who have been, who have been all over the place on this and insisting that it's not a not, has nothing to do with the White House, and that's just not true.

That's from a CNN report today that she did not want to do the briefing today and face more questions about migrant children, so they brought somebody else in and the briefing was delayed several hours. All right, let's talk about our second story. I think this is one of those we just have to talk out. I don't feel we have all the information here,

but it's fascinating. So Ali Watkins is a reporter of the New York Times before that Politico and BuzzFeed, who covered national security, okay? And those three jobs, all in a pretty short span of time. Very short time of time. She's still in her 20s. Earlier this month, the Justice Department

seized her email and phone data. Why did they do that? Because the government in its quest to find leakers arrested James Wolfe, who was a staffer on the Senate Intel Committee, and until 2017 was in a three-year relationship with Ali Watkins.

Okay. Okay. Got it. Got that? So, the important thing here seems to be that there are two fairly distinct parts of the story which the Justice Department would probably not like you to know. For instance, I saw a headline in the Australia newspaper that says, reporter Ali Watkins and her lover caught in a real life house of cards. But let's pry the two things apart here.

Number one, is it okay for the government to seize a journalist records, email records, phone records? And in this case, the way they did it, because as New York MAG reports, before obtaining records that could reveal a journalist sources, investigators are required to have, quote, made all reasonable attempts to obtain that information from alternative non-media sources. You're not supposed to seize this and says they're also supposed to notify the reporter or give them a chance to negotiate or challenge the move through, though the Attorney General can waive that in extreme cases. So what they're supposed to do is go to somebody like Ali Watkins and say, we want this information. And you have a chance to go before a judge and say, you don't have the right to take this because of X, Y, Z. They did not apparently do that in this case.

Yes. So that's a big thing. Then Ben Smith, who was her boss at BuzzFeed, protested the fact that they were talking, that what happened is now we're having this whole conversation about her love life instead of the First Amendment issue at stake saying this is exactly the conversation the Justice Department wants us to be having. So we can broadly agree that it's a bad thing that the Justice Department is coming out. after journalist record. Something, by the way, that is a true thanks Obama. Yeah. This is the first great thanks Obama.

Is this the first non-ironic thanks, Obama? It might be. I don't know. I'm sure there's some, you know, some drone pilots out there that would disagree. Obama's Justice Department in 2013 especially was very aggressive about also finding leakers and also seizing journalist records. It's weird. So that's part number one of this issue.

Part number two, a lesser moral quandary is, is it okay for a reporter to have a relationship with somebody who is in the general sphere of her reporting? Yeah. Right. So this is Eric Wemple, the Washington Post, quoting the indictment. In December 2017, Wolf, this is the Saffer, sent a message to Watkins reporter saying, I always tried to give you as much information that I could and to do the right thing with it so you could get that scoop before. anything else. The New York Times claims Watkins that Mr. Wolf told her Mr. Wolf did not provide her with information during the course of their relationship, which Wemple says, one that is a claim that strains the plausible. Could any couple build a firewall? I am covering the Senate Intel

Committee as part of my beat. You and I have a relationship, but you never tell me anything that happens on the Senate. You never give me any helpful information about the Senate Intel Committee. Right. Like when we're together, you just say, that's it. Nope. It's off limits. We're not talking. I don't, I mean, I find that slightly hard to believe.

But at the same time, I mean, I don't know that it would be that hard to, if you acknowledge that the conflict, within the context of your relationship, you acknowledge the situation up front and that there is a conflict there and to kind of keep some things off limits. I mean, I don't talk to my fiance about every thing that goes on every day at the ringer. Right, but it's not like your fiance. So your fiancé doesn't want to know everything. That's exactly right. I'm just saying we find other things to talk about. Right. But yeah, I mean, I think it's possible to pass the days without doing it.

That's the only part of that that I'm arguing. But yeah, no, I agree. I think it's really tough, really infeasible. And I would imagine that if, you know, many news organizations, if you came forward with that, you know, the relationship situation when you were in, your bosses would probably try to figure out a way to work, around it, right? And which is apparently what happened here. So she tells her Politico boss, as Watkins does, sometime after she starts there, Politico has given a statement saying they

manage the situation. It's unclear what that means, because she still had lots of, she had lots of bylines while she was a political about the Senate and Intel Committee. Right. She tells her bosses at the New York Times when she's hired there, by that point, the relationships over, and the Times assigns her not to that specific committee, but to kind of adjacent agencies like the DEA, in the ATF, right? So she's actually not reporting on that. Sure. You could argue she's reporting on adjacent things.

It's not surprising that the right wing people are feasting on the story. Oh, no. Because similar to the FBI texts, you can arrange these facts with no proof, but a lot of suggestion to sort of dream up a conspiracy, right? Deep media, deep state, deep whatever you want to call it, conspiracy against the president. Yeah, of course. So this is one of those pieces. I just, I wish, I hate to punt on having a hot take here, but I just sort of weird, you know,

the Times is investigating this. And I just sort of wonder, it's like, I don't feel we haven't, we know enough about this story. I just don't feel like, I don't feel like I under, I understand what her relationship and, and, well, yeah. Wolf is in, in terms of reporting, in terms of anything else. Yeah, I mean, on the one hand, I agree with you. On the other hand, I, you know, we should, you know, we certainly ranted about, we've ranted with less to go off of on the show. But there, but I agree. I mean, I like that, first of all, I mean, I don't think that there's a great, you know, moral sin at the core of this.

I mean, I think there's, we'll find out more when the New York Times does an investigation and whatever else. Because I do agree with you that we don't have all the information. I think it's, I mean, is the argument basically that is, would the James Wolfe argument be that he'd never told her anything, even when she was reporting on his turf, that he just gave her hints about which way to go? So part of his problem is that he told investigators they didn't even have a relationship. Right. And then was shown, apparently shown photographs of them together. And that's when he admitted the relationship. He's being charged with lying to investigators.

Yeah. At this moment, not actually leaking classified information. I feel like that's one big lesson we can take out of the past couple years of American politics. Just like, don't lie to federal investigators. It's easy for them to catch you online. But when I say punting a little bit, I agree. I mean, I'd say the only reason I'm being careful here is one because it involves personal relationships rather than, you know, how is ESPN's 12 to 1 p.m. block going to do?

Right. Just like careful. Yeah, of course. And two, it's very hard for us to sit here and evaluate all the stories she wrote, right? Mm-hmm. You know, for like, was this story quote unquote biased? Was this because at some point you can argue about the propriety of the relationship, but also what matters is what was the work?

You know, was the work right? You know, was the work influenced? Yeah. That's a question. And there are very few people that at this moment in time have the ability to evaluate that. I think it's, I mean, it's, it is clear that the right wing is jumping on this as some sort of victory. And the, and the, but it's conspicuous to me that the White House or the Justice Department, rather, didn't have, didn't have the case ready to lay out for the media the moment that they would, that they seized her records, right? Because if this is an easy argument to make, even through a biased lens, um, you.

you know, I don't think we wouldn't be, they should have made it and not, and not put us in this position of having to wait on a New York Times investigation to see what happened. Totally, but it's also a ridiculous argument, right? Because like if I, if somebody commits plagiarism, Mm-hmm. Trump's Justice Department goes, so, well, you committed plagiarism, so now we can see your record. No, no.

And now we get all your stuff. Yeah, Trump is not our national ombudsman. No, of course not. That's why it's so, I mean, that's absolutely nuts. Trump is not Jay Jonah Jameson, right? Like Trump's like, you're fired. get out of here, you know? Sure, sure.

And one would think that they could get most of the, I mean, they didn't need to seize her files if they had access to his or even if they didn't. They presumably could legally get access to his in a more straightforward way than busting up the constitutional protections on journalists or whatever. But, you know, it seems like it's just an intimidation tactic. Like they were looking for the right,

they were looking for a patsy to scare other journalists and to not accepting leaks because they can't control the leaks coming out of the White House as it is. Totally. And they picked a case where they can muddy the waters. Yeah, that's it. It's all muddied waters. 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. On Monday, President Trump, the aforementioned, directed the Pentagon to establish a sixth military branch he calls Space Force. It was an overwork Twitter joke. To compare Donald Trump to Darth Vader. Can I read you some examples? Please. Vader is a little too liberal for Trump. Darth Vader turns out good in the end, though.

Trump is more like the emperor. Also, there was a cut of an amazing photo of like the light shining through Trump's hair comb over and saying the hair shot of Donald Trump is like saying Darth Vader without the helmet. And it was weirdly like that. By the way, thanks to frequent contributor Rylan Grant for that. David, did you happen to check out Jimmy Kimmel versus Ted Cruz's charity basketball game? I was, I did, I did.

I was somehow convinced myself it wasn't fate. I mean, yes, I just saw still photos, and I convinced myself that it wasn't a real thing that actually happened until earlier today. Cruz somehow won, 11 to 9. It was an overweight Twitter joke to say Grayson Allen's pre-draft workout with the Rockets did not look good.

That's from our old pal Rafebara. I like that one. I like that one. Yeah, the only problem was, Didn't Cruz compare himself to Grace and Allen first for that dead spin exchange? I think other people were doing it already. They do look sort of similar. Okay.

I was just like, you don't want to come in second to Ted Cruz when you're making a joke. Ted Cruz is in some ways really terrible at Twitter, but he's, you know, he's for a dad on Twitter. He's pretty good. Yeah. His, he didn't he do like a fake basketball thing where he was like missing shots on purpose and dribbling off his feet, like as a preview to the game too? If he did, then that's great. Ted Cruz funny Twitter is very awesome. Okay, and finally, some World Cup geopolitics humor for you, David, on Sunday, and I know you and I were both watching this, Switzerland held Brazil to a one-one draw, or as we uncultured Americans call it a tie, right?

Tie, one-one. It was an overword Twitter joke to say, I really don't have any strong feelings on Switzerland. I guess you could say I'm neutral. And also, I don't like Switzerland because if you're neutral, you're on the side of the approach. Presser, thanks to at Nerdley Daniel for that one. All right. Topic number three, David, there is a profile of Stephen A. Smith and the New Yorker this week. Did you ever think you would hear those words?

No. Well, no. I mean, the thing with the New Yorker profiles is it's always like you can't believe it would possibly ever happen. And then six months later, you're like, like, didn't I already read the Stephen A. Smith profile in the New Yorker? I remember I remember saying that with Paul Feinbaum and that actually happened in the New Yorker, too.

Here is Stephen A. Smith talking about Kauai Leonard. on first take last week. Kawhi Leonard, if you're listening, here's a deal. Do me a favor. Stop. Just stop it. You want to go to Los Angeles.

That's it. I am so sick and tired of folks walking around. I mean, just no heart. No heart. What are you scared about? What are you scared about? Kawhi Leonard doesn't want to be in San Antonio anymore. The River Walk is not enough for him.

He prefers Rodeo and Melrose and Wilshire. In Venice Beach. That's what he prefers. L.A. Live. Downtown. Staples Center. That's what he prefers. He doesn't care if there's no state income taxes in Texas.

He wants out because he wants to be in L.A. You don't have to sit up there and come up with excuses. Oh, they were upset at me because I went and got a sick of opinion. They pay you $20 million and you played nine games. You should be upset at you. So why couldn't they be? Stop it. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

The Riverwalk. I just love a riverwalk reference in an NBA rant. That's my favorite thing. That's really good. I thought the piece was very good by Vincent Cunningham, whose writing is always worth reading. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. A couple of interesting sentences here.

He says, when he's talking about the original Stephen A. Skip Bayless pairing the contours of these disagreements contributed to an impression that first take was designed, at least in part, to exploit the often unspoken racial fissures that help create some of sports most stubborn archetypes, the blue-collar white player who makes up in grit what he lacks in physical ability

and the flashy wide receiver or small ford who cares more about his highlights than about the fortunes of his team. It's interesting. He quotes Max Kellerman here referencing the Baylis era. It's no longer a show between two religious points of view. It's now a contest between a religious and a secular point of view.

I had never thought of first take in those terms before. Also, this is Stephen A. talking about the fact that he actually goes after LeBron James Moore now that Baylis is gone. He says, now that Baylis is gone, all I hear about is everyone raving about LeBron. I'm surprised everyone hasn't brought him flowers. Stephen A added, I've stepped up my criticism because I never thought I was being critical. I was being factual. A couple of thoughts on Stephen A. One is, is it weird to you that Stephen A has become kind of an elder statesman of ESPN? Well, it's only a matter of time, I guess. I mean, they laid off all the

other elder statesmen or, you know, variously parted ways with them. And there's still a few old timers left, but, you know, I mean, that Stephen A. Smith, especially, I mean, in the era of, I mean, first take kind of took over and, you know, once we sort of decided it wasn't a flash in the pan, and again, that was not, that did not necessitate a New Yorker profile. There might have been a big times piece or something, but there's not really a big announcement when something becomes part of the firmament sort of, of sports TV. Yeah, sports TV. It's always on the ascent, you know, And so that's why this piece about Stephen A is particularly interesting. But yeah, I mean, it's only a matter of time.

And he's certainly much more, for as much of a firebrand as he is, if that's the right word, or as much of a, you know, whatever. That's a good word. I think he would take firebrand. He's much more, weirdly, much more a part of Bristol of the ESPN culture than Will Bonner-Korneurzer ever were. Yeah. I mean, they are literally not in Bristol, which is probably part of that. It's a pretty short amount of time.

Wasn't he doing his radio show for not for ESPN within a couple of years ago? It was Mad Dog Radio, yeah. And then it got moved into the ESPN radio umbrella. I'm always captivated by, I'm always captivated by the TV radio lifestyle. This is a total aside to this. No, go for it. He only does a couple hours of radio. He does first take and then it gets like an hour off and then does a couple hours of radio.

But it was like first take without Max Kellerman when I listened to it. I mean, he was just like, I'm talking. I'm good to go. I'm ready to talk. Yeah. I have opinions. He's funny. I think part of the reason he is, if he is, if I'm not just imagining his elder statesmanship,

is because there was this moment a few years ago. Jamie Horowitz goes to Fox, starts creating these things that it turns out that like Stephen A is very hard to clone, right? Yes. It's not like whatever you think of that job. It's actually like hard to cast someone to do that job. Uh-huh. And I remember like when ESPN was laying off people.

people last year that was whole this thing of, oh, the whole network's going the way of Stephen A. Smith, these really just dumb ideas. One, that's because not true. But two, it's like, maybe it would, but that's easier said than done. Like, there's not other Stephen A. Yeah. And part of it is, I think, honestly, and the piece touches on this a little bit, and this part Stephen A is, is getting worked up about this in the New Yorker story. It's like, he was a reporter. And we talk about the talking head, screaming head job all the time. Yeah. What's weird is almost all these people on ESPN still draw from their credibility, their former life as a print reporter. Yeah.

Like that is weird. Like, partly what gives Stephen A his power is that he knows a lot about the NBA. And he's a figure somehow in the drama of the NBA instead of just guy yelling about the NBA on TV. Oh, yeah. And it was like that with Jamel Hill from a very different point of view. It was like that with Skip Bayliss. Yep. It's like all these people are former print people.

And that is still the source of their power to a large extent. Yeah, absolutely true. And I think, I mean, Stephen A is a little bit more inscrutable in a lot of, in some ways. I mean, you know, Skip has a, definitely has, like, cultivated this air of otherworldliness in some ways. But, like, you know, I feel like you could kind of tell when Skip was quoting, like, a cowboy source or something like that. Or even he was alluding to a phone call he had, you could tell if there was some truth there. And when he's like, you know, speaking first person from the lips of Kevin Durant or something, you would just be like, yeah, he's probably making that up.

This is an opinion. This is an opinion posed as a sort of. But like, Stephen A, I think part of what makes him so interesting is that when he says that he knows something about Kevin Durant or Russell Westbrook or, you know, the various feuds that he's had, you have to think about the sort of, you know, origin of these things because you're right. He's got some, he's got legitimate chops. but he's also first and foremost

an entertainer now. Is he the biggest star on ESPN? Yeah. It's not really a contest, right? When they do live, I'm always impressed that when they do live shows just the size of the crowd, the sort of...

When he's wearing the sunglasses? Yeah. The engagement. Are those photochromatic glasses? I have no idea. He always looks amazing to me when he's wearing sunglasses. But people are so invested in that show, you know?

And it's sort of, I mean, and all walks of Now, I'm sure that the producers do a good job of getting all walks of life sitting right there behind them. But still, I mean, it's a, he's got to be, he's got to be amongst the biggest stars there. I also find it's always interesting to me. It's like there's this like in sports journalism, uh, critic land. You know, there's always a lot of anti-Steven A sentiment. When I talk to people who actually work at ESPN, including on-air people, I very rarely hear anything bad about Stephen A Smith.

In fact, I usually hear good stuff like, I was talking to Bomani Jones for that Pomani and Pablo a week's a week ago. And he was annoyed at the fact that people in this very sort of lame racist way conflate them. Of course. Yeah, yeah. Because there are two black men talking about sports on the air. But he was quick to add, Stephen A is the best of what he does. He's the best person at this job on television. And it was at a genuine admiration.

Yeah. Because, you know, Bommani is like, I want to be as good at this as Stephen A as good at this. Maybe from a completely different way. Sure. Maybe my opinions will be completely different. and I'll just attack the genre, which he, of course, does and did in a completely different way, but, like, I want to be as good as he is at this.

That is absolutely his goal. And then in a totally non-ironic way. Do you think that the, you know, I'm going to bring this around to pro wrestling? To what extent do you think Stephen A. Smith, I mean, it's impossible to watch him. And I think now, his presentation now is actually a lot different than it was during his heyday with Skip.

I think so. But he will react with such and, like, just antipathy towards Max Kellerman, but it's all a put on. And it's so transparently a put on now. Do you think everybody watches this? Like they watch pro wrestling in 2018 and they're just like,

is it more fun to watch when you realize the fights are fake? Ooh, that's a good question. It's also interesting in the context because I felt that he and Skip by the end had this real kind of grudging love to each other. Oh, yeah. Remember it was always that Stephen A? You know I love you,

but on this point we have to disagree. It was like he would always, you know, there was always this kind of, you know, we profess our love and respect for each other that doesn't quite exist with Max in the same way? Sure. By the end, though, they were peers, right? They were, they were. They were like Siskel and Heber.

They were. They were complete equals. And I think that even though, I mean, I love Kellerman on first take. And I, I mean, I think that he certainly holds his own. But I think that when Skip left, Stephen A sort of had to be more of a more of a straightforward, I mean, more of a deliberate devil's advocate. That he was, and sometimes he was taking a point of view so that his timidavory. his fill-in co-host could have the easy point of view or something, you know. And I think it's somewhat, someone along the way he became a little bit more of a put-on,

a little bit more of K-fabe in the wrestling terminology, you know, that he's, he's sort of like, you know, engaging in these fights for our pleasure. And to me, I mean, maybe it's just a subtle difference and maybe it's just something that, like, of course, I'm keying in on that, but I appreciate it. I enjoy, I enjoy it more when I don't have to take up even a tenth of a percent of my brain wondering if Stephen A. Smith really thinks the thing that he's saying. He would just like work in the camera, the showbiz of it all. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I think that's, I think it's weirdly because it's what repels people from these kind of shows. But at the end of the day, it's what people like about these kind of shows, right? He said it aside, I mean, set it aside like the politics version of this, the crossfires and everything else, the Hannity and Colms and just the kind of nature of dissenting voices coming on MSNBC or Fox or whatever. And there's this, there's the tension as the viewer because you're like angry at what the other person. person saying are the two people disagree on something and it really matters you know i mean a lot of these subjects really matter but i think in the sports world it obviously matters a lot less but and at the same time it's not that either side of the argument is right or wrong or good or evil i think both of them

i think the the truth is always somewhere in the middle and and there is the sort of performative aspect to take to staking out a position on one end of the spectrum and then the other and just saying which one comes out on top oh sure absolutely by the way to your point about politics. We've seen how easily replaceable Bill O'Reilly is. At the end of the day, right, he seems sui generis. But then you just throw in like Tucker Carlson, Loringerman, they get like, you know, they still, Fox still wins the night. Yeah. I don't think Stephen A is that replaceable. Yeah. You know, which is not to say like if he, you know, decide to, you know, quit and write poetry tomorrow that first take wouldn't be number one. But it's like, I think he's actually

weirdly less replaceable than people on cable news. I don't disagree with that at all. All right, David, our final topic today, after Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain died, I thought it was worth us spending a few moments talking about how the media covers suicide because it provoked this conversation a little bit afterwards, right? We've had lots of stories, sadly, about this, and if you want to go back to Robin Williams a few years ago. It's interesting. So I would say, I'll say up front of my dad committed suicide when I was a kid. That gives me no special insight on this, but it obviously informs my, my,

thinking about it. You know, it's like, when you look at some of the stuff, it's funny to me because there was an AP story about how media organizations are dealing with us. One we saw is like everybody was tweeting out or even putting it on the cover in cases of magazines a suicide hotline. Yeah. Like if, you know, you are reading a story about Anthony Bourdain, if you feel, if you're having any thoughts like this, please call this hotline, which is, on the one hand,

handy, on the other hand, it struck me, even me, as some. somewhat odd just to see journalists doing that as a matter of course, right? Here's a report on this. Please call this number if you feel similar. I thought that I just thought that was interesting. The other thing is, like, they're talking about in this AP story, lots of things about what you, how do you report these things? So it says, and I'm quoting here, reporting that both Spade and Bourdain died by hanging last week was newsworthy, but in both cases, the service went too far as the AP in some versions of the stories by describing the implement. used in their deaths, that information was removed from subsequent versions, both from a point

of view of we don't want to encourage people, we don't want to tell people how to commit suicide, and also we don't want to just be gruesome about this. Do you think this should be treated any differently than any other celebrity death? Do you think we should have special accommodations for this that we don't have for, you know, all the deaths that we cover, the media covers on a daily basis? I mean, it's the same conundrum that I'm sure all the kind of quote-unquote responsible. responsible news outlets face in other deaths in other situations too and shooting school shootings especially um i mean i think even normal celebrity deaths too i mean you always know that

TMZ or whoever will be there with the gruesome details if you don't report them so you're the you know the internal question becomes why is it worth the the effort to hold it back you know to to handicap ourselves or or or even just to go through that extra round of edits why bother you know It is interesting, but I do, I do think that suicide rightly holds a different place in our natural consciousness or natural, or national, you know, state of confusion because it is a so much more of a indecipherable sort of situation, you know? I mean, it's hard, it's sort of crazy that you would be sending out these, you know, like you said, I mean, not crazy. surprising to see, you know, suicide hotlines being passed around because it's not something we normally see, but this is a different situation, you know? I think the thing that came out of, you always hear this about, you know, when people commit suicide is people, people's reactional,

it used to be, people would say, oh, but he had so much to live for. Oh, she, you know, she had such a good life. Why would she have done that? And we don't say that anymore. And we know, we, like, that's a, that's a, it's fairly easy to wrap your mind around, right? I mean, this is not, it's not an A, B, corollary between the life you live and the... Yes, especially the celebrity life that the portion, the small portion of a celebrity's life that you see. Yeah, absolutely. But I think I had a... But the sort of interesting, I mean, the thing that went through my mind after Anthony Bourdain died was that...

I mean, it's a similar thought. And there's a part of, there's a... I feel sort of guilty for even voicing it, but it's not, oh, we had so much to live for. It's like, fuck, he could have changed the conversation. Of all the people in the world with the power to do it. That's interesting. It was someone who's like, we talked about it last week, he's so unapologetically, like, masculine that, like, there's nothing he can do that would, like, affect that, you know?

I mean, that affect people's perception of that. There's none of the cliches around mental illness, I feel like would particularly, you know, it just, like, it would have changed everybody's perception. Right. doesn't have this like smiling comic persona. Yeah. That you say, oh, I never would have guessed, you know, that, that silly thing that you're talking about. And yeah, and there's so this, I mean, you know, when everyone's had this situation where someone they really love dies.

And if you've ever had, I mean, if you've ever had to deal with the suicide, heaven forbid, you know, I mean, there's a lot of, there's a, there's like, a lot of times the reaction is like a very sort of like, heartfelt fuck you in a lot of ways, you know? I mean, but part of that just goes to show that there's like all these conflicted feelings that come with it. It's inscrutable. It doesn't make any sense. You know, and it's hard to, it's not in a world where we're like, we sort of understand physical addiction, drug addiction, alcohol addiction. That's not always a fixable situation, but we know the, we know the steps, right? Yes. So I just imagine that like news outlets are sort of at the same loss that we as very human, that we as humans are, you know, their organizations built out of humanity. And it's, it's tough to know what to do. think that's right. And I think I think that's why you see some of the groping around for it. There's another one, Pointer, who's, you know, the media ethicist. Pointer also said, here I'm

going from the AP again, outlets should use, quote, neutral photos of the persons that died, quote, images of a person who appears peaceful, calm, and serene, send a message that suicide will get you to that peaceful place, the guidelines say. This is sort of where I just feel like we were just going off a cliff, you know? Like, I mean, so you're going to go find a picture of Robin Williams, not smiling, a guy who is a comedian, his whole career, because we don't want to, you know, somehow subtly suggest to people that, like, you know, Robbins in a peaceful place now or whatever. I just think, I think the end of the day, and again, I think all this is kind of well-meaning and mostly harmless, but I think at the end of the day, you want to cover this like you cover everything

else, right? You know, more than not, right? You don't glamorize, you don't want to glamorize any death, right? Yeah. You know, you don't want to, you know, share gruesome details as a matter of course just for the hell of sharing gruesome details, right? You don't want to do any of, you don't do those things at any time. Yeah. So it's not like suicide to me.

It's like it almost just requires you leaning as much as anything, leaning on the values of journalism that you would, you know, use in any case. Yeah, I think in these specific situations, you can imagine something specifically like Bourdain that you're sort of hard charging to get the details, right? like the values of journalism you were just talking about are sometimes contradictory. You know, it doesn't necessarily, they're not, what you print is not necessarily contradictory, but like, you know, you are digging as hard and as fast as you can to figure out everything you can figure out about this important news story that is developing in real time. So, you know, part of the tension is you're going to get a lot of information that maybe like the copy desk doesn't, has determined is not appropriate for your publication.

Right. But those are the hard choices that you make as part of, you know, a sort of service. enterprise like journalism. Yeah, I think the one thing that's been sort of different or interesting now is that you have people who have dealt with this in the past, Ashley Feinberg, whose father and her sister both committed her father and her sister both committed suicide, like wrote an essay on having to post about that was interesting. It was very interesting because she was talking about, are we forever, are people that have dealt

with us forever obligated to then to give witness as she puts it to come out and there's a situation like this and help and talk about it and kind of be, you know, not an expert, but a person who has some sense of what, you know, in their personal case anyway, what the sort of grief and confusion is like. There's also we saw like personal stories, Kirsten Powers, Dave Navarro, who talked about, people who wrote about, you know, talking about depression or having suicidal thoughts themselves, right? Sharing an essay as a kind of way of, you know, people can read this and get something

out of that. To me, that's just as valuable as anything else. Yeah. You know, and, you know, when you talk about the hotlines and stuff like this, it's essentially admitting, like, look, this is to some extent a mystery, you know, as you put it earlier. We don't know, I don't know, you know, about these. I don't understand. You know, even somebody who was directly affected by this, I don't understand it. But if you share an experience, if you feel comfortable doing that, somebody can read that and gain something from that.

Yeah. And talk about that. You know, I just don't remember those phone calls on Howard Stern in the old days? what person would be threatening to commit suicide. And we'd call Howard. Yeah. And there'd be this long emotional talk where he's sort of, you know, in his own way, kind of making fun of them and say, nah, you don't want to do that, da, da, da, da, da.

And talking them down on the air. And that was like a big national event, you know? It just feels like now that's happening kind of on Twitter in a way. Yeah. You know, maybe not quite as directly, but indirectly on Twitter. Well, you know, I mean, there's a whole like subreddit that's dedicated to that. And, you know, there's a lot of other sort of ad hoc. resources. I mean, I'm sure that there's a lot of resources that I'm not aware of that

function in a much more, you know, online way than an 800 number. But yeah, I mean, I think the hardest thing and what the hotlines always try to do is try to find the acceptable, find the voice that you'll listen to, find the voice that you're comfortable talking to. And Howard served that role for some people. And that's sort of crazy, but it's true. All right, that's the press box this week. Our producer is Jim Cunningham. Thanks for listening back with more hot takes or punting from giving hot takes next week. See you later, David. Take care of yourselves and each other.

I'm happy I cut off my legs. What are you scared about? I am so sick and tired of folks walking around. I mean, what are you scared about? Naked peekaboo. That's what he prefers. Married a horse. The river walk is not enough for him.