The Press Box - Twitter Took Your Headlines, CNN’s War Coverage, and Audio of a Miami Meltdown

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Bryan and David touch on Twitter’s approach to excluding news headlines on the platform and debate whether this will contribute to the rise of big art (0:31). Then, they discuss CNN’s ongoing coverage of the war in the Middle East and touch on reporters and correspondents on the ground (11:05). Then, they switch gears and review more Weekend Audio, from Georgia Tech's win over Miami to Kirby Smart's insistence that he doesn’t know who Miley Cyrus is (22:51). Lastly, they highlight the L.A. Clippers' new hire, recent grad Carlo Jiménez, who will take on the role of radio play-by-play announcer. Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, this is Jason Gough from the full go podcast. Me and the crew, we like to entertain you. And we're going to do more of that this football season because the bears should be more intriguing. There should be more fascination. Justin Fields. Is this the make or break year? Is DJ Moore the piece that's going to put them over the top? You can catch us on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, or when we have an emergency podcast, when we have breaking news.

Make sure you follow the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. David? Yes. As you scrolled through Twitter or X the last few days, you may have noticed something missing. Yeah. It was the headlines. So now when you see tweeted articles,

you only see a picture with the domain name of the site superimposed on top of the picture. As Ringer Art Director, what do you make of no headline Twitter? It's a terrible, terrible place. We tried, I tried to, without going into too much detail, I tried some other alternatives today, some workarounds and whatnot, and I think I broke Twitter in one of the tweets.

I don't know. It's a mess, man. It's a real mess. I mean, it's just so, obviously a mess. I mean, from the moment it was announced, people were out there just messing around with it, you know? I mean, you can make it look like a story says anything. And that's obviously not the point. I mean, one of the most central functions of Twitter is to communicate news, right? And this potentially just breaks that, well, breaks it. So it's,

it's ridiculous, man. Elon Musk's stated motivation here was to, quote, greatly improve the aesthetics of Twitter. By, I guess, turning Twitter into a bunch of Getty images of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Yes. But I got to say, just looking at pictures with no text superimposed on them, it's weird. In addition to being deceiving and unhelpful. Like, I have movie posters here in my office that I look at all the time. love the imagery of them.

I was looking at him this morning and I was looking at them this morning. What if they just removed all the words from this poster? Yeah. Which is very, very unnatural to the eye. And it's a very unnatural user experience, too. I mean, we've been on Twitter for a decade or more or whatever, and we don't, your impulse is not to click a picture, right, unless you want to enlarge it. You know, it's not, you don't think that a Twitter, that a picture is going to lead to words.

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. I understand the argument for aesthetics, but there's obviously different ways that you can do this, right? I mean, you could actually, you know, write the code that would allow the type to be on top of the image or to exist, you know, next to the image and some sort of text box. That's the sort of thing I'm playing with around as a designer

to try to work around the system. But you can't, you can't just eliminate the words, right? I mean, it also is, just, I mean, yeah, I mean, just like everything else, just ignorant of the entire history of the platform where, I mean, this is the way people, the vocabulary of Twitter is an established one. And you can make changes and you can incrementally. And you can, sure, I mean, you could, you could train people to, you know, think about picture images in a different way. I mean, that's, there's certainly room for evolution there. But, you know, we have sort of an established vocabulary and established. way of functioning on Twitter and this is one of these just really simple things

that goes against everything that you're comfortable with. Sophie Culpepper over at Neiman Lab notes that it makes a news story look like a meme which in must's mind perhaps they are the same thing or perhaps he wants people

to think they're the same thing. I think that was an interesting point. I think in general it's, you know, you can kind of assume that it's, assume that it's ignorance or just idiocy that leads you to a certain point rather than some sort of, you know, subversive motive, although, you know, in this, you know, Elon Musk regime, I guess anything's possible. But yeah, I am, I'm a little bit sympathetic to the, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, that argument, although you could probably say that about just about all of online media over the past 20 years, right?

I mean, how many website redesigns have happened where you're just like, oh, it just looks like, you know, it looks like a content mill or it looks, you know, it just doesn't look like the news I'm familiar with. We're all looking at things that look completely different than what we were expecting, you know, than what we considered normal 10 or 20 years ago. and it all kind of gravity sort of pulls everything towards a sort of mass media or mass market sort of sameness but yeah I mean just as far as

as overnight switches go this one's pretty incredibly short-sighted. So to recap Elon Musk versus the journalists his attempt to take away whatever small status is afforded to us by our professional profession. Took away the blue check marks. We have seen news organizations like the New York Times

see their links throttled, quote unquote. I believe that's the term we use here. We've seen Musk antagonizing news organizations like NPR, calling them quote unquote state affiliated media, as if they were a dictator's personal radio station. And now this, which sort of takes the power of writing the headline out of the hands of the news organization and puts it in the hands of whomever is using must's platform right i mean on first run it will be the news platform i mean the the the outlets themselves or the writers of the pieces but yeah you're right i mean it can just immediately be misappropriated and just say look at this article where brian curtis says he's you know disowning texas right which they of course

could do that before you could have a screenshot that was misleading You couldn't link it all and just take a picture of my article, right, and say, Brian Curtis said this. We see cable news clips of that all the time where the person didn't actually say that or the presidential candidate didn't actually say that. But now there's just a much more direct way to do it. And I saw somebody playing around today where they had the fake tweet, I think on purpose, breaking Biden pardoned Trump in surprise move. And of course, there's just a wire service image of Joe Biden.

Yeah, and it has the outlet in the lower left-hand corner, but you can- It was Washington Post. Yeah, you grab the Washington Post. You grab a reputable one, and that makes your case for you. Yeah, and in this case, when you click through, it was an article about Biden's student loan forgiveness, which is slightly different than pardoning his likely opponent in the 2024 presidential election. I noticed Slate's social media team was also having fun tweeting every story with the headline free pick, whoa, you got to read this.

So please click. Final point here for you, I am very concerned about the rise of big art in journalism. Go on. Well, I click on an 800-word pretty straightforward blog post.

And when I get to the website, it is illustrated like where the wild things are. And there's just a tremendous amount of art and a tremendous size to the art for this blog post. Now that Elon has taken the headlines away, is everything big art?

No, I think it's actually the reverse. I mean, I think it actually probably doesn't do, it does a disservice to all the hardworking graphic designers that are out there because it's now incumbent upon the art to be much more literal, you know, to be much more straightforward. You can't really do an art that plays off of the headline. The art's got to be the headline. So, you know, I don't know big art. I mean, presumably big art, you know, the art industrial complex will evolve to meet the moment.

But, you know, as it stands, this doesn't do anybody any favors. This is how you can tell David's in management at the ringer. Evolve to meet the moment. I hope you put that in a memo sometime. But to your point about directness rather than whimsy, we both know that before, Elon Musk killed the headline SEO kind of killed the headline it made all headlines and journalism

lamer and flatter and click chasing if I read one more story that says Martin Scorsese on X Y and Z I just am going to cry yeah so now that us writers will be able to write

our own display copy every time we tweet our story is this the is this the possible rebirth of the fancy or funny headline. You think on the level, you think overall, your headline instincts are better than the people that choose the headlines for you? Well, not here at the ringer, of course. They're wonderful, smart, buccaneering in their instincts.

But let's just say industry-wide. Yeah. Maybe. I mean, it certainly allows a little bit more art. And you have made as a writer probably have more time than the social media team does to A, B, market a bunch of different looks for your piece. Who knows? Maybe this will be returned to the glory days of it.

But still, it's not the words you write, don't literally connect to the story. So I'm not sure how this is going to help engagement. Coming up on today's podcast, how CNN covered the attack on Israel this weekend. Our weekend audio segment takes us from a meltdown in Miami to a voter roundtable in Bucks County. Plus, the new LA Clippers announcer is 22 years old. What does that say about the old and middle

aged dudes that dominate broadcasting? All that and much more on the press box. A part of the ringer! Podcast Network. Hello, media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, and producer, Erica Servantes here. David, I want to start today by talking about

CNN's coverage of the attack on Israel this weekend. If you have not gotten up to date on Saturday morning, fighters from the militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack. They came across the border from Gaza. They killed Israeli soldiers and civilians and a reported 260 people at a music festival. They took hostages back to Gaza. The New York Times calls this the worst attack on civilians in Israeli history and the deadliest

single day in the country's 75-year history. There are believed to be 150 Israeli hostages still being held. and more than 1,200 dead on both sides. A few thoughts on CNN's coverage here in the U.S. David, I think every media organization, and this includes very much the ringer, has to answer the same question in 2023, which is, why are we necessary,

given all the choices you have out there, all the free things that you can access at any time. This coverage is one of CNN's, answers to that question. Yeah. And I have to think maybe the most convincing answer to that question, no?

Absolutely. And we've talked about this before as it pertains to CNN, that these are the moments for people tune in. And all this other is sort of angst about the purpose of the channel

is just sort of, you know, background noise to a certain extent. But yeah, I mean, this is why they do what they do. This is what they're absolutely the best at. And I mean, this is obviously, you know, particularly because of the engagement disparity between the Israeli-Palestin, Palestine conflict and just about anything else

in the world, that is like Americans general engagement with it. I think there are probably more quibbles with the tone or the nature of the coverage, but then maybe with something else. But in terms of overall product, it's, you know, this is why they are, this is why they are who they are. It was interesting watching CNN this morning and just sort of taking in how many notes

they have to strike in this coverage. Because, of course, when you flip on cable news, you want the latest news, you want the latest developments. You want to hear from correspondence in the field like Clarissa Ward. CNN in this case certainly wants to convey the emotion of the families who've seen loved ones killed or kidnapped.

And then there's this incredible explainer function during stories like this one, where you are taking an American news audience and answering some very, very basic questions for it. Not just what happened on Saturday morning, but what is Hamas? What is significant about Israel's borders? And you have to do that again and again and again. Yeah. And just assume that a lot of people are coming to the story without tons of information. Yep.

And cable news seems so anachronistic so much of the time. And frankly, so silly so much of the time. Yeah. But I don't know if we in the media have invented a better one-stop place to convey all of that information. The only thing I could come up with that's even close is the threaded New York Times story where you click on one link and it not only gives you whatever the latest is,

but then you can scroll back and just read all these little tweets and previous stories and pieces of video and kind of see all the contours of a giant news story like this. By the way, whoever invented that, we've been living with that kind of threaded story for a while deserves a medal of journalism. Yeah. But I don't, I still don't think, even with all the detail in there and all the precision reporting in the New York Times, that it quite conveys everything that just sitting down

and watching a couple of hours of cable news will. Yeah, I agree. I mean, that's why this stuff exists. You know, I mean, that's why it continues to exist, even in an era where, you know, it doesn't necessarily need to. And why we're talking about CNN now instead of, well, Twitter, you know, which could theoretically be doing a good job of, and has in numerous, you know, international conflicts in the past,

been a way to kind of get the news firsthand. But it's not, that's not, it's primary function. And even on a platform with endless possibilities, it has to sort of be part of the mission, right, to really do that kind of service. Hold that thought on Twitter for one second. You've heard cable news hosts for years and years say, let's go to so-and-so on the ground.

What's been striking about the last 48 hours is the number of times I have seen cable news hosts literally throw to correspondents who are lying on the ground, where they've taken cover from rocket attacks. Let's listen to this piece of audio from CNN's Clarissa Ward. Clarissa is on the ground right now. Clarissa tells what's happening. Stand by.

Hi, John. So forgive me. I have a slightly unelegant position, but we have just had a massive barrage of rockets coming in here. Not too far from us. So we have had to take shelter here by the roadside. We're just about five minutes away Gaza is. in that direction. We can hear now a lot of jets in the sky. We could also hear the Iron Dome

intercepting a number of those rockets as they were whizzing overhead and making impact in that direction, not too far from here. We came to this location because this was ground zero for this entire operation of carnage. Hamas militants came on a pickup truck. This was the first place where they breached that border wall and they basically drove down this strip just spraying lead wherever they went. It's interesting about that is that Anderson Cooper showed some video this morning that was actually taken right before that report. And Clarissa Ward was running down the street and then throwing herself on the ground

along with her producers and her team there. And in those moments, you could really hear. the worry in her voice and the concern in her voice, right? As soon as CNN comes to her, she is being the ultra-professional, international correspondent and war correspondent that she is. She is reporting for television. Yeah.

But in those moments right before that, you realize all these people are humans, who are putting themselves in an unbelievably scary situation in order to report the news. Yeah. And I think even people like you and I, who think about reporting and the media and stuff more than your average bear can gloss over that. Just because of the professionalism of the people involved.

Speaking of professionalism, let's get back to Twitter. Because Elon Musk's platform was not just covering, if that's the word, the situation in Israel. Elon himself was recommending people to follow. Oh, God. Put a couple of accounts out there, which I will not mention on this podcast. he went on to say it is also worth following direct sources on the ground. Please add interesting

options in the replies below. Probably a bad situation for a news curator when you're saying please add interesting options in the replies. The accounts he recommended were met with immediate pushback from actual journalists. Jake Tapper

tweeted in one case, Elon Musk lods this bigot as a good source of information part infinity. And there were more like that. The whole thing struck me as very Murdochian or very Alesian, where you are going to the public and hitting the public in a certain way, right? You are appealing to a public that says, oh, you know, I don't watch CNN or read big newspapers because that's a sanitized account of war. That's the official line, quote unquote. And so what you're doing is you're playing on

that feeling and offering them alternatives to it. It's just so happened to exist on your platform. Yeah. But the alternative you were offering them then turns out to be more cartoonish and terrible than even the caricature you were proposing of the mainstream media. Yes. Like, where have we seen that before? Yeah, it's true.

Everywhere we've seen that before. And this doesn't even count the usual kinds of things. we see on Twitter at times like this where you just take a video of a scene of war that happened sometime before and post it and say, hey, look what just happened. Oh, yeah. Actually, that's old footage. I mean, how many times have we seen that happen just over the last couple of years? I did note that Talking Points Memo's Joshua Micah Marshall posted what he called a curated

list of mostly English news sources on Israel. Emphasis on new factual info, not opinion. That is on Twitter slash X. So if you want the curated Twitter X feed of information, that is out there for your consumption. All right, David, coming up in 30 seconds and weekend audio where an excited college football announcer once again sounded like someone at a middle school dance. But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate

a gag that was so obvious that all of media, Twitter, made it at exactly the same time. Send your nominees to at the Pressbox pod, where they are always gratefully received. This week's runner's up, anybody who took a picture from a news organization of Elon Musk

and wrote their own unflattering headline about him to protest the no headlines policy, thanks to Charlie Ban for that one. Also from our friend Matthew Zitland, about the speaker of the house, the so far unfilled position of speaker of the house.

Any tweet saying that there's no rule that a dog can't be speaker of the house, thanks to Matt for that one. But this week's winner, David, I said it last week, but I want to say it for you, comes from that very same story about Kevin McCarthy's ouster as speaker.

It was a very overworked Twitter joke to write. The GOP learned this week that when you turn up your base too high, you blow out your speaker. Turn up your base too much. Got it. Thanks to Brad, among others.

If you found yourself making the same funny that Frank Luntz did, congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, the notebook dump. Let us do some weekend audio.

I want to take you first, David, to Dateline Miami Gardens. where there was a football game between the heavily favored University of Miami and Georgia Tech. Now, you know this from college football reporting,

that there is this ethic among college football people to watch everything. They don't just watch Alabama and Ohio State. They watch college football almost from the bottom up. Like, if there's a Wyoming-Fresno State game going on, baby, we are online, we are tweeting about that. We are enjoying it in the moment.

Yep. When I was at the Cotton Bowl press box this weekend, I saw Chris Vanini from The Athletic and Dan Wolkin and Chuck Cole Pepper and Dave Wilson and all these people. All of them have that same ethic to one degree or another. We're covering the whole sport, not just the stars. Well, even with that said, this game Miami and Georgia Tech snuck up on people. I was on Twitter on Saturday night, and there were people who we would consider very online college football people going, wait a second, I'm just catching up on this.

Did this really happen? And what happened was that Miami had the ball with the lead and less than 35 seconds left in the game. All Miami needed to do was kneel down and end the game. But they didn't kneel down, David. They handed the ball off. They're running back fumbled and Georgia Tech recovered. And then Georgia Tech went 74 yards in 24 seconds to score a touchdown and win the game.

Let's let ESPN's West Durham and Tim Hasselbeck take us through the entire saga. No, it's under 46. You're good. You should not be handing this football off. I don't know what Miami is doing. That's it. Here's Cheney. The straight ahead.

Tackled and the ball popped out. You got to read the class. I mean, it would read the card. I mean, to me. Georgia Tech has it with 26 seconds left. Information there to change this. Here's Jeff Hezer. After further review, the ruling on the field stands.

First down to Georgia Tech. So with 26 seconds left, Miami commits its four. And clock the football. Singleton, the fastest of the receivers to the top of the screen. Here's King from the pocket. Flush to his right with six, five. Going to loop it downfield. And ball is caught.

Touchdown Georgia Tech with one second to go in the ball game. Christian Leary holds it in. I mean, I'm going to say it. It needs to be said. That's one of the biggest coaching mistakes at this level that I have ever seen in my lifetime. Isn't it interesting to hear Tim Hasselbeck cutting a promo on Miami coach Mario Cristobal? Mm-hmm. You never hear that.

No. something that is typically done on television, at least when it comes to the broadcasting of the actual game. Yeah, well, but he said, you know, he did frame it. It must be said. It did have to be said. That was, that was ridiculous. If you would have been doing as a disservice. Yeah. I mean, he'd been doing the audience a disservice to not say that out loud. Well, you hear the reluctance in his voice because that's not what you do when you're calling a game. Mm-hmm. Remember the little flare-up we had last week where Rodney Harrison over on NBC referred to Zach Wilson as garbage.

And that was a phrase that literally probably has been said today on a ringer podcast about someone. Multiple times, yes. Yeah, it would be totally uncontroversial.

But the way you talk about people on podcasts, even really big sports podcast is not the way you talk about them when you are calling the game. So I thought that was really interesting. this game also produced what you called

the middle school dance effect I believe where an announcer's voice cracks because of the excitement here is Georgia Tech announcer Andy Demetra five seconds to go

he will toss it into the end I don't think any announcer wants their voice to crack but it does sound real doesn't it? Oh yeah there's something wonderful about like

the moment was so crazy and this moment was absolutely crazy because not only was that decision dumb to run the ball but the two passes that Haynes King threw for Georgia Tech to get them into the end zone were insane. Oh yeah. And it feels real. It's not polished. It's not Mr. Big Voice Perfect, but it feels real. It sure does. I totally love it. Let me take you, David, to Dateline Athens, Georgia. I'm going to need you to administer a college football coach lie detector. here. Okay. The circumstances were that the Georgia Bulldogs

just put it on a ranked Kentucky team. Winning 51 to 13 and finally looked like the true number one team in the country. After the game, David, Georgia coach Kirby Smart said this about the image he was using

to fire up his team, according to awful announcing. We used the wrecking ball analogy and we showed wrecking balls all week and just said it's going to get more and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And the bigger the wrecking ball is, you know, force equals mass times acceleration.

So wrecking balls, where do you think the mind of a youngish sports media person would go when they hear that analogy? I don't know if I'm young enough to answer this question. Are we talking about the song wrecking ball? We are. Miley Cyrus. Now, I want you to listen to Kirby Smart's reaction when someone in the press score down there mentioned Miley Cyrus.

I don't know who Miley Cyrus is. What does she ever do with a wrecking ball? Huh? I know Eric Church's wrecking ball. Here's where the football coach lie detector test comes in. Do we believe Kirby Smart does not know who Miley Cyrus is? No, absolutely not. you do not believe in.

I do not believe in. I'm not quite sure what the... I'm not quite sure what's in it for him to lie. I think that's the only question here, but yeah, no, I don't believe in it. We're not going to need any lie detector test about whether Kirby Smart knows who Eric Church is. I definitely believe that he does.

Yes. I definitely believe that he does. But I think you're questioning the motivations of saying you're not sure who Miley Cyrus is or you don't know at all is the correct way to go because what's the point? good man no i was thinking of eric church actually just a funny moment there in the postgame press conference i wish they were all that entertaining finally david let me take you to dateline bucks

county pennsylvania not that far from you no not at all i was there this weekend oh there we go so maybe you met the gentleman we're about to hear from kirsten welker was also there she is the new moderator of NBC's Meet the Press, finding her footing a little bit, or at least she was with the first Trump interview that she did. But this was way more fun. She convened a focus group there in Bucks County, Pennsylvania to ask people for their thoughts on who they support the 2024 presidential race.

Now, David, there is making up your mind about a candidate, and then there is making up your mind. Is there any chance you would stay at home on Election Day? No. I love American democracy too much that Biden and Trump, if it's a Biden and Trump race, then I would vote for Biden, even if he was dead. So let me make sure I get this straight. The old conspiracy was that dead people were voting for Biden.

The new conspiracies that live people are voting for someone who is dead. I think Elon to recommend an account to untangle that one. Yeah, that's a, that's a weird one there. Semi-serious question, how important do you think it is for political reporters to talk to actual voters in the midst of their jobs? How is it? How important is it for the reporter? I mean, yeah, for the, for the journalists? For the journalists and then, you know, us down the line. Or for us. I mean, for a long time, I would have said it's not important. That this is just like the worst kind of anecdotal evidence.

And obviously it's not just a random poll like a, you know, like a political poll conducted. Obviously there's a tendency to skew towards entertainment and towards, you know, magnetic personalities or people who you believe, who have a predisposition to believe represent something that they may or may not. but I don't think it's entirely useless anymore. I mean, I think it's more important to try to find people who are actually emblematic of more people. You know, a diverse set of viewpoints,

I think can be really healthy because it can at least help, if done, honestly, can help to sort of push back against the sort of faux arrangement of viewpoints that we get on television. all the time, right? Just when you have a Republican talking head and a, you know, Democrat talking head and a host or whatever, you don't necessarily always get a diverse set of viewpoints, at least not one that's reflective of America. So, yeah, I mean, I do think that it's helpful. It could potentially be helpful, but in practice, it is not, you know, usually

very, I mean, but for the journalists, it's probably helpful to get out there, you know, get your hands dirty and see what real people are saying. But it's, you know, it's always going to be a little bit weird because people that agree to go on TV or agree to be even agree to be interviewed are sort of self-selecting. So, you know, I always wonder about this. Maybe the next time we have a political reporter on here, we can talk about it. Because sometimes you'll see random people quoted at a rally. Mm-hmm. Like, I'm at the Donald Trump rally and I love Donald Trump. Yeah. Or I like Ron DeSantis, but I really like Donald Trump. And I'm always like, okay. I don't want to leave real. people out of the story of politics, but I'm also like, why is this one person interesting or representative of the millions of votes that will decide this presidential election? Yeah. But your point about it being more important, I think is interesting because we do all live in different silos now. And it may be that we don't have a great handle on what people are actually worried about or we have less of a handle on it than we once did. he being the media monolith that's venturing out into the states and covering this stuff.

Yeah. So it is always interesting to me. By the way, when I was at home in Fort Worth this weekend, my mom asked me, what happened to that nice guy, Chuck Todd, who was hosting Meet the Press? I was like, well, he's not hosting the show anymore. Not listening to the press box every week, apparently. Yeah, but she missed that episode. I want to talk to you, David, about Carlo Jimenez,

who was the new play-by-play voice of the Clippers. You sent me this story. News was broken by Jordan Bondarant of Barrett Sports Media. Carlo Jimenez is 22 years old. And like the guy he's replacing on the Clippers, Noah Eagle, who has now gone off to NBC, Jimenez graduated from college this year. Like 2023, went to SC.

He won the Jim Nance Award, which is this ultra competitive contest between broadcasters from Syracuse and also sometimes the rest of the country. Mm-hmm. About who is the best play-by-play announcer in the land, at least collegiately. Very cool award. Drew Carter, who was calling that Toy Story game we played audio from one a couple years ago. Mm-hmm. But just the fact that a young broadcaster was hired is fascinating. And it made me think of something that we deal with a lot in this industry, which is that broadcasting is sort of like the Supreme Court.

It is a gerontocracy. Oh, yeah. Or at the very least, a rule by the middle-aged. And part of the reason for that, and we'll get to some of the other reasons in a second, is that you can be a top broadcaster and hold down one of these jobs forever. sure you know Joe Buck I was looking this up for he came on 54 years old he's in his prime right now but Joe Buck has probably started his prime let's say in his early 30s and his prime will probably last at least until his early 70s oh yeah you're talking about a 40 year long prime if he were to retire in his late 50s or you know early 60s it would seem like yeah

I don't even know what the parallel would be. It's just like a professional athlete just going out at 25. Yeah. And like one of the, and like the all pro quarterback going out at 25. And being like, you know, I've done enough.

I'm all good. It's so funny. I mean, when I was, I was struck by the fact that when I first started writing about broadcasting 20 years ago, all the big stars were people that were the big stars in broadcasting when I was a kid. Not when I was in high school, not when I was in college, but when I was a little kid.

Yeah. It was Brent Musburger and Bob Costas and it was John Madden. And it was Vern Lundquist and it was Al Michaels. I mean, it was the same people. And it's only in the last couple of years when Brent and Vern retired and Bob Costas went off to CNN that that guard has changed a little bit. But they were the big stars in broadcasting for. almost my entire life.

Yeah. And something like Al Michaels still are. For sure. Now imagine being a young broadcast who wants to break into this business. Yeah. First off, what do you have to do? You have to be able to afford to go to Syracuse or one of the top broadcasting factories. Then you have to afford, and we've seen this in print two, to be able to do unpaid or

largely unpaid internships. Mm-hmm. then when you graduate, guess what? You get to do more jobs like that. Yeah. That are unpaid or largely unpaid. And then you're good enough or lucky enough to have made it through that gauntlet, guess what? You get to wait decades in some case to get a big job.

Yeah. Decades. And we're not talking about Joe Buck's job either. We're just talking about a big job. Yeah. Because those people who have it aren't going to lay. it go in many cases. No, absolutely. Why would you?

It's a very, very funny industry. So it's always very cool to see somebody who is 22 break in. And, you know, I said I heard somebody make this point and I don't want to, I have two, two names in mind, so I won't give either of them credit because I don't want to put in the other one's mouth. But it's always funny to me, whenever we talk about broadcasting, the people who hold those A jobs, the number one jobs, they're usually really, really good at what they do. Of course they are, yeah. But it's often, dude, when we look down the network roster at the people behind them,

sometimes there's somebody great waiting in that number two job, waiting decades for their shot. But as you progress down, sometimes it's just the same people over and over again every year. And they've been in those jobs for decades. And those jobs have not been churned. And I'm talking both about play-by-play people and analysts too. Absolutely, yeah. And you're like, are you looking to make these announcers better? Are you looking for young talent to bring through?

here. Oh, I mean, imagine how much you're paying the people who've been there since, you know, for 30 years. They're probably making a ton of money. You've got to have, like, replacement level, cheap talent behind them. It's, yeah. Yeah. But are you just renewing that contract every year and we're like, yeah, because it's just like everything else.

I mean, this is why I really admire the Jimenez higher because sameness is easy, you know, and that's why a lot of places go with it, especially on broadcast, you know, I mean, sports are obviously different than everything else on TV, but more and more people kind of unplug. Obviously, all these networks are, and especially sports broadcast in some ways, are trying to make everything just seem comfortable and familiar, you know,

and so trying something new is rare. Speaking of old guys, 68-year-old Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy has been nominated for an old guy still got it award. Oh, all right. He won three World Series in San Francisco, and he came back for his swan song, only in journalism,

with the Rangers. His team has now eliminated the raise and has the Orioles down two games to nothing. Bruce Bochie, the old guy still got it. Thanks to John Walters for that one. And some only in journalism for you, David. This one comes from our pals in South Dakota, Andrew Graining.

When you don't use the word without in your copy, but instead use the word sands. He sends us this sentence. The courthouse expansion's current plan is drawn up Sands Jail. Yeah, that's a great one. I do that, or at least I used to do that. Yeah, I know. I think about you and I hear it.

I've tried to use Sands in conversation. It just lands with a thud. Nobody has any idea what you're saying. But isn't the only reason you would ever put that in an article, because you've seen other people put it in an article. Oh, yeah, for sure. No one ever told me that was a logical way to convey that thought, but I always see it in an article.

Oh, well, that must be how you write news articles. Sands. It's like using French words in your copy. Yeah. You'd see somebody like Anthony Lane doing, but like, oh, that sounds kind of sophisticated. I guess I'm supposed to use untranslated French. Can't we use Spanish?

Why can't we do something different? I also wanted to turn myself in because this weekend I nearly used and only in journalism word. I was in the Cotton Bowl press box as I mentioned for the Texas Oklahoma game. And I'm making notes in my notebook as the game is happening so I will remember

what happened in this football game. And I wrote in my notebook the words Longhorns avert disaster. Now why did I write that in my notebook? David, because I've read a thousand sports articles of my lifetime that have had teams averting disaster. For sure. They don't need to avert disaster.

Nobody says they must avert it. They can just avoid it if you're into an A-V-word. Come on. Verk disaster. I don't think it made it into my story, but I can't guarantee you. Double check. It's time for David Shoemaker, guess is the strain pun headline. Yeah.

Last Monday's headline about artifacts, vanishing from the British Museum was now museum, now you don't. Today's headline comes from Taxman, a.k.a. Jeremy Naylor. It's from the Boston Globe,

a story that was covered here on the press box. Drew Holiday, David, was a trade throw in when Milwaukee sent into Portland as part of the Dame Lillard deal. Then Drew Holiday got traded to the Boston Celtics.

Yeah. he's very happy to be back with a contender and the Celtics are happy beyond their wildest expectations to have gotten Drew what was the Boston Globe's strain pun headline am I using both parts of the name I think both first and last name are such good pun targets they're so it really is isn't it but why don't you just go for the first name rather than the surname um true Drew all uh everybody's happy

everybody's happy Drew Never imagined it being this happy It's like something I couldn't have even contemplated It's a miracle I'm belief It's a Drew

Drew to thunk it That's even better than what they actually came up with Oh God I have no idea It's my greatest wish it was my true drew um my greatest wish i always thought this while i was sleeping my dream true dream come drew oh there you know dream come drew so it's no good but you you had a better one often david outperforms the pun headline he is david shoemaker i'm brian curtis production magic by erika cervantes shoemaker and i return monday

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