Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode One Hundred Forty Two: Back On The Bandwagon

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Episode One Hundred Forty Two: Back On The Bandwagon · The Death Of Journalism

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Welcome to episode number one hundred and forty two of the Death of Journalism podcast.
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My name is John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show. Caitlin
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Clark delivers in a big way and the aftermath is telling. JK Rowling takes
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on an insane New Scottish law against free speech and seemingly wins. And in
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the wake of Christine blasi Ford's new book, I interview the man she wrongly
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placed to the scene of her false allegation against Brett Kavanaugh. In the last
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episode of the podcast, I predicted that Caitlin Clark and IOWA would probably lose
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to LSU in the quarterfinals of the women's NCAA basketball tournament. I did leave
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open the possibility that Clark may have an historic game which could lead IOWA to
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beat the defending national champions LSU, and that's exactly what happened. So I
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was wrong in my prediction that IOWA would lose, but Caitlyn Clark was in
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fact the reason why IOWA did win. She scored forty one points, had
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nine to three pointers I think thirteen assists. It was a tremendous performance and
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really has gotten me back into the fan club of Caitlyn Clark. For a
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little bit, I was starting to get tepid as she seemingly was turning Newman,
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especially in a game against West Virginia in the second round where IOWA almost
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lost. But she has turned it around the last two games and what she
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did under the biggest lights possible against LSU was really remarkable. And the second
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prediction I made in the last episode of the podcast related to this game was
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that it would be the highest rated women's college basketball game of all time,
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and it was by a large margin. In fact, it was the most
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watched women's basketball game ever. It was also the most watched basketball game ever
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in ESPN history. Twelve point three million people on average watched a quarterfinal women's
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college basketball game between IOWA and LSU. That is remarkable. And you know,
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as I said in the last episode, I expected it to beat the
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previous record last year of about ten million, So twelve point three didn't shock
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me. But that is an extraordinary number, and it's a number that has
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cultural significance, and it also requires some semblance of explanation, and I think
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there are multiple explanations here. The first is the celebrity and the sensation of
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Caitlin Clark. I mean she has captured the imagination of a lot of people,
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especially young girls. This is very similar to the t Ler Swift effect
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with regard to the Kansas City Chiefs. She is somebody people tune in to
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watch because she is that big of a celebrity and she is that interesting.
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She's that much fun to watch because she shoots from places no one ever dreams
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of shooting from, and when she's on she makes shots that people are just
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flabbergasted about. In fact, there were some great pictures of LSU players being
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completely flummixed as to what to do about Caitlyn Clark. So Clark is the
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number one reason. Without Caitlyn Clark, none of this happens. But there
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are some other elements to why this game was watched by twelve point three million
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people. One from a sports perspective was that this was a rematch of a
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national championship game. There's a rivalry aspect to this, and there are known
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players on the LSU team. We've talked a lot about their coach, Kim
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Mulky, creating a lot of controversy in the media, specifically with regard to
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her attacks on the Washington Post and the LA Times as well, which I'm
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going to get to momentarily because there's an update on that as that aspect of
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this story. But also Angel Reeves is a star player for LSU. She's
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very controversial. She's somebody who people know and like to talk about. So
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there was a little bit of Magic Johnson Larry Bird going on here with regard
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to why, which, by the way, for those who are too young
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to remember, Magic Johnson Larry Bird played in the men's National Championship game back
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in the late seventies, and that to this day is the most highly rated
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college basketball game of all times. So that clearly played a role in this.
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But underlying the rivalry aspect of this is the part of this story that
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most people in the media preferred to ignore, and clearly they ignored during the
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broadcast itself, and that is the issue of race. The issue of race
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clearly drove a lot of the interest in this situation because you have Iowa,
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an almost all white team against LSU and almost all black team with a white
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coach. And I've talked before about the confusing nature of the multi LSU dynamic,
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where in some ways Maulki is a Trumpian conservative, yet her team itself
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is rather woke, and there was a controversy involving that and the national anthem,
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which I'm going to get to in just a minute as well. But
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the issue of race clearly played a very significant role driving interest in this particular
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game. It did so last year, and it did so again this year.
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And I think part of that last year was because of the game against
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South Carolina, which could end up having another rematch if Iowa makes it all
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the way to the National Championship Game, where the coach at South Carolina,
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Don Staley, tends to try to make things into race issues, and so
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that could be an issue that rears its head again very significantly in the next
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few days if i was able to win their semi final game against the University
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of Connecticut. But with regard to race, I want to play one clip
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which was kind of shocking, only because it's so rare for the television news
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media sports media to just fully acknowledge reality when it comes to the issue of
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race. And it happened on the Fox Sports network via Paul Pierce, a
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prominent former NBA basketball player who's black, who was willing to keep it real,
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tell one hundred and say, look, I was amazed by Caitlin Clark's
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performance that here was a white girl taking on these black girls who I thought
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were are gonna win the game, and she deserves my respect because of that.
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And here's what that sounded like on Fox Sports. It's not it's let
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me, it's it's beyond that key. I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna
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just keep it. One hundreds. We saw white girl in Iowa doing to
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a bunch of black girls. Of course, that made it like, oh
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that game, I respect that game. I respect I hear you like that's
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like, oh, she didn't do this to some other little white girls that
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was over here and Neil in Colorado wherever she did it, say some girls
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from you from LSU, we thought, with some dogs defending chance, depending
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chance, and put them on her knee and spank them, spank them,
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And so that is I know, but I didn't expect that. Now.
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I found Pierce's comments to both be humorous but also dead on and also interesting
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from the standpoint of I've noticed this a lot because I spent a lot of
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time on Twitter and TikTok researching for this and just trying to glean what's going
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on in the world. But for some reason, I see a lot of
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videos of former NBA players who have glowing praise, glowing praise for Larry Bird,
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Larry the legend to whom a lot of people have compared Caitlin Clark,
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although I think she's much more like Pete Merrivitch as far as her style of
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play. But he was another white hope who ironically played for LSU in college
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before having a somewhat disappointing professional career. But what I find interesting about that
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is that there is this very strange respect that black NBA players seem to have
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for white people who can play the game in a way that they think is
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at their level. Like, Wow, despite the fact that you're a white
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girl, you're able to do that. My hat's off to you. Tip
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of the hat. Respect and respect is huge, especially in the black community,
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and so I do think that in elements of both the black community as
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well as black people on sports television, Caitlin Clark is an even bigger star
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because of the fact that she's white. And by the way, I think
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that's a positive. I think that's fantastic. I think we ought to be
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able to laugh and enjoy the differences in the races. I think we should
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celebrate our differences. And if black people can go, wow, that's really
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cool. That a white girl can play at a level that I've never seen
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before and that brings us together in any way, shape or form, I
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think that's fantastic. I think that that should be plauded. Now that you
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don't want to go too far with it, but I don't think Pierce did.
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The clip I just played for you went viral on Twitter and elsewhere,
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and I was perfectly fine with that. It's absolutely something that I think should
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be talked about, and in most ways it's healthy. So when I say
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that race played a significant role in why people watch this game, it's not
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all negative or even mostly negative. I think there's some positive to it.
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I will, though, say that that clearly plays into the whole rivalry aspect
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of this. I mean, there's there's no doubt. I mean this has
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been a theme throughout sports ever since blacks and whites were playing sports together.
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I mean, you could you could argue that the Rocky movies were based in
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large part because of the fact that Rocky was white and for the first couple
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of Rocky movies. His opponent was black, and so it's just a natural
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rivalry aspect to it, and it's not necessarily all negative, but I do
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think it should be at least pointed out. We shouldn't pretend that that's not
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why all of a sudden twelve point three or part of why all of a
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sudden twelve point three million people decided to tune in for a women's quarterfinal college
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basketball game, which has never come close to happening before. Now, there
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were other aspects of this story that created controversy, which I think also it
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didn't play into why people watched, because people didn't even know this was going
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to happen when they watched, But it was part of the environment which led
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to these BAFO ratings. This contrast between Iowa and LSU. It was cultural
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as well as racial, and some of it is political, which is why
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I find it fascinated that Mulki is seen as a conservative and her team is
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seen as being very woke liberal because LSU did not show up for the national
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anthem before this game. Now, the way they did this, about twelve
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minutes before the game, they play the national anthem and all of a sudden,
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people start posting videos. This was not on television, but they were
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posting videos from inside the arena in Albany, New York where the national anthem
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is being played. IOWA is out there, standing at attention, and LSU
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is nowhere to be found. And Kim Molkie was asked after the game,
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Okay, what was that all about, and she said that it was not
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a plan. It was simply by coincidence that they have a set timetable for
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when they go back into the locker room. She said it was at the
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twelve minute mark, that that's their normal routine, and that she didn't even
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know when the national anthem was being played. Now, the way she said
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it sounded plausible and it sounded somewhat credible, but from the from a logistical
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standpoint, it doesn't seem to hold water. The very least, it raises
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some questions. I mean, the idea that nobody told LSU when the national
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anthem's going to be played is pretty much ridiculous. And as far as the
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timing was concerned, people even went back to the clock and said, well,
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if your your routine is to leave for the locker room at the twelve
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minute mark. The national anthem started at like eleven thirty eleven forty left on
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the clock, So how was there enough time for you to even get off
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the court before the national anthem started? You didn't hear any sort of announcement.
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And because a lot of the players on LSU seem to be woke and
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are black, going back to the whole Colin Kaepernick controversy, there, I
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think is a suspicion that maybe this was done on purpose. I don't think
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it was done on purpose, but it was the kind of lapse that shouldn't
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happen. It's the kind of lapse that would never happen on Iowa's team,
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not because Iowa was white, but because the culture of Iowa's team seemingly is
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very different than the culture on LSU's team. So I thought, we're going
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to get to the bottom of why it was that LSU didn't stand or wasn't
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outside on the court for the national anthem. But that certainly played in to
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this narrative, this narrative of this the cultural divide between Iowa's team and LSU's
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team, and I think that that played into why there was so much interest
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in this game. And that was further illustrated in the postgame comments by LSU's
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star player Angel Reese. Now, Angel Reese had a very good start to
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the game, and I mean at the beginning, it looked like IOWA was
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maybe gonna run away with it. Then LSU came back. Then they looked
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like they were in control, and then Angel Reese got hurt. Now how
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badly she got hurt, it's hard to tell because she was only out of
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the game for a short period. She came back, but she was never
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the same as she was before she got hurt. And Angel Reese is a
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black woman who has really kind of reveled in her role as a villain.
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I mean, she was clearly taunting Caitlin Clark last year in the National Championship
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game, and you know she enjoyed that. And by the way, I
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don't have to a certain degree on how any problem with it, you know,
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I don't. I don't want to create any double standards because Caitlin Clark
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does some of the same stuff herself, and Angel Reese was even allegedly responding
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some of this to some of the stuff that Caitlin Clark had done in previous
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games. Although I said at the time last year, I thought there was
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even a racial angle to that, because it seemed like Angel Reese was sticking
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up for other black girls from other teams that had had somewhat of a confrontation
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going on with Caitlyn Clark. But the most important part of this whole situation
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is that Angel Reese has created a persona persona by the way that she's gotten
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a lot of attention for most of it positive she, I'm sure is getting
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paid a lot of nil money because of the celebrity this is created. And
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I think that's an important part of the context of the clip of about the
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play. For you. You know, we're no longer living in this world
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where college athletes need to be protected because they're just kids. Okay, all
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right, Look, if we're gonna do the nil thing, which obviously now
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is permanent, it looks like and you know, instant transfers, and we're
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gonna treat these people like their professionals. Then you got to play with the
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big boys or girls. You gotta put your big girl pants on. You
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got to act like an adult. You gotta take the good with the bad.
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You can't just say, well, I'm gonna get paid. I'm a
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professional basketball player. Now for all intensive purposes, I'm a celebrity. But
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anything negative, real or perceived that comes with that, I don't need to
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accept. And in fact, if I do have to take it real or
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perceived, I'm a victim. I'm a victim. Well that was the card
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that Angel Reves played after the game, and I thought it was absolutely ridiculous
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and to the you know, to the credit of a lot of the woke
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media, I did think I perceived there was a bit of a divide.
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It seemed like black men, black men in the sports media were much more
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willing to criticize Reese for what you're about to hear than black women. Black
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women, I think, feel as if they have a moral obligation to rush
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to the defense of Reese or any other black female athlete who is under any
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sort of attack, real or perceived. But Reese really exposed herself, in
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my opinion, in her post game press conference where she played the victim card
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in multiple ways. And here's what that sounded like. I don't really get
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to stand up for myself. I mean, I have great teammates, I
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have a great support system. I got my hometown, I got my family
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that stands up for me. I don't really get to speak out on things
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just because I just try to ignore and I just try to stand strong.
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Like I've been through so much. I've seen so much. I've been attacked
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so many times, death threats, I've been sexualized, I've been threatened.
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I've been so many things, and I've stood strong every single time. And
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I just try to stand strong for my teammates because I don't want them to
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see me down and like not be there for them. So I just want
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to always just know like I'm still human, Like all this has happened since
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I won the national championship, and I said the other day, I haven't
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happy since then, and it sucks, but I still wouldn't change I wouldn't
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change anything, and I would still sit here and say, like I'm unapologetically
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me. I'm gonna always leave that mark and be who I am and stand
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on that and hopefully the little girls that look up to me and hopefully I
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get them since type of inspiration that no, hopefully it's not this hard and
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all the things that come at you, but keep being who you are.
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I keep waking up every day, keep being motivated. Thing who you are
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stanceing toes. Don't back down and just be confident. I mean, I
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have multiple problems with what Reese said there. First of all, the death
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threat thing. That is like the ultimate last bastion of scoundrels, when you
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have nowhere else to go and you claim you've gotten death threats. I mean,
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there is no evidence she's ever gotten a credible death threat. Anybody in
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public life, anybody can say that they have gotten death threats. I've gotten
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death threats publicly from victim number one of the Jerry Sandowsky Penn State Joe Perturno
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case, who's considered to be a hero, a literal threat to run me
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over with his truck. I don't whine about that, and I'm sure,
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I'm sure I've had other situations that they're not even memorable enough for me to
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be able to recite them. But everybody in public life gets something that could
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be perceived as a death threat. I don't believe that Angel Reeves has ever
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received a legitimate death threat. As far as being sexualized, this is a
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woman who for a basketball game, wears huge fake eyelashes, who paints her
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absurdly long fingernails certain colors I mean, come on, people, this is
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this is ridiculous. This is part of the deal. Now, I fully
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acknowledge it. Being a female athlete brings with it challenges that a male athlete
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doesn't have. And certainly the sexual aspect of this, or sexualization aspect of
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this, is part of that equation, no doubt. But guess what,
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if you navigate it properly, it's very val valuable to you. You.
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Angel Reeves goes to the same school LSU as Olivia Donne, who I mentioned
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in the last episode of the podcast. Olivia Done is a mediocre maybe a
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little bit better than mediocre, not nearly the best gymnast on LSU's team.
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And she gets paid millions of dollars. Why Well, because she's a TikTok
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sensation. Why because she's got blonde hair, a pretty face, and her
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butt looks great in a shiny leotard. That's it. That's it. She
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doesn't even have any great personality or anything like that. It's all about how
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she looks, all about how she sells her sexuality, and so there's great
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rewards for that. That doesn't really exist on the mail side, at least
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not overtly, And so once again, you got to take the good with
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the bad. But this generation doesn't feel like they have to take the good
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with the bad. They don't understand that trade off. They don't understand that
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you're getting a whole hell of a lot of benefit for what is really not
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much negativity in return. But most importantly in this situation, you know,
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the focus should be on one of a great game. Caitlyn played, how
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amazing it is that iowa one. You should be congratulating them, and oh,
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by the way, it's probably your last game because you're gonna go pro.
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I don't know how great approach. He's gonna be angel rees, but
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you know, all indications are this is going to be her last game,
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and so she plays the victim card to go out in numerous ways that are
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not legitimate, especially in a post nil world. I mean, come on,
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you made yourself into a villain and you've got lots of benefits for that,
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and if some criticism what online, who the hell cares. It's really
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disturbing to me how much the victim card is being played throughout our society,
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but especially in this generation, and especially it seems like among female athletes.
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I realized that it's danger is to put situations that have nothing in common together
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and create a trend. But I've seen this time and time again in recent
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years. Simone Biles with what happened at the last Olympics. Biles was the
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star gymnast at the last Olympic Games who was supposed to win all sorts of
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gold medals and then basically quit on her team because she got what was called
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the twisties. And you know, she became a heroin because of that,
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not saying she should have been a villain, but but you know, she
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was a victim, so therefore she was praised. You know, the women's
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soccer team at the last World Cup crapped out and Megan Rapino and others played
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the victim card. We've talked in the last couple of episodes about the Utah
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women's basketball team playing the victim card, which we're going to talk about again
23:49
in just a moment, over something that probably did not happen at all,
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claiming that they were victims of a racial hate crime. This seems to be
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the mo O now. Now, when you lose, when you fail,
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you play the victim card, and it seems to work or men, I
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don't know. If it works or not, but at least people seem to
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think enough that they go ahead and try to get away with it. It
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seems to work more for women than for men that we're teaching this generation in
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particular and specifically women, that any sort of criticism, especially if you're a
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black female like Angel rees any sort of criticism is inherently racist, inherently sexist,
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and gives you victim status, and victim status in this day and age,
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unbelievably and incredibly corrosively is very, very valuable, and that to me
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is the number one takeaway from what Angel Reeves said after the game. Consistent
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with this victim mentality, though, is something else that happened with regard to
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LSU's basketball coach Kim Moulki, who we've discussed on the last couple of episodes
24:59
of the podcas. She went after the Washington Post preemptively for a profile they
25:03
were working on. It turned out to be a basically a nothing burger,
25:07
threatening to sue. I didn't like how far Maulchy went, but from a
25:11
media standpoint, it seemed to be an effective tactic because the Washington Post story
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appears to have been delayed, appears to have been, you know, effectively
25:25
neutered, because it was not that big of a deal. So she clearly
25:30
won over the Washington Post. And then when she was asked about the Washington
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Post piece, she said she didn't even read it. And she went after
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the Los Angeles Times for an article that was for a column that was previewing
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their game with UCLA, which LSU had just won. And here Maulkie played
25:52
the victim card again. Maulkie, who I'm very conflicted about. I like
25:56
a lot of what she stands for, especially her opposition to the COVID insanity,
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and I know I like her as a coach. He's highly successful as
26:04
a coach. But she went after the LA Times and called a column about
26:11
the UCLA basketball game sexist, sexist. And I read the column, I
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thought, Okay, I'm a little surprised that they went after LSU as hard
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as they did. But this is a hometown newspaper for UCLA, and they
26:27
were creating this narrative of good versus evil. But I don't know how you
26:33
can be sexist when it's a game between two female teams. So if you're
26:37
siding with one team, your home team, over another team, the defending
26:42
national champions and you're creating this contrast. How can that be sexist? You're
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just deciding to favor one group of females over another group of females. So
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I didn't like the sexist charge. And then specifically LSU coach Kim Moulki was
27:00
very offended, again playing the victim card, over the phrase that was used
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in the La Times column dirty debutants. And I'm guessing that the columnist thought
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that that was cute alliteration dirty debutantes, because I guess LSU plays a rough
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brand of basketball, and debutants is a word that's associated with the South and
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associated with, you know, girls of a certain age. I guess you
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would be in a spoiled class. And so they described LSU as a bunch
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of dirty debutantes. Well, Maulki connected that phrase somehow to pornography, because
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I guess if you google it, which she says that she did, I
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have not. If you google dirty debutantes, I guess that's that's a don't
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even you would call it. I guess that's a form of pornography. I
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guess there's a brand of pornography. Or if you somehow, if you google
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that phrase upcomes pornographic results. I don't think that's the fault of the La
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Times columnist. Well, one of the reasons why I'm mentioning all this is
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not just because it's consistent with the whole victim card mentality of women's sports in
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this day and age. But the La Times columnist felt forced to apologize publicly
28:23
did so, I think just before the lsu Iowa game. I was flabbergasted.
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I'm like, wow, So even a conservative, or at least someone
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perceived as a conservative, like Kim Malky, if they pushed the right buttons
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and they you know, it's very easy to play these wop sports media members
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because it's like kryptonite. Oh my god, sexism. Ah, I can't
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function anymore. I've been called a sexist. So instead of just saying,
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look, I'm sorry you disagree with the column I wrote what I felt like,
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congratulations on the win. The La Time columnists felt like they had to
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apologize profusely and pathetically. I mean, just from a media standpoint, I
29:11
thought it was a very negative series of events because the media is already losing
29:17
power on a daily basis. I mean, it used to be that columnists
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in sports and news had real, significant influence and would never think of apologizing
29:27
unless they made a major factual error. But now simply because you use some
29:33
phrases that come up with bad Google results, and you get called sexiest for
29:37
defending your home school UCLA's women's basketball team or favoring them over the defending national
29:45
champions a team that has embraced a villain narrative about themselves. I mean,
29:52
these types of things matter. They set precedents for the future. It's a
29:56
chilling effect on future commentary about anything having to do with women's sports, and
30:02
I guess we're seeing growing pains. I don't think there's gonna be any growth,
30:07
but we're seeing a situation where women's sports now is becoming big enough,
30:11
especially in basketball, to warrant this kind of media coverage. But at least
30:17
some people involved in the sport are just not ready to accept the big leagues.
30:22
That's what this really is about. Are we going to treat women equally
30:26
to men. I'm all in favor of that. Well, that means taking
30:32
the good with the bad. That means getting some tough skin, that means
30:36
putting your big girl pants on, because it's not all Roses, and you
30:41
know the idea of playing the victim card whenever you lose or whenever you get
30:48
the opportunity to do so. I don't think it's right. I don't think
30:51
it's healthy. I don't think it's good for women's sports. I don't think
30:55
it's good for women. And so I did not like at all the La
31:02
Times apology to Kim Bulky from either a media standpoint or what it says about
31:07
women being willing and able to be treated the same way that men would be
31:11
treated in the same kind of situation. As far as where the women's basketball
31:18
tournament goes from here, you know, I have been very skeptical of the
31:22
idea that Iowa could win this tournament. A lot of people have been because
31:26
they just don't have that great of a supporting cast surrounding Caitlin Clark. I
31:30
mean, she's amazing. We'd never see anything like her in women's college basketball,
31:37
certainly not on a team like Iowa, where you know, the other
31:41
four players are five or six players at play on a regular basis. Without
31:47
Caitlin Clark wouldn't even be remotely competitive against an LSU or against a University of
31:53
Connecticut team. Which they're going to be playing in the semi finals coming up
31:57
here in the next day or two. The University of Connecticut is by far
32:01
the most dominant women's college basketball program of all time, and you know,
32:07
their coach has been there forever. In fact, their coach, Gino Ariema,
32:10
was there back when I was broadcasting Big East women's basketball games at Georgetown
32:15
back in the nineteen eighties. That's how long he's been there, and nobody
32:20
has ever been more successful than him. This isn't his best team, but
32:24
it would not surprise anybody if UCN won this game, because top to bottom
32:31
they have far more depth and far more talent than IOWA does. But they
32:36
don't have Caitlyn Clark. And you know, while I'm kind of going from
32:40
being a little bit down on Caitlin Clark thinking maybe she's human, I don't
32:45
want to go too much in the other direction and say, well, from
32:47
a pure karma perspective, if you believe in fate, which I don't,
32:52
I used to as a kid. Every kid believes in some semblance of fate
32:55
when it comes to their sports fandom. But if you believe in karma or
33:00
fade or things turning out the way that they should. This Caitlin Clark story
33:06
should not end in the semi finals against Yukon. It very well might.
33:10
I'm not gonna make another prediction against Iowa after being essentially wrong in the last
33:15
episode of the podcast, but it's gonna be a tough game. Clark's gonna
33:20
have to play almost as well as she did against LSU to beat Yukon.
33:23
But to me, this thing is gotta end. Has to end with Iowa
33:30
playing an undefeated South Carolina team for the national championship. That's the way this
33:35
has to end, because that game South Carolina against Iowa for all the marbles,
33:40
in what we know will be Caitlin Clark's last game, that'll blow away
33:45
the ratings even for LSU. That'll do fifteen million. Hell, if Taylor
33:51
Swift shows up, that'll be twenty five million. That game will be way
33:55
bigger than even in LSU if it happens. And of course, then you
34:00
get to the situation of okay, you know, are the officials consciously or
34:05
subconsciously aware of just how important it would be for women's basketball for Clark and
34:10
IOWA to get to that final game against South Carolina, Because you know,
34:15
Yukon South Carolina would be big within the world of college women's college basketball,
34:21
but it doesn't doesn't even come close, doesn't even come close to crossing over
34:25
into a mainstream audience. So everybody in that game other than those directly related
34:32
to Yukon are going to be rooting for Iowa to win. It's better for
34:37
everybody if Iowa wins, just like it was maybe more exaggerated than it was
34:42
with the Kansas City Chiefs and Taylor Swift making the Super Bowl. So I'm
34:46
making a somewhat of a prediction that we're going to get Iowa South Carolina because
34:52
that's the only way this thing can end. That this story is just too
34:55
good for Caitlin Clark to go out and the semi finals and have another crack
35:00
at the national championship, and I'll be rooting for her and for Iowa to
35:05
exactly make that happen. Thanks for listening to today's free drop of the abbreviated
35:08
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