OK, we need a quick break from the grim media attacks. I’ll get back to Trump and politics in just a few moments, but let’s take a timeout to talk about something a bit more fun: The Super Bowl is coming up Sunday.
Yes, technically, the game is between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles. But those of us who follow the media see this as Tom Brady’s Super Bowl. He will call the game for Fox Sports.
Brady was the main topic in my conversation with The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch in the latest episode of “The Poynter Report Podcast,” which debuts today.
Brady is in the first year of a massive 10-year, $375 million contract. His season has been a mixed bag. Some good, some bad. He seems to be getting better each week.
If you read this newsletter regularly, you know I’m constantly linking to the work of Deitsch, who covers sports media for The Athletic and has a must-listen-to podcast called “Sports Media with Richard Deitsch,” And, even if you have a passing interesting in sports media, you’ll enjoy this episode.
About Brady and Sunday’s Super Bowl, which will be watched by more than 100 million people, Deitsch told me, “Having covered this a long time, the reality for Tom Brady is that Tom Brady's year in broadcasting will be judged on the Super Bowl. No one's going to remember week four or week 10. You're going to remember Eagles-Chiefs — how he was in that game, and probably even more, on a micro level, how he was in the most important moment or moments of that game. And how did he reflect that to the audience? That ultimately — that's how Tom Brady will be judged for his first year in the booth.”
Aside from lots of talk about Brady, we discuss how desirable this matchup is for Fox Sports — and we get into some other topics, such as whether the Super Bowl will ever be shown on a streaming network, how Netflix is getting into live sports coverage and the popularity of the WNBA.
And yes, we also talk a little about political coverage. It’s especially notable at this moment as Deitsch, an American who now lives in Canada for work, talks about Canada’s reaction to Trump being back in the White House.
X marks the spot
Well, this is just silly. The National Transportation Safety Board will no longer update the press via email, and will instead exclusively alert the media about the plane crashes in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia on X. That’s right, the platform owned by Elon Musk. As media reporter Oliver Darcy wrote in his Status newsletter, “Put another way: Musk just gained another exclusive government contract.”
The Journal’s continued pushback
As I’ve noted in recent weeks, the usually conservative editorial board of The Wall Street Journal hasn’t hesitated to be critical of Trump since he has taken office. It criticized his pardon of Jan. 6 insurrectionists and called Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s choice to lead Health and Human Services, “dangerous to public health.”
On Sunday, it wrote about the sweeping tariffs on Mexico and Canada in an editorial with the headline “The Dumbest Trade War in History.”
The board wrote, “Mr. Trump sometimes sounds as if the U.S. shouldn’t import anything at all, that America can be a perfectly closed economy making everything at home. This is called autarky, and it isn’t the world we live in, or one that we should want to live in, as Mr. Trump may soon find out.”
Of course, this set off Trump, who started a long rant on Truth Social by writing, “The ‘Tariff Lobby,’ headed by the Globalist, and always wrong, Wall Street Journal, is working hard to justify Countries like Canada, Mexico, China, and too many others to name, continue the decades long RIPOFF OF AMERICA, both with regard to TRADE, CRIME, AND POISONOUS DRUGS that are allowed to so freely flow into AMERICA. THOSE DAYS ARE OVER!”
The Journal followed up with another editorial, clapping back at Trump: “The Dumbest Trade War Fallout Begins.”
The board wrote, “We appreciate Mr. Trump’s attention, though we’re anti-tariff and not lobbyists. But bad policy has damaging consequences, whether or not Mr. Trump chooses to admit it. Mr. Trump can’t repeal the laws of economics any more than Joe Biden could on inflation.”
Of course, Trump couldn’t let that just sit there. He fired back on Truth Social, writing, “Anybody that’s against Tariffs, including the Fake News Wall Street Journal, and Hedge Funds, is only against them because these people or entities are controlled by China, or other foreign or domestic companies. Anybody that loves and believes in the United States of America is in favor of Tariffs. They should have never ended, in favor of the Income Tax System, in 1913. The response to Tariffs has been FANTASTIC!”
Fake News Wall Street Journal? Trump must be really fired up to use a nickname that is usually reserved for other outlets that he particularly dislikes.
Chuck Todd leaves NBC News
There’s a phrase that I like: shocking but not surprising. It’s when something happens that we kind of expected, but at the same time, when it finally does happen, it comes as a shock.
Chuck Todd leaving NBC News late last week falls into that category.
When Todd left as moderator of the Sunday morning legendary show “Meet the Press” back in 2023, you had to ask what his long-term future was at NBC News/MSNBC. Then, in recent months, there had been more and more whispers that Todd’s time at NBC News was coming to an end. It was only a matter of time.
But when it happened on Friday, it was still the end of an era. Todd had been at the network for 18 years and had become one of the biggest names in Washington politics and media.
He told colleagues in a memo, “There’s never a perfect time to leave a place that’s been a professional home for so long, but I’m pretty excited about a few new projects that are on the cusp of going from ‘pie in the sky’ to ‘near reality.’ So I’m grateful for the chance to get a jump start on my next chapter during this important moment.”
Todd hinted that his next step could be a newsletter, writing, “The media has a lot of work to do to win back the trust of viewers/listeners/readers and I’m convinced the best place to start is from the bottom up. At my core, I'm an entrepreneur — I spent my first 15 years professionally working for the company that started the political newsletter craze that dominates today. And this is a ripe moment.”
Todd also talked about the media in his memo, writing, “National media can't win trust back without having a robust partner locally and trying to game algorithms is no way to inform and report. People are craving community and that's something national media or the major social media companies can't do as well as local media.”
He added, “Being a real political journalist isn't about building a brand, it's about reporting what's happening and explaining why it's happening and letting the public absorb the facts without judging them for coming to a different conclusion. If you do this job seeking popularity, or to simply be an activist, you are doing this job incorrectly.”
I’m a fan of Todd. I wrote about this extensively in June 2023. I’ve always thought his commentary has been fair, smart and pertinent, and I thought he did a superb job as moderator at “Meet the Press.”
I’m disappointed that his role and impact were diminished at NBC News, and I hope he finds something that will allow him to again make a noticeable contribution to the media. He’s only 52, and has plenty more to contribute.
In a statement, NBC News said, “We’re grateful for Chuck’s many contributions to our political coverage during his nearly two-decade career at NBC News and for his deep commitment to ‘Meet the Press’ and its enduring legacy. We wish him all the best in his next endeavors.”
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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].
