191: How Bill Simmons Recovered from the Jalen Green Ding on the Ringer Podcast

Making a mistake live on the air is a broadcaster's nightmare. Turns out it can also be a podcaster's nightmare. Welcome to the Indestructible PR Podcast, where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. If you ever find yourself in a live broadcast situation and you misspeak, you mispronounce a name, give inaccurate information, or say something you wish you could pull back in, it can be embarrassing and it can be difficult to recover from. If it's a live broadcast. And podcasts, yes, recorded can also create those live mistakes. Because many podcasts are taped live, which makes editing difficult, you run it as it is, just like a live broadcast that can come with the same risks. Recently there was an unscripted moment on a podcast broadcast that got the host in a little bit of hot water. So if you're a sports fan, like a true blue Bleacher Report type of a sports fan, then you likely heard about the Bill Simmons podcast saga from a number of weeks ago. My guest did, and he wanted to talk about it on the podcast. Taped, not live. We recorded this interview a few weeks ago. It was still late May, but it's still a great story. And it's a light hearted look at a story that intersects sports, which my guest and I both enjoy, and practical communication lessons. So my guest, Dan Farkas, he's a lecturer of strategic communications at Ohio State University. He teaches courses on research, strategy, content creation, measurement and analytics. In a former life, he earned numerous awards for his work in television news. He understands all of it. And Dan's a sports fan who found a gem of a story for us to chat about in a light and breezy episode perfect for the start of summer. Here we go. Dan Farkas, you just told me that you were going to be an easy, relaxing guest. Is that going to be the case even though we're talking about sports?

You know this. I'm happy to be here. You're a delightful person who has been a huge help on so many levels. The least I can do is be a reasonable guest who doesn't go crazy over on time.

Well, and a reasonable guest who is struggling with a little bit of being under the weather nowadays, right?

I mean, I think Covid's more than under the weather. So I'm just happy I'm here and not in a hospital. And I'm grateful for for vaccines and boosters and my wife for having a medicine schedule that I would actually remember. I Say this. Be smart, be safe, everybody. This is no fun.

It is no fun having been there, done that. I know that, and I know how exhausting it is, but it does give you that great podcast voice.

Does. And it allows me to take naps in the middle of the afternoon just for a couple hours on principle, which is adults normally is not a good thing, but. But now everyone's like, hey, no problem. Do it. So that's. That's sweet.

All right, well, Dan, you are going to kick off my summer podcast series. We're going to take it fun. You know, we're. You and I are both looking into the Memorial Day weekend. I already know I'm going to have a much better one than you because I happen to be healthy right now, and you're going to be still in recovery. But are you excited for summer?

I'm so excited for summer. Like, the pool membership, the moment that came out, we're all just like, yes. I don't even know what the price was. They just were like, sure, who cares? So I'm excited for that. And I have kids that are old enough, they still like me. And so we do something that is called Daddy Friday. So they pick what we do, and we just go on random adventures to places. And so they've already got their list. And so we'll do some go kart racing. We'll look at some fish. We got all sorts of good stuff. So I'm thrilled for that.

Oh, that's great. See, as a mom of teenager mommy Friday would be me getting in my car and driving away very quickly and not even know when I'm coming back. You'll be there. You'll be there. So listen, so here we are, you know, at the time of this recording, the Celtics won last night. You know, so where we are in the sports cycle, we're late May, so it seems like every sport on the planet is still playing. But we wanted to just. I wanted to jump in and do just a lighter sports moment. But why? I like that you pinged me, for lack of a better word. I hate that word. But that's what you did, is you always throw these little sport stories at me that have a communication angle that we can talk about, and you dangled one my way. And I said, I like this. It involves broadcast, podcast acknowledgment, apology, sports, and how do you get out of it? And I thought you would perfect. And you would be a perfect person to talk about. So thank you for it. Do you want to give us the background on the story that you put.

In my inbox, the background of this story. Bill Simmons is one of the most well known sports voices on earth and he has a podcast. Duh. He's had one for 15 years before it was a thing and is incredibly passionate about the NBA. For those who don't know, there is a guard for the Houston Rockets. Jalen Green is his name. And in one of the podcasts. I was listening to the podcast when it first happened. There was a discussion about all rookie teams and other things. And the Rockets had a horrible season. They were not very good and Jalen Green got hurt for 15 games. Not great. And what happened I thought was fascinating. In the midst of the podcast, Jalen Green's name came up and Bill Simmons basically used words I probably can't use and was like no. But he didn't say no. And it went crazy. And I think the response to it and the lessons from what happened when that four words were said or three, I just thought was fascinating and I had to email you about it. They put together with CJ McCollum, Larry Nance, Jonas Valenturas, Trunas. Herb Jones. Yeah, they have the guy, Herb Jones. I mean, they can beat you. This is hipster Twitter favorite for sure. I put him on all defense. You have him second team forward, Bill. And I put him first team. First team, all rookie. I had him put him over Jalen Green. Fuck Jalen Green. I don't care. You're scoring 40 points. 19 and 60.

Okay, so we heard the clip from the Bill Simmons podcast, which as a throwaway, by the way, he and I were both at Boston University the same time. He was in a different part of the comm program than I was in. But we're both the same age and I like Bill Simmons because not only is he a big sports hound, but he likes movies. Love his podcast. Love the media mindset of Bill Simmons. Now listening to it and listening to the clip. Tell me, what was your first reaction? Dan, just as you're an instructor, you are someone who thinks theoretically about communication. You're also a fan of it. What was your first reaction?

I didn't have a reaction at first because when I listened to was more a conversation about the structure of this award and basically dismissing an individual because he'd been hurt for, I think 15 games. The team wasn't very good. And when you look at sort of the criteria to get in those circumstances, the idea of dismissing his candidacy from a sports standpoint utterly makes sense. And then as the podcast was going on I thought, wait a minute, because Bill has been very critical of aggregators and this notion of you're going to take these very short snippets and try to make something out of it. And he. I don't remember specifically if he made mention of aggregators during that, but I know he has in the past when he was talking about Roger Goodell and his comments about the commissioner basically got him fired from espn. So as that was going on, I'm thinking, are people going to get mad that he said that about a specific player? And then that started to happen and I was very curious about it because it seemed flippant. And then there was sort of this realization of, oh, wow, this could get ugly, this could get gross.

So what this reminds me of. And you and I haven't even talked about this, but I know that you can. Stephen A. Smith, espn. You know, going off on Aaron Rodgers, when we were dealing with the anti vax Aaron Rodgers and how much that blew up online, you know, on Twitter, you could see. And it was the first time, I guess, in my memory where I feel like Stephen A. Smith, where I'm noticing he's backpedaling more. It's like he's listening to the noise and reacting. So it's interesting. This is another interaction that kind of blows up. It makes news, if you will, creates ink. Are you noticing a difference whether it's sports commentary or news commentary, Are you noticing a difference on how these hosts are reacting in controversial issues?

I think there's a concern that you're going to speak for two minutes and a minute and 55 seconds is going to be really great. And if you go off script for five seconds, oh, that's sort of something that's going to get caught. And is it going to be used in a way that maybe you don't want it to be used?

Do you think that's holding a lot of these opinion makers, either news or sports, back? Do you see, do you sense in them that they're speaking in sound bites and concerned?

I think there's more preparation in the sense that you sort of have your core message points. And this is. We both do media trainings, right? You walk into a situation where you have to communicate with the public and you've got the three main points you want to say and there's support and there's reasoning and la, la, la, la, la. That's beautiful, right? Sometimes that's great. I also think we both know from our background, we've both done a lot of radio and audio. The Best moments happen in an area that's extemporaneous, where, yes, you've got some thought in there, but in the moment, in the midst of interacting with other people, there sort of is this inertia that occurs and something happens that can be really great. Now, the other side of that coin is that in that kind of moment, something can happen, and maybe because you haven't workshopped it, it's not as great as it could be. Well, when you're doing live TV for two hours, or you're in a podcast environment and you're churning stuff more quickly, or you're doing radio, that's live, when you're without a net and you trip and fall, that can be an issue. And I think what's happened is when we were doing this, if you fell, it was a couple of fe. No big deal. The high wire is taller now, and I think that's got a lot of people saying, eeks, I need to be more careful. And maybe I'm not as in the moment as I could be.

So what do you notice? So take a Bill Simmons who would you agree with me that he's a good communicator, right?

Yeah, he's great.

Yeah. And he goes, you know, a mile wide, sometimes 6 inches deep because he just has such a breadth of knowledge in so many different areas. But talk to me about his reaction when Jalen called him out on it. What do you think about how he responded?

I think there were a few things that were fascinating, and one was he had his opinion and he didn't change it and it wasn't. And he was very honest. And what was crazy is his initial comments. There were several weeks that occurred between the first comment and then it sort of festered. And he basically said, look, I have no issue with the player, but I don't think he belongs in this situation. And he was also very critical at aggregators, saying they didn't listen to all of this, and had they listened to all of it, they'd realize, I have no Jalen Green issue. I have an issue with him being on this certain team. And I personally don't think he's one of the five or six best rookies of the season, and here's why. And so he almost doubled down and said, look, could I have said it better? Sure. But here's what I think. And this other stuff is just superfluous and noise and people who are getting all involved in the noise need to just knock it off. And look, he's in a position to do that. He's got Spotify behind his back. He's got 250 million in the bank. He can say kind of whatever he wants. So I thought that was very intriguing, that he just kind of was like, I'm not dealing with this. But I also thought it was interesting that I'm not sure he fully understood the fact that, man, he really hurt maybe isn't the right word. It certainly impacted the player more than.

I think he thought he got to him. He got to him.

Yeah.

And so here, if I may, which, you know my take from this, because I always look for the blip or the flub, and then I look at the response, and you're the one who brought this one to me. I appreciate what Bill Simmons said. It's not like he was going to come out and apologize and say, oh, I'm so sorry. That's off brand for him. He's. There's no way he's going to do that. But what he did is he followed this framework that I use, and I see with people who successfully navigate a crisis or a blip or some type of an issue is one is acknowledging what happened. Right. Like he acknowledged. And then that allows you to immediately go into the context of it and explain exactly what happened. And it's in his explanation that you get more B in for more people. You're going to get more fans out there that are going to say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I get this. Yeah. Green and you were talking about Kyrie Irving. You know, like some people, you have players that you can put next to context with them, and then you can get through it. And what I think is interesting, where he could have lost it, like, it could have turned into a huge brouhaha. Jalen Green could have said, f you, man. You're like, I'm going after you. But no, he just settled down. He probably also know, too, I'm not going to go against someone who's a broadcaster, you know, with all that power behind him. But he said, we're good, we're good. And so my lesson that I see, whether it's sports or whether it's, you know, corporation, whatever it is, if you go through that framework, you can come out, get your press, but both of them come out looking like good guys. Right.

Well, there's two ways of thinking through a process like this, and I've oddly been on both sides of this.

How so?

So years ago, years ago, there was, like, high school. How long ago this was, There was a student newspaper that wrote what was called in Air quotes. A satire using my last name, Farkas, F A R, K A S. And defining it as a word. And essentially the definition of the word was, like, the most annoying thing you can imagine.

Wait, okay, Dan, hold on. Are we going back to your high school?

My high school? Yeah.

So in other words, someone could Farkas something.

Yep. It was a competing high school of mine, and this was in the student paper, and so I got it, and I'm like, it's not really funny, but, like, whatever, you know, I was like, hey, they're talking crap. That means. And we were competitors in certain areas. And I'm like, if they're worried about me, great. I'll gladly take that. My dad thought differently, and I didn't know about any of this stuff until after it happened, but he actually got copies of that newspaper mailed to him for, like, 10 years because he was so upset about the lack of process and getting all of these things approved. So I've been that person who sort of got vilified. I'm just like, what are we doing? And what I did is I talked to them. I talked to them, and I'm like, like, what are we doing? Like, what are we doing? And I heard what they had to say, and I basically said, this was dumb, and I know you're smarter than this. And, you know, we were in competitions against each other. Like, our goal was to win the state tournament.

What's.

My goal was? To win nationals.

What sport are we talking about?

This is speech and Debate. It's not. It was not a sport. Hell, no.

No.

Hell, no. Hell, no. Hell, no.

I forgot you're a communicator.

I'm that guy. But here's the deal, right? The guy, the one of the people who wrote it, was a national champion. A national champion. Oh, okay. I'm like, how can you be a national champion and be dumb enough to do this? Like, you're better than this.

Dan, what does a Farkas mean? What is it to Farkas? Someone.

It's basically, like, the most annoying thing you can do. So if something's really annoying and driving you crazy, it's a farcus. That's what it's defined as. Right? And it was supposedly a satire. It wasn't funny, but I was very like, okay, if you had to do it over again, you probably would have, but you don't have that chance now. My dad was enraged because there were levels of protocol and editing from professionals and adults, and those people blew it and allowed it to get published. That was his anger. And rage.

I thought you were gonna say he sued them for libel.

He wanted to, but I was like, let's back off. Let's back off. It's not. To me, it wasn't worth it. So here's why I say this. Related to Bill Simmons. I really don't. I don't need to go back to high school. My point is, is Jalen Green, the professional, said, all right, I'll do the podcast and I'll deal with it, and, you know, whatever I can understand, I can look at all of the comments and realize there's a bigger picture beyond your worst moment. There's more to you than your worst moment. On the other side of that coin, you know, Bill Simmons went in and was very honest. Here's why I didn't vote for you for this stuff. And this was my methodology for the decision. And so he explained the whole process. And I think when you look at it in that perspective. Right. Give yourself time to give yourself context. Avoid unnecessary deadline. You're able to realize that you might make a mistake in how you convey something, but you can be logical and reasonable and agree to disagree on one area, but also realize there's other elements where you can be together and you can move forward. And I think when you listen to the podcast, hearing them talk about basketball and where they found commonality in terms of growing up and certain players they admired in certain ways, you tackle these things. I just thought it was an incredibly civil thing in a way where it very easily could have turned into some, like, really lame troll y Twitter bs.

I agree with you. And so Dan Farkas, the. Not only the former debate champion, is that where you were?

It was technically foreign, extemporaneous speaking. And I was a state champion. I was fourth in the country.

Oh, little flex there at the end. Very good.

I still have the trophy somewhere.

I think it's next to your Foo Fighters album there. And that has launched you into the stratosphere of working at the Ohio State University. You're a strategic communication lecturer, and you're a speaker as well, and you have a podcast. So now we're gonna bring in the through line. Dan, and I want you to take what happened in the sports metaphor with Jalen Green, Bill Simmons, Bring it into our world of communication. Someone listening, someone who's a business leader, communicator. What can we take away from that? Exchange that. Now, Jalen Green, Bill Simmons, they've cleared the air. What's the lesson learned? Cause in every podcast, I always add an indestructible PR tip. It's that easy leave behind that helps people build an indestructible reputation. What say you?

I think number one, when somebody says something you don't like, listen to Slash, read all of the comments. The whole thing, the whole pie, not just the slice. Especially with audio and video, I think you need to hear it or you need to watch it because context very easily gets lost. If I'm only looking at something that's transcribed, there's tone and audio, there's non verbal in video. And you have to be able to understand that. Two, I think, and this is hard, we can't judge people solely based on their worst moment. And I think when we look at those two elements, that allows you to take a situation that feels tense and bring some degree of logic to it and figure out a way to respond reasonably. So I think that matters to me. If I'm on the Jalen Green end of getting that kind of venom thrown at me, how to best handle it in a manageable way that doesn't bring me down to a level where I don't want to be.

Oh, I like that. Yes. We all need to be a Jalen Green in this because he really does come out looking like a good guy. Bill Simmons got the past. He can move, move on. This is a blip for him. But how do you not like Jalen Green after this? So Dan Farkas, like, you have redefined the Farkas.

I have. That's a big win. It's a big win for me. Big win. Going over old high school angst. So that's.

Revenge is ours.

We will. Where?

Okay, where's that guy, by the way? Where's he now?

I don't know. I have no. I tracked both of them for like a year or two. This was pre LinkedIn anything. So I have no idea where they are.

Well, if he's listening, we have redefined the new Farkas. And Farkas, thank you so much. You're the perfect guest for kicking off for the summer. Where can people find out more about you because you have a lot of things going on.

Oh, Lord. Yeah. Where can people find me? They can find me Dan Farkas on Twitter. Although I like spending time with real people, so Twitter's probably not the best. LinkedIn is easiest. LinkedIn just if you search Dan Farkas, I show up. And then the Strategic Communicator podcast where we bring in all sorts of different people and just talk about random things and then ask five random questions just cause which you can find anywhere where.

You get your podcast Farkas now means Strategic Communicator. Thank you so much for chatting with me today and happy Memorial Day weekend and I hope you feel better.

Awesome. Appreciate it. You're the best.

My thanks to Dan Farkas for joining me on the podcast and lightening up the joints. So remember, you can find him on Twitter, LinkedIn and be sure to listen to his podcast, the Strategic Communicator Podcast with Dan Farkas. All of the information is included in the show notes. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.