One of the stranger media beefs in recent memory came after The Ringer’s Bill Simmons went after Meadowlark Media’s Pablo Torre for Torre’s reporting on Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson. And while Katie Nolan has guested on Simmons’ podcast (and vice versa) in the past, she’s more regularly appeared on Pablo Torre Finds Out, and made it clear she was “Torre ’til I die” in this feud in conversation with Dan Le Batard earlier this month. But now, Nolan has explained in more detail just why she’s siding with Torre over Simmons.
To recap, Simmons started the media beef by saying, “I’ve never seen anybody dine on a stupider story for a week and a half while pretending you’re a journalist,” about Torre’s Belichick/Hudson reporting,. Torre took note of Simmons’ criticism, and after some social media back-and-forth, including sending Simmons an invite to appear on PTFO, appeared on Simmons’ podcast within two days.
That appearance saw many conclude that Torre won the dispute, with the two men having a largely-amicable conversation. But Torre’s points judged to hold up better. Nolan finds herself in that camp, doubling down on her initial June 4 comments to Le Batard in a conversation on the latest PTFO episode:
“I picked you, it wasn’t like…there was no hesitation. He didn’t even listen to the episode! I listened to it back and I was like ‘Bro, come on.’ …[Pablo] was out there in LA, so he did Simmons’ podcast, refuting Simmons saying that it was whatever, sh*tty reporting or whatever. And basically during the episode, he was like, ‘Have you listened to any of the episodes that the aggregated comments you’re referring to are coming from?’ And Simmons was like ‘What I’d like to talk about instead is…'”
“It was skillful move by Bill,” Torre interjected.
“No, it was not! Immediately, you could see right through it. ‘So no then, Bill?'” Nolan replied
After Nolan’s Simmons remark, Torre apologizes to her for “getting you sucked into a larger internet happening in which you were asked questions like ‘Which side are you on.'” He then plays the clip of her on Le Batard’s show from earlier this month. And that’s where Nolan drops the new comments in response.
To be fair, it is possible to accurately comment on clips from longer projects; if it wasn’t, both Simmons’ and Torre’s shows would likely get significantly less attention given the length of their episodes. But Nolan is right that Simmons’ approach here, especially in his podcast with Torre, saw him bringing up things that were addressed elsewhere in Torre’s shows, and that’s far from ideal.
Some of the times where Simmons has wound up facing significant criticism have come when he tosses off an “in the moment” take or two on a subject without fully researching it. That’s come up several times, perhaps most notably with his discussion of the George Floyd protests with Ryen Russillo in 2020, but also with a factually incorrect comment on ESPN’s NBA broadcasts this year, a “F**k Jalen Green” line in a discussion about NBA awards voting (Simmons remains a voter for those awards), and much more.
The dust-up with Torre seems like another example of that, with Simmons getting mad about the part he did see, seemingly not checking out the whole context, and then winding up not being able to contest Torre much as a result.