The long-standing friendship between Michael Wilbon and Stephen A. Smith is not in question. But the two ESPN colleagues have sparked a public conversation about what it means to be a journalist in today’s sports media landscape.
Earlier this week, Wilbon made his position clear during an appearance on the Awful Announcing Podcast. He looked squarely at Smith and said, “Stephen A. I’m looking at you, I love you, you know that. Stop, you’re not a journalist anymore. You’re not doing what you did at the Philly Inquirer. Stop, dude. I know what you did there because I was shoulder to shoulder with you at press row and in press boxes and at practice.” Wilbon added, “Stephen A. He knows it. He wants to be the show, and he’s doing a damn good job at it.”
Smith, never one to let a critique pass unanswered, responded during his SiriusXM show. He acknowledged that his role has changed. “Of course I’m not doing what I used to do,” he said. As a TV and radio host with 22 hours of content per week, Smith is no longer a daily presence in locker rooms. But he pushed back on the notion that his work lacks depth. “I don’t just come on the air and bloviate out the mouth. I make phone calls, I have resources, people educate me about what’s going on all the damn time.”
Wilbon had the final word at the end of Wednesday’s Pardon the Interruption. “We’ll see if this back-and-forth continues, but it seems like what’s been said has been said.”