‘Stop, you’re not a journalist’: Michael Wilbon does not hold back on Stephen A. Smith

ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith has a tendency to remind people that he’s a journalist when feuding with an athlete or another media personality. Recently, former NBA Finals MVP Jaylen Brown questioned Smith’s “journalistic integrity” and called the First Take host out for letting personal feelings dictate what should be objective analysis.

However, Pardon the Interruption’s Michael Wilbon appeared on The Awful Announcing Podcast and argued that Smith isn’t a journalist at all.

“Stop, you’re not a journalist anymore. You’re not doing what you did at the Philly Inquirer,” Wilbon said in a direct address to Smith. “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. is a show. He knows it. He wants to be the show, and he’s doing a damn good job at it. That’s what he wants to be. He has now spawned a whole generation of people who want to be the show. Good for Stephen A.; he knows that.”

Wilbon’s reasoning is that Smith is no longer actually reporting on games like other up and comers trying to break into the industry.

“You’ve gotta show up. When you write that column that’s negative about the first baseman, your a** better be at the cage the next day,” Wilbon said. “That’s journalism.”

For his part, Wilbon is insisting that he isn’t a journalist either, but that Smith has to accept that it holds true for him as well.

“He gets paid to be a know-it-all; that’s the gig. So none of us grew up with thinking that … our training, our aspirations were going to result in what we do [now]. No, I’m not going to sit here and tell you I’m a journalist, and I ain’t gonna allow him, if he were sitting here with me, to say, ‘Wilbon, I’m a journalist.’ No, you’re not. Not anymore. You may go to elements of it when you need to … but stop.”