STEPHEN A. SMITH CONTINUES TO LIE AND SHOULD BE FIRED BY BOB IGER AND ESPN
What is Disney and what is ESPN when Smith, with a $100 million deal, makes a false statement about LeBron James at Kobe Bryant’s memorial service and doesn’t miss a day without another accusation?
Sir Robert Iger, who employs Stephen A. Smith, will be replaced as Disney Company’s CEO early next year. His successor might be ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro, who also employs Stephen A. What bothers me is that neither executive hammers Smith for being insanely wrong, which suggests the blabbermouth’s $100-million salary should be reduced by six zeroes and two commas.
That is: If his employment doesn’t end today, thanks to his frequent inaccuracies.
Those of us who are journalists don’t get stuff wrong. Otherwise, we are fired and fed to a law firm. Last week, Smith continued his endless errors by claiming LeBron James didn’t attend Kobe Bryant’s memorial service. In the media sphere, messing up a funeral arrangement is lower than low. He easily could have flipped to Google Chrome and asked for a factual version of the 2020 rites. After all, didn’t he accuse James of being a liar?
Atrociously, no one is a bigger liar than Stephen A. He is the face of ESPN, the face of Disney and an aspiring candidate to serve as president of this country. So let’s also position Bernie Madoff, Elizabeth Holmes, Aaron Rodgers and Pinocchio and wonder about the biggest falsifier. Of late, Smith is protecting President Trump, who has been described by his critics as far worse than a liar. No sin is worse than misreporting LeBron and Kobe in a moment of darkness.
Smith originally said: “He should be happy with the things that I haven't brought up. I never brought up why you were not at Kobe Bryant's memorial service. I never really brought up a discussion about why you did not attend Dwyane Wade's Hall of Fame induction when that man was directly responsible for you capturing the championship for the first time in your career. I never brought none of that.”
His attitude is not journalistic or even human. James was at Bryant’s funeral, as the Los Angeles Times reported five years ago. Iger and Pitaro should have immediately suspended Smith for a month or longer. How does a person with the loudest voice in sportscasting history screw up a simple fact?
“My apologies and clarification. I misspoke in Hour One of ‘First Take’ today when I intimated that LeBron did not attend Kobe Bryant’s memorial,” Smith wrote online. “I corrected myself in Hour Two when I acknowledged he was indeed in attendance. My mistake. Should not have even broached that subject. It was not my main point. I retract NOTHING else that I said. Have a nice day!”
Have a nice day? James should sue him. At first, I applauded Smith for keeping cool when LeBron approached him during a game in Los Angeles. Since then, Smith has been an all-time chump, suggesting he’d have punched James when a 6-9, 250-pounder would have crushed him. His $100 million contract has made him a bigger fool. And why wasn’t James at Wade’s Hall induction? Because his son, Bronny, had suffered cardiac arrest.
That made him 0 for 2 after making ugly mistakes on his program through the years. ESPN uses Smith for almost every on-air duty, a workload exacerbated by his podcasts and frequent appearances on Fox News and other networks. Iger and Pitaro are the bosses who gave him a ridiculous contract. They are to blame, as well, and if Stephen A. continues to fabricate, they might look intensely at the fine print.
At what point does his dishonesty kill the network?
Once a day, Stephen A. is caught red-handed. Author Jeff Pearlman, who wrote a book quoting Trump about “The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL,” nailed Smith for claiming Trump wanted to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014. Said Smith: “The price tag was about $1.4 billion. According to my sources, he had about $1.1 billion. And he called me to talk to me about his desire to own the Buffalo Bills. It’s the last time we ever spoke. And he said to me, talking about the NFL owners, ‘If them MFers get in my way, I’m going to get ’em all back. I’m gonna run for President.’ ’’
Said Pearlman: “First of all, that’s ridiculous. Like that’s actually a ridiculous story, and I don’t believe him. I actually think Stephen A. Smith is making up this story. (Trump) put up a fraud effort to get the Bills — that was just for attention. It was total nonsense. He didn’t have the money. It wasn’t a serious bid. Everyone with the Bills knew it wasn’t a serious bid. The reigning owners knew it wasn’t a serious bid. I don’t know, Stephen A. Smith, I want to ask you this directly: Why are you protecting your ‘sources’ on how much money he had? So, who told you he had that much money? Because that’s utterly, utterly preposterous. He did not have $1.1 billion at his disposal. Period. Either your source is him, and he’s full of s--t, which is probably the case. Or this is just nonsense.”
People can be wrong in this world when they aren’t journalists. But Stephen A. has said repeatedly that he is a journalist, through and through. “The fact of the matter is that I was hired at ESPN because of my journalistic background,” he said, “and the reason I’ve been entrusted to do what I do on the platform that I’ve done it on over the years is not only because I’ve been successful — it’s also because by and large, I’ve been responsible as a journalist.”
Adjust that to irresponsible.
If Stephen A. is an entertainer or performer or bullcrap artist, fine. But as a journalist, he should be fired. And if not, Iger and Pitaro also should be fired. Until it happens, ESPN and Disney shouldn’t be viewed as truth-tellers. Does Iger’s wife, Willow Bay, have any thoughts as dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism?
She should fire Bob, too.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.