Stephen A. Smith just dropped another monologue to address issues in his public back and forth with Dan Le Batard.
The ESPN host went on his podcast “The Stephen A. Smith Show” on Friday, July 21 and spoke for over 30 minutes about comments made by Le Batard, his partner Stugotz, and former ESPN host Jemele Hill about ESPN and the world of journalism at large.
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Like his 25-minute speech when he first addressed Le Batard’s comments, Smith prefaced his statements by reiterating that he and Le Batard are friends. He said the two reportedly talked off the air recently about each other’s comments.
Le Batard has constantly stressed that he believes debate television that Smith has championed at ESPN through his No. 1 rated show “First Take” has significantly lowered the quality of media and therefore made the audience “dumber.”
But Smith, who worked as a beat writer with the Philadelphia Inquirer early in his career, said that he recognized the changing media landscape early on and was able to pivot to sports talk radio in order to build his personal brand.
“Once everybody had [the news], they didn’t care about the news anymore,” Smith said. “What they cared about was your perspective on the news, and I saw that as my avenue to transition. And I’m not apologizing for it.”
Smith agreed with Stugotz, who called out both Smith and Le Batard by saying they both “sold out,” that the industry has changed.
“I thank Stugotz for pointing out Dan Le Batard’s, dare I say, hypocrisy on this matter,” Smith said.
But Smith gave credit to Le Batard for backing him up as someone who still practices journalism amid his debate shows. Le Batard said he believes there’s a healthy way to balance proper journalism and opinion-based media, and said the Smith has still been able to be a well-reported journalist when he does speak on the news.
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Smith also addressed statements made by Jemele Hill on “The Dan Le Batard Show” in 2021 about ESPN wanting “Black faces, not Black voices.” He said he didn’t fully understand the context of the statement, but said it should be fair for the plenty of Black broadcasters on ESPN to take offense to that type of statement.
Le Batard had defended himself on his show saying that he believed Smith’s problem was with Hill and not him due to the statement she made. Smith also said that Le Batard can’t be absolved of blame because it was done on his platform.
“When you sit up there and you say that the problem is really with Jemele Hill, it’s not really with you, that is not accepting responsibility for the platform you have available to you,” Smith said.
But once again, Smith made sure to remind the public that he and Le Batard are "brothers" and that this little bout is done with respect.
"Don't look at it as Dan Le Batard and I beefing, and we don't like each other," Smith said. "We just respectfully disagree on that particular instance."
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