Herb Jones saved my life

We need to have an intellectually honest conversation about @stephenasmith , "journalism" and the lie that persists over at ESPN. Stephen A. Smith isn't a journalist. Unfortunately, most people are unwilling to speak this. We can get to why that is another time. Stephen A. Smith is sports version of a Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity. He's a talk-show host. While Stephen A. could claim he is a journalist all he wants and whenever it suits him, those journalist days are behind him. They slipped into the rear-view mirror the moment he decided to host a program called "First Take". A "take" is an opinion. Plain and simple. It isn't a carefully crafted and sourced story prepared for broadcast or a newspaper. There was a time when Stephen A. Smith was 100% a journalist. But that day has come and gone with him choosing to take on the role of an antagonist for two hours each morning and more than that on his own podcast. Over the last couple of days, SAS has been in the news. Then again, it feels like he is always in the news. Instead of us talking about the sports we love, we're talking about one man's OPINIONS on said sports which he sometimes chooses to present under a guise of journalism using "unnamed sources". The most recent example of this is Smith's comments about Jaylen Brown during the NBA's Eastern Conference Finals. Smith, citing an unnamed source read from his smartphone a message that stated that Brown isn't underrated, but he simply isn't liked because of a "I'm better than you attitude." It should be noted that after that, Smith said he didn't know that to be the case. You know what that is called? It isn't journalism. It's hearsay. It's gossip. So this is what Stephen A. Smith has been relegated to and what ESPN is more than willing to endorse, quietly or otherwise. It's become a place where somebody can host an opinions-based show for two hours daily and slander (through unnamed sources) anybody they want and then behind a completely fabricated claim of journalism to protect themselves from the incoming firew that is sure to come after making the kind of comments Smith made about Jaylen Brown. ESPN is in the entertainment business. Sure, they give you the occasional pieces of journalism that can make you feel something. 30 for 30 features are great and stand on their own and should be applauded. But we have to stop pretending Stephen A. Smith is anything other than what we all bare witness to each and every day. He's a guy with an opinion. Does he have friends and sources? It should be noted they are sometimes one in the same. Of course he does. But Sean Hannity has sources. We learned that during the Trump years. Lawrence O'Donnell or Rachel Maddow have sources too. But the moment you see fit to use those sources as part of an attempt to simply entertain, antagonize or jin up controversy, you're NOT a journalist. You're just noise operating beneath the facade of journalism.