Michael Wilbon has drawn a sharp line around Stephen A. Smith's current role, saying the lead on First Take is “not a journalist anymore” and describing him instead as a show. It is a telling dispute because it goes beyond personal friction and gets to the heart of how modern sports media defines itself.
Wilbon made the comments on the Awful Announcing Podcast, arguing that Smith is no longer doing the kind of work associated with his earlier reporting career. Smith then answered on his SiriusXM show, insisting that the criticism ignored both the scale of his current output and the long body of work that built his reputation.
Wilbon: 'Stephen A. is a show'
Wilbon's view was blunt. “You’re not a journalist anymore,” he said. “Stop, you’re not a journalist anymore.” He added: “You’re not doing what you did at the Philly Inquirer.”
That distinction matters because it separates the reporting world from the modern studio-and-opinion model that Smith has come to represent. Wilbon's point was not simply that Smith works differently now, but that the job itself has changed into something else.
He went even further, saying: “Stephen A. is a show.” And then: “He wants to be the show, and he’s doing a damn good job at it.”
Smith's response: 'I’ve graduated'
Smith did not accept the idea that Wilbon had the right to strip away the label on his terms. “You don’t get the right to say that,” he said.
He explained that he was not claiming to be a traditional locker-room reporter in the old mould. “I wasn’t trying to imply that I’m a journalist meaning I’m in the locker room being accountable to the people I talk about every single story or every single angle that I take,” Smith said.
Instead, he argued that his work should still be understood as journalism by trade and by background. “When I say to an athlete that will come at me or anybody else in sports that I’m a journalist, I’m talking about by trade and nature,” he said. “I’m talking about a body of work that spans decades.”
The argument is about more than one job title
Smith also stressed the sheer amount of content he produces. “I do 22 hours of live content per week, over 900 hours a year,” he said. That, in his view, is evidence of a serious professional operation rather than casual opinion.
He also pushed back against the idea that being on television means he is simply talking without preparation. “I don’t just come on the air and bloviate out the mouth,” Smith said. “I make phone calls, I have resources, people educate me about what’s going on all the damn time.”
For Smith, the difference is not whether he still engages with news and information, but whether he is expected to work in the same way he once did at the New York Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer,, or Fox Sports. “No, I don’t have to do that anymore,” he said. “I’ve graduated.”
He added that the realities of his current setup also shape how he works. “I’m just not in somebody’s face immediately upon talking about them because I don’t have the means to be able to do that,” Smith said. “I gotta be in studio mic’d up, etcetera,”
In the end, the exchange is less about one insult than about where sports media has moved. Wilbon sees Smith as a performer first now. Smith sees himself as someone whose career evolved, but did not lose its seriousness. And with, First Take, and Smith's profile still central to the conversation, that debate is unlikely to disappear any time soon.
