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Sportswriter Jeff Pearlman has written some of the best sports books of this generation. Stephen A. Smith is one of the highest-paid talking heads on TV and the internet.
Pearlman worked at The Tennessean, Sports Illustrated, and Newsday before turning his focus to writing books on subjects like the 1986 New York Mets, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, the Showtime Lakers, Brett Favre, the United States Football League, the Kobe-Shaq Lakers, and Bo Jackson.
Smith worked at the Winston-Salem Journal, the Greensboro News and Record, the New York Daily News, and the Philadelphia Inquirer before turning his attention to radio, which led to his current work on TV with ESPN.
Jeff Pearlman was a food and fashion writer at The Tennessean at the beginning of his career. Stephen A. Smith attended the Fashion Institute of Technology after graduating high school.
One might think they would get along. One would appear to be wrong.
At least based on a recent TikTok video post by Jeff Pearlman.
“I am quite certain Stephen A. Smith knows nothing about Sam Darnold. He’s probably seen him throw 20 passes total. He’s guessing,” Pearlman said, referring to a clip from Smith’s show First Take.
“And he’ll have a hot take on that and then a hot take on that and a hot take on that and a hot take on that. And we have lost nuance in sports media. And we have lost thought in sports media.
“We’ve also lost the ability to say, ‘I probably shouldn’t tackle that subject because I don’t know anything about it.’ Or, ‘Maybe I’ll take this one off because it’s not my specialty.’
“He doesn’t know enough about Sam Darnold to offer an opinion on Sam Darnold. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’re Stephen A. Smith. There’s nothing wrong with saying, ‘I’m not going to offer an opinion on Darnold because I haven’t seen him enough.’ But we never have that anymore.
“It’s all about, ‘I think this. I think this. I think this.’… it’s about being loud and being right, even if you don’t know what it means to be right.”
@jeffpearlmanauthor Stephen A. Smith has probably seen Sam Darnold throw 20 passes. Ever. So why pretend to be an expert? (Answer: media is broken) #stephenasmith #samdarnold #espn #nfl #nba #mlb #writersoftiktok ♬ original sound – Jeff Pearlman