Media
Smith and Brown’s Twitch/ESPN beef continued into this week.
Stephen A. Smith was initially correct in calling out Jaylen Brown, but then he took it too far. Jeff Chiu
Of all the annoying elements from this Jaylen Brown-Stephen A. Smith contretemps (I believe that’s French for “ridiculous he-said/he-said feud that makes all of us who know about it incrementally dumber,” but don’t hold me to it), two in particular are really … well, annoying me.
Fine, three, if you include Smith’s entire schtick. But that has long gone without saying, as more things should.
First, I suppose we must offer the Reader’s Digest condensed recap of this whole back-and-forth between the Celtics star and ESPN’s lead bloviator.
Brown hopped on his Twitch stream the night the Celtics lost Game 7 of their first-round series to the 76ers, and among other comments, reiterated something he had been saying since late December: that this was his favorite season.
Smith called him out (correctly, I might add with some reluctance) for saying such a thing after a crushing loss and a blown 3-1 lead in the series.
Their Twitch/ESPN duel on the matter — sigh — continued into this past week. Last Sunday night, Brown again called for Smith to retire (not a bad idea) and accused him of being “the face of clickbait media” (he’s certainly on the Mount Rushmore).
“Man, [expletive] Stephen A. Stephen A, Stephen B, Stephen C,” said Brown. “My offer still stands. You want me to be quiet and stop streaming? Well, I want you to be quiet and get off these networks. Because you’re not using your platform to do real journalism. You’re using your platform to use clickbait.”
The next morning on ESPN’s “First Take,” Smith volleyed back, adding what sounded, pathetically, like a threat.
“But, in the end, Jaylen Brown be careful what you wish for,” said Smith. “You really want me to start reporting on that level? The locker room, how the organization might think about you, how the city may feel about you, how Jayson Tatum may or may not feel about you. Sneaker deals, endorsement deals, the list goes on and on.”
Jaylen Brown delivered an All-NBA caliber season, but his 33 points on Saturday weren’t enough for Boston to take down Philadelphia. – Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
Now, it’s incredibly lame for Smith to suggest he has some stunning revelations about Brown. How “the city may feel about you”? As someone who is on the record as favoring a Brown-for-Giannis Antetokounmpo trade if possible, I can confirm what anyone around here likely already knew: Boston loves Brown, in part as a player, but even more so for his connect to the city. Lame thing to say, and wrong.
But that’s not even one of the two elements of this story that bug me the most. The first is that giving this “feud” oxygen, ink, and bandwidth benefits only Smith. I get Brown’s desire to throw a few verbal haymakers in Smith’s direction, and he certainly deserves them, but it’s playing right into his hands. He’s unfathomably well compensated at ESPN, but his main currency is attention. Without the latter, the former wouldn’t have have happened.
The other gripe? Brown calling Smith a journalist.
“This isn’t journalism,” said Brown on Monday. “This is him making his own opinion and [formulating] it about what I have to say, on his platform. And this is why, respectfully, a lot of people say, ‘[expletive] Stephen A.’ Because this is the type of stuff he does, and then he doesn’t recognize it.”
He’s not wrong there. But Smith — and ESPN’s talking heads, and sports radio hosts for that matter — aren’t journalists. They are entertainers. Facts only matter when they are convenient to their argument.
I know, the lines are blurred, perhaps permanently and often by design, with so many legitimate reporters feeling like they need to be content producers and brands to survive in this landscape. And I can’t imagine there has been a time over the last several decades in which media literacy overall has been at a lower point.
But suggesting Smith is a journalist is a misreading of his role — and an affront to actual journalists still doing the job with integrity.
Welcome back
Medford native Lauren Walsh is joining Boston 25 as a sports media journalist.
She’s a Syracuse graduate and former NESN intern who spent the past three years at WSMV in Nashville.
“Younger Lauren wouldn’t believe it,” she wrote while announcing the move on her social media channels, noting that she used to wear “Limited Too ‘athletics’ gear to Sox games as a kid because they didn’t sell team gear in the girls’ clothing section back then.”
Walsh previously worked at WXII in Winston-Salem, N.C., before heading to Nashville in August 2023. She also has worked as a sports anchor/reporter in Burlington, Vt., and Syracuse, N.Y.
She did not say when her start date will be.
