Jason Whitlock dedicated a portion of his BlazeTV show Fearless on Friday to respond to several who offered their reactions to Whitlock’s ongoing feud with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, including Shannon Sharpe.
Sharpe on his Nightcap podcast with Chad Ochocinco said he knows Whitlock doesn’t mess with him, and he doesn’t mess with Whitlock. Sharpe also said journalists like Whitlock are jealous that Shannon can be just as successful in the media world and know they couldn’t be pro athletes.
But Whitlock said that stuff doesn’t matter to him.
“Shannon, I’m not bothered. I’m certainly not bothered at this age or jealous or envious of your football career,” he said. “Neither one of us could play in the NFL right now. So why would I be jealous of something you did 20 years ago? I’m just not.”
“The football thing died for me at age 22,” Whitlock added. “I moved into the journalism field. That’s my career. I’m a journalist. I don’t care about what you did on the athletic field.”
Jason Whitlock also said while Shannon thinks journalists couldn’t live in his world as a pro athlete, Shannon couldn’t live in a journalism world.
“Now you can’t do what I do. I’m a journalist. You can’t do it,” he said. “Now in this current media world that they’ve set up, where distancing yourself from truth is the primary requirement for success, yes, you could do that better than me because you’re not a journalist. I am.”
“And because you don’t have as strong, or maybe no allegiance to truth, because all you care about is how can I make money, and that’s what’s the common thread among virtually all of these people I’m talking about,” Whitlock added.
Shannon did consider himself an entertainer above being a journalist. But Whitlock noted that his motivation is different than Sharpe’s.
“All they care about is money. I care about truth,” he said. “Not saying that to say look how much better I am. That’s how you interpreted it. Not really my real intent, because I really don’t think I’m better than you. I just think I’m more committed to truth than you. Because of my Christian faith and because of my career as a journalist, I’m not coming off of truth. You’re not gonna move me from that.”
“And this system, the mainstream system, the way it’s set up now it punishes truth,” Whitlock concluded. “I’ve accepted that. I’ve accepted that Shannon Sharpe, very fungible with the truth, is just like all these other people. They don’t care. It’s can they get the bag. Yes, so you can chase the bag better than me. Hats off to you.”
