Stephen A. Smith has noticed that people are lumping Shannon Sharpe in with the new media crowd after his interview with comedian Katt Williams, but Stephen A. thinks it’s a bit more nuanced than that.
On The Stephen A. Smith Show on Monday, Smith dove deeper into the new media label, going back to Draymond Green coining the phrase with his podcast.
Stephen A. Smith said the new media label on Sharpe’s interview is part of this belief where some facts get challenged because of a lack of a proper perspective.
“You have conventional media, usually consisting of scribes, pundits, commentators, etc. who never played the game on the elite level (Draymond Green’s) obviously played the game at,” Smith said. “Therefore we’re absent of a perspective, devoid of the kind of content they’re capable of providing because they’re in the locker rooms, they’re wearing the uniforms, they’re actually experiencing some of the things that we chronicle. We’re not the ones doing that. So what would we know?
“Their definition of facts gets challenged by folks like Green as being false as opposed to factual,” he added.
Smith said he would refute that practice considering many in the old guard of media have their reliable sources, which are typically in the know in the locker room.
“True reporters, true insiders, get the information from the actual sources,” he said. “So just because you’re saying it yourself now, doesn’t mean that they were wrong to say what they said in the past if they got it from the sources before they disseminated that information. The information is still the information.”
Smith pointed out that Sharpe has gotten some blowback for his laid-back style of interview and lack of pressing questions, leading to Sharpe to come out and say he isn’t a journalist. Stephen A. said while he isn’t a journalist per se, new media seems to be a label that fits.
“But the reason why it’s applicable here when we talk about a cultural phenomenon is because I don’t recall an article, I don’t recall an interview on television, I don’t recall a commentator or a pundit speaking on a particular issue or having somebody speak on it and drawing over 50 million views. 50 million!” he said. “We’re talking all-time record.”
“When that’s our reality and we start talking about new media, well what does that mean ladies and gentlemen?” Smith continued. “You know what it means? It means something very simple. People are not allowing you to define what media is to them any longer. They’re telling you what it is to them.”
Smith concluded the point by saying you can debate the merits of what Katt Williams said and attack Shannon for not asking probing follow-up questions, but the important thing is that the viewers were able to get what they want out of it.
“What the American public at the very least is showing you and telling you is that what matters to them most is their truth. They don’t give a shit about the facts,” he said. “They care about what they believe based on what you’ve disseminated. They’re looking for dialogue, they’re looking for water cooler conversation. They’re looking for a discussion to have amongst themselves as opposed to truth.”
