NABJ’s Thumbs Down Award should be a wake-up call for ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith

I was in the ballroom of the Marriott Marquis hotel in Atlanta Saturday night when sports talk show host and political commentator Stephen A. Smith was named a recipient of the National Association of Black Journalists’ 2026 Thumbs Down Award.

Talk about a fork-drop moment.

People gasped. Others groaned. There were cheers and boos as the realization of what had just happened registered. Smith — whose smiling face was plastered up on a giant screen — had gotten an award nobody ever wants to get. A voice-over announcer explained that he had been selected because of his “recurring public pattern of disparaging commentary directed at prominent Black women across politics, sports, and media.”

Smith, the star and executive producer of ESPN’s First Take, was not in attendance. But he promised a bold response, posting ominously on X that Christmas had arrived early. He wrote: “I’ve shut my mouth for years. Now y’all started something.”

Fox News host Sean Hannity wasted no time in getting Smith on his conservative talk show, and asked if the award had to do with Smith’s criticisms of so-called radical people on the left. Hannity also brought up U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D., Texas) and former MSNBC host Joy Reid, and accused them both of saying “nutty things.” That was rich coming from him.

Smith should have let him have it for that. But instead of defending these smart, accomplished Black women, Smith made it all about himself. He brought up how he had been raised by a Black woman and has four older sisters, 10 nieces, and two daughters, and called NABJ’s indictment a “flat-out lie.”

“I don’t know what the hell they are talking about,” Smith said about NABJ.

Oh, I think he does.

Smith, a registered independent, publicly apologized last year after catching major heat for criticizing Crockett, saying she used “rhetoric for the streets” and questioning how it served her constituents. Smith has been similarly critical of tennis legend Serena Williams, former Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as Reid.

We know this game. Black women make easy targets for provocateurs like Smith who cater to a largely white male audience. Greater energy should go into going after politicians like President Donald Trump, who thinks Smith is “low IQ” and “dumb as a rock.”

In a video released Tuesday, Smith asked: “Where are your facts? You don’t have facts. You have feelings. Everything that I am. Everything that I’ve achieved, that has uplifted me in my life, has been associated with Black women. Black women have been my strength, my source of inspiration, and so much more my entire life.”

Other recipients of this year’s Thumbs Down Award include Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, DuJuan McCoy, the owner of Circle City Broadcasting, CBS, and the Washington Post.

This isn’t new. NABJ has been calling out individuals and institutions since its founding in 1975.

The late Daily News columnist Chuck Stone planted the first seeds for the Thumbs Down Award a half century ago when he went after Agriculture Secretary Earl L. Butz, who made a racist remark about Black voters, according to NABJ president DeWayne Wickham during an interview on #RolandMartinUnfiltered. During NABJ’s very first convention in 1976, Stone, who was president, organized a news conference demanding Butz’s ouster.

I met Smith years ago when we were both still early in our careers. He worked for The Inquirer; I was at the Daily News.

Like me, he credits NABJ for helping jump-start his journalism career. Last year, he aired his show, First Take, from the convention in Cleveland. He’s also mentored young journalists and recruited at the career fair. Smith refers to members of NABJ’s sports task force as his “brothers.”

His ESPN contract is reportedly worth $100 million for five years. Next month, he’ll be inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame, which has recognized Oprah Winfrey, Dan Rather, and Barbara Walters, among others.

There’s no telling what’s next for him. TV and film projects? A run for the presidency?

I don’t rule anything out.

I just hope that instead of being defensive, Smith reflects. He should think about whether his words have uplifted the community of Black women he says have played such a big role in his achievements. He has to ask himself if some of his own rhetoric has been “for the streets.” And he needs to take NABJ president Errin Haines’ advice and view the Thumbs Down Award as a “call to do better.” The door is open. The opportunity for change is there.

But Smith has to want it.