We have seen the back-and-forth debate about old media vs. new media in the news lately involving Draymond Green and Stephen A. Smith. As more and more athletes enter the sports media landscape, all they are asking for from hosts and commentators is to be a little more specific with their takes. That’s what Richard Jefferson says.
Jefferson was on the latest episode of What Did I Miss? With Michelle Beadle podcast. On the episode, the ESPN analyst mentioned that he views himself as part of the first group of players that played as social media was getting popular and they could hear what people said about them:
“As far as the new media goes, I just think we are the first generation. We are the guys that in the middle part of our careers, social media blew up. Then, we were able to see the Skip’s and Stephen A’s, we watched all of these guys. Guys have been keeping receipts.”
“It’s not to come and say you’re wrong or you’re this. Now, we are entering into the media space. We all have our own podcast. We all have our own social media followings and now we are all financially secure. We are getting into the media space to set the record straight, to give a more honest retired player’s viewpoint. I think that’s where it is going to have a positive effect.”
So, what do athletes like Jefferson want to see from Skip Bayless, Stephen A. Smith, or Colin Cowherd? They want to see the hosts talk about specifics during debates rather than just speaking broadly:
“There are guys in the media like Stephen A. and Colin Cowherd, they have to talk about everything and it’s a f***n skill, but they do use some broad generalities because that’s part of the gig. Now when you have guys like JJ [Redick], myself, Draymond, C.J. [McCollum] did a great job, guys now jump in and are like no, no, no, we are not talking broad generalities, we are talking about specifics. For me, that raises the bar on a lot of these shows.”
“If you aren’t ready to either debate or have a conversation about specifics, it’s not going to look really well. There is a group of athletes that are coming into the media now because we’ve been privy to the social media and the growth of television media from the sports debate side…It’s cool to be a part of the group that’s not tweaking or changing, but having a new type of voice.”
Even though new media is on the rise as more athletes start podcasts and get their voices heard, Jefferson doesn’t think that it means that athletes don’t need Skip or Stephen A:
“You need them because I don’t want to f***n talk about football. That s**t is so hard. They have to talk about everything, so they have to use generalities. I couldn’t do Stephen A.’s job, I couldn’t do Skip’s job. I say I couldn’t as in I don’t want to. That’s where they are so good.
I think it’s good because I think if we can make basketball more specific, then I think as more football players come in, they become more specific, so the broad talking people have to get more specific, which I think raises the bar for all of these shows because you have a little bit more honesty and you have athletes that have been in this fire of social media for 10-15 years.”
