The National Association of Black Journalists handed Stephen A. Smith a Thumbs Down award at its Saturday night gala in Atlanta, and he answered within hours with a vow to come after the group. The host turned the moment into a public fight, saying on X that NABJ had started something and that he was coming.
Smith wrote that the award felt like “the epitome of Christmas arriving early,” adding that NABJ could call people out if it wanted, but now it had his turn. In a second post, he said he had kept his mouth shut for years and that the organization had asked for it. For NABJ, the gesture was meant to mark a line; for Smith, it became a challenge.
The dispute landed at the organization’s Salute to Excellence Awards Gala during its annual convention, where the award was presented in front of attendees and later circulated online through a video shared by Phil Lewis. NABJ said the annual distinction is reserved for a person or organization responsible for especially insensitive, racist or stereotypical coverage or commentary about the Black community, or for practices that run against the group’s goals. In this case, the presentation said Smith had shown a recurring public pattern of disparaging commentary aimed at prominent Black women across politics, sports and media.
That is where the story gets murkier. The clip did not identify which women were being referenced, and it did not spell out the specific remarks that led to the award. The absence matters because the accusation is broad while the evidence shown to the public is not. NABJ made its judgment plain, but the online version of the moment stopped short of naming the comments it was condemning.
Errin Haines, who leads NABJ, framed the award as a chance to change course even as she rejected any suggestion that the group would stay quiet. “The door is open. The conversation is available, and the opportunity to change is real. But NABJ will not be silent. Not in this moment, and not on my watch,” she said during the presentation. Smith, meanwhile, has made clear that he sees the award not as the end of the matter but as the opening shot. What NABJ does next, and whether it chooses to answer him publicly, will decide whether this remains an awkward gala moment or becomes a longer battle between one of ’s best-known voices and the country’s largest Black journalists organization.
