As further proof that sports journalism is to “journalism” as working at White Castle is to “Orthodox Judaism”, Stephen A. Smith is calling for censorship of bloggers.

In Part III of his interview with the Los Angeles Daily News‘ Tom Hofarth, Stephen A. reveals how he would fix journalism: Prevent bloggers from “disseminating information.” We understand that it originally had a laugh track.

“And when you look at the internet business, what’s dangerous about it is that people who are clearly unqualified get to disseminate their piece to the masses. I respect the journalism industry, and the fact of the matter is …someone with no training should not be allowed to have any kind of format whatsoever to disseminate to the masses to the level which they can. They are not trained. Not experts.”

But note:  Stephen A. Smith would be an “expert” in the “journalism industry”, and be given a “format” to “disseminate” to the “masses”.  Because he’s “trained”.  You can tell by his command of the English language that he’s better than all of us in the “internet business”.

Sheesh.  Reading Stephen Smith is like listening to Clem Haskins speak.

It’s true: You will not find a writer who has more respect for the journalism industry than Smith … with the possible exception of the guy who replaced him at the Inquirer, from which Smith was dumped for not having enough respect for the journalism industry.

“Therefore, there’s a total disregard, a level of wrecklessness that ends up being a domino effect. And the people who suffer are the common viewers out there and, more importantly, those in the industry who haven’t been fortunate to get a radio or television deal and only rely on the written word. And now they’ve been sabotaged. Not because of me. Or like me. But because of the industry or the world has allowed the average joe to resemble a professional without any credentials whatsoever.”

We’re not sure how Smith would police his new blog-free society; probably with some sort of expansion of the Patriot Act. Bloggers would be rounded up and sent to Gitmo, there to be made to input guacamole recipes on Rachael Ray’s web site.

Of course, reading the guy’s writing is almost worse than getting waterboarded.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 7:21 am and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.