In the more than two years since she left Sports Illustrated for Meadowlark Media, Jessica Smetana hasn’t been shy to discuss her former employer — often doing so in less than flattering terms.
Such was the case on Wednesday, when The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz producer weighed in on Sports Illustrated‘s latest controversy, which has seen the company accused of publishing content generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
“It’s very depressing but totally expected given that I worked for these people and I know what the people who are in charge of this company are like,” Smetana said on Wednesday’s episode of the Le Batard Show. “It’s entirely fair to not believe anything that they say because they have proven time and time again that they do not actually care about journalism, they don’t care about investing in journalism. They don’t care about having real people write stories.”
"It's very depressing but totally expected…It's entirely fair to not believe anything that they say because they have proven time and time again that they do not actually care about journalism." – @jessica_smetana on Sports Illustrated denying that they published articles… pic.twitter.com/gqpJeXoxOD
— Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (@LeBatardShow) November 29, 2023
As Smetana alluded to, Sports Illustrated has denied the claims, which included accusations that it published stories attributed to fake authors using AI-generated headshots, as well as at least some stories consisting of AI-generated content. In a statement, Sports Illustrated — which removed the content in question after being contacted by Futurism regarding its report — said that the articles were published by a third-party company, AdVon, which has assured the magazine that all of the articles were written and edited by real humans.
Smetana, like many, found the company’s response laughable.
“If all of this is true, then the lengths they went to to try to pretend like, ‘None of this happened and we’re the good guys here,’ that’s just straight out of the Sports Illustrated management playbook,” she said.
Prior to the company’s public response (which it turned off the comments for), several S.I. staffers took to social media to express outrage over the accusations. As Smetana’s comments show, that sentiment also extends to former employees, as well as anyone who cares about the Sports Illustrated legacy.
“There’s still a lot of really great journalists that work at Sports Illustrated and I’m proud of the work that we did to unionize the company to protect some of those jobs way back a few years ago,” the Golic & Smetty co-host said. “But, totally unsurprising to see that this happened.”
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.