Stephen A. Smith Is Wrong That ESPN Treated Sage Steele The Same As Her Colleagues | Bobby Burack

Sage Steele settled her lawsuit with ESPN and parent company Disney last Tuesday. She spoke about the disparate treatment she faced compared to her more liberal colleagues later in the week:

"There were different rules for me than everyone else," Steele said on the "Megyn Kelly Show."

"If we are allowing my peers to go on social media, much less on our own airwaves, saying things … then I should be allowed on my personal time to give my opinion on my experiences personally, without telling others what to do," added Steele.

Stephen A. Smith responded to Steele's comments on his podcast, arguing against her assessment of the company:

"I don't necessarily vibe with her assertions that there were different rules for her than everyone else," said Stephen A.

“The rules are different depending on the circumstances of the situation, which are analyzed and dissected on a case-by-case basis by ESPN. I would know because it happens to me all the time. Certain issues are bigger than others," he concludes.

Steele and Smith reference ESPN's supposed "ban on talking politics." And perhaps Smith is right that ESPN did dissect each potential violation on a case-by-case basis.

And if so, the network concluded that the following incidents did not violate said policy:

We could go on.

ESPN did not suspend any of the above personalities for discussing politics on air. Yet ESPN suspended Sage Steele for answering a question about the vaccine.

ESPN did not force any of the above employees to issue an apology. However, ESPN forced Steele to issue an apology.

"I did not want to apologize. I fought. I fought and I begged and I screamed, and I was told that if I want to keep my job, I have to apologize. And I need my job. I loved my job," Steele said last Thursday.

ESPN did not release a statement condemning any of the above actions. But ESPN released a statement saying Steele's comments about Barack Obama were not "expressed respectfully, in a manner consistent with our values, and in line with our internal policies."

Steele is not the only person to argue that ESPN had different rules for different people. In fact, Stephen A. Smith made the same case last summer:

“You can’t let one person get away with and not let the other person get away with it. The rules have to be for everybody. ”

Ironic, is it not?

There are, however, layers to why ESPN punished Steele and not the others.

The liberal media outnumbers the conservative media at about a 4:1 ratio. Thus, the backlash to Steele voicing a conservative opinion will always be more pervasive than the backlash to Malika Andrews voicing a liberal opinion.

Mass media companies respond to pressure. ESPN felt pressure to punish Steele from the likes of the New York Times, Washington Post, Jemele Hill, and even Steele's own colleagues (as stated in her lawsuit).

By comparison, only a few sites acknowledged the times the liberal pundits violated the policy.

To wit:

The political bias from the outside is as responsible for the disparate treatment Steele faced as the political bias from within.

Were there different rules for Sage Steele? Maybe not. But there were most certainly different results.