Controversial Sportswriter Jay Mariotti Brings His Firebrand Style To SF Examiner, KPIX 5 Interview
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- A longtime sports columnist who's been a lightning rod for controversy, not only for his blunt and opinionated style but also for accusations of domestic violence, will now be covering Bay Area teams as sports director for the San Francisco Examiner.
Jay Mariotti's appeared Sunday night on KPIX 5 GameDay with anchor Dennis O'Donnell and immediately jousted with O'Donnell over the program's introductory video which highlighted his various controversies and legal issues.
Full Interview: Jay Mariotti On KPIX 5 GameDay
"I got a kick out of your opening. There's so much garbage and lies right there," said Mariotti. "I mean, that whole thing is just an Internet compilation of crap and I'd be glad to knock each one down. I hope the people of this city … don't believe the sensational nonsense."
Mariotti, whose first column for the Exambliiner was pushed Monday, spent nearly 17 years at the Chicago Sun-Times and was a commentator on ESPN for eight years. He was well-known for his firebrand manner and ability to elicit strong reactions from people – often feuding with colleagues or the sports figures he covered.
His career was damaged by domestic violence charges where he pleaded no contest in two separate occasions and avoided jail time.
O'Donnell asked Mariotti why he pleaded no contest if he believed he was innocent. "Because I saved about a half a million dollars in going to trial when ESPN had already played judge and jury. If they're already deciding what happened, why would I then go ahead and do that? And, you know I have a daughter in college, at the time. I did not want to take her out of college. There is a vast differentiation between no contest and pleading guilty. They never had anything on me when it came to a guilty plea ... What you did not run in your piece is that all of this was dismissed, expunged as not guilty. You didn't even run that. Dismissed, expunged as not guilty."
San Francisco Media Company publisher Glenn Zuehls reached out to CBS San Francisco with the following statement:
"SFMC could not be happier to have such an experienced, opinionated and insightful Sports Director! I hope you can see from his first two columns that SFMC has found a winner that writes with the passion & depth of few other sports journalists," wrote Zuehls.
During the interview O'Donnell also pointed out the apparent irony about Mariotti's new situation in light of his claim in 2008 upon leaving the Sun-Times that the future of sportswriting was not in the "dying" industry of newspapers. "The Sun-Times, Dennis, had poisonous issues in house," said Mariotti. "All newspapers are in decline but some have a happier atmosphere. That place was death on earth and I'm sure it'll die soon. I don't want it to die."
Mariotti said the chance to work in the Bay Area for the Examiner - covering successful sports teams as opposed to the constant losing among teams in Chicago -was a "special situation."
"Here is a newspaper in a town where the Chronicle is losing money, the Examiner has a new owner and they want to elevate sports. This newspaper has a 150-year history. So, I weighed it. I like the people I am working for and they are letting me hire people and I think we have a great opportunity to do things in a city that not only is a spectacular town to live in but right now if you are in the sports media, you know this, no more fertile ground in America than everything going on here."
Mariotti's first column for the Examiner was published Monday.
