Charles Barkley thinks NBC's ratings-challenged Jay Leno is doing "a great job," but former Chicago newspaper columnists Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti are "just idiots."
Asked if there were any reporters in particular he didn't like, Barkley said: "There are two guys I always hate -- Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti. They're just idiots. ... They don't get the facts wrong. They just go in to be negative all the time. They're always going to play the bad cop and they both are idiots."
Read more on Phil Rosenthal's Tower Ticker.
Asked if there were any reporters in particular he didn't like, Barkley said: "There are two guys I always hate -- Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti. They're just idiots. ... They don't get the facts wrong. They just go in to be negative all the time. They're always going to play the bad cop and they both are idiots."
Read more on Phil Rosenthal's Tower Ticker.
Register with Chicago Tribune and receive Bears, Bulls, and Blackhawks newsletters for free. 
When sports news breaks, be the first to know. (To get alerts on a mobile device, text CHISPORTS to 31286.). 
oh god. just because an idiot calls an idiot an idiot, doesn't mean they're not all idiots respectively.
Calling Jay Mariotti an idiot is an insult to idiots everywhere!
Bayless and Mariotti were worse than idiots. They were useless muckrakers that constantly disparaged anyone in the spotlight. The best way to do deal with guys like them is to refuse to read their work.
Barkley is 100 percent right any chicago fan should know that those to guys are idiots, a holes and a whole lot of other things i can't type here
those comments coming from a man who almost went to jail for not paying a gambling debt at a casino, which also turned out to be a gambling problem for Charles. This coming from a married man who got caught drinking and driving while he was with a lady of the night on News Years eve recently. Please...he's more like the Village Idiot than either one of the 2 he mentioned. Grow up Charles.
Absolutely agree with Barkley. Mariotti and Bayless are idiots. Between those two, Bayless is the champion of all idiots.
"T on November 25, 2009 12:21 PM
Hey Charles I'm just curious, how many championship rings do you have?"
umm, not sure what this has to do with what he said but good try!
Hey Charles I'm just curious, how many championship rings do you have?
It was a dark era for the Chicago Tribune when they had Bayless on their sports page. He's pathetic...and Barkley is wrong...Bayless often had his facts wrong. He's a buffoon. As for Mariotti, there's just something the matter with that guy.
And... how is this breaking news?
Charles Barkey calling other people idiots if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black.
mr. barkley is correct. i do not watch them on tv because all they do is knock everybody.
Can't hardly argue with that. Mariotti is so anti Chicago that he really should move. If i hated a place that much, i know i'd leave. And as far as Bayless, Barkley called it perfectly, that guy has so much negatism about him, it's a wonder he hasn't been committed some place for depression issues. Talk about an unhappy human, the frown on that guy's face looks as if it's glued in place.
Couldn't agree more with Charles. Hated Bayless when he wrote for the Trib and can't stand him on TV. Switch channels whenever he comes on - even when his name is mentioned.
Mariotti is the same. Most of the time their heads are up their @#$ and the rest of the time they are talking out of it.