Charissa Thompson of Fox Sports and Amazon Prime’s “Thursday Night Football” garnered criticism when a clip went viral in which she admitted to making up things from coaches while working as a sideline reporter.
“I’ve said this before and I haven’t been fired for saying it, but I’ll say it again,” Thompson said. “I would make up the reports sometimes because the coach wouldn’t come out at halftime or it was too late and I didn’t want to screw up the report.”
The 41-year-old added that she assumed that “no coach is going to get mad” if she misled viewers into thinking they had simply voiced some well-worn clichés, such as, “Hey, we need to stop hurting ourselves, we need to be better on third down, we need to stop turning the ball over and do a better job of getting off the field.”
“Like, they’re not going to correct me on that,” she continued. “So I’m like, ‘It’s fine, I’ll just make up the report.’”
A bunch of people disliked what she stated and that included current and former sideline reporters.
Michele Tafoya was one of them and she did not mince a single word when speaking out:
“Honestly, this makes me sad,” she said. “Charissa is a nice person, but this is professional fraud. If a coach won’t talk to you at halftime, you say that. And if there is no report, then you just don’t file a report at half-time. It’s pretty simple. journalistic integrity is paramount.”
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She kept going:
Among the other sports media members responding to Thompson’s comments Thursday was ESPN and ABC’s Molly McGrath, a college football sideline reporter who wrote on X, “Young reporters: This is not normal or ethical. Coaches and players trust us with sensitive information, and if they know that you’re dishonest and don’t take your role seriously, you’ve lost all trust and credibility.”
CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson wrote on X, “This is absolutely not ok, not the norm, and upsetting on so many levels. I take my job very seriously, I hold myself accountable for all I say, I build trust with coaches, and never make something up. I know my fellow reporters do the same.”
Thompson previously discussed making up quotes from coaches in 2022 on a podcast she co-hosts with former sideline reporter Erin Andrews who also admitted to doing the same thing.
Thompson has spoken out amid the backlash. She is likely to let it blow over.
