Fox Sports and Amazon host Charissa Thompson clarified comments she recently made that she would “make up” NFL sideline reports after many of her colleagues attacked her credibility.
Thompson’s statements went viral after Barstool Sports tweeted out a (now deleted) clip of the interview on “Pardon My Take.”
“I would make up the report sometimes because A) the coach wouldn’t come out at halftime, or it was too late and I didn’t want to screw up the report so I was like I’m just gonna make this up,” Thompson said. (RELATED: Do We Have A Scandal Brewing? Fox Sports’ Charissa Thompson Admits To Making Things Up On Live Television)
Sports reporters and pundits lost their friggin’ minds. Many, including her own colleagues at Fox, blasted her comments as an affront to journalism and a disgrace to her position as a sideline reporter.
Needless to say, Thompson felt she had to address it. She claimed she “chose the wrong words.”
“I have never lied about anything or been unethical during my time as a sports broadcaster. In the absence of a coach providing any information that could further my report I would use information that I learned and saw during the first half to create my report. For example, if a team was 0 for 7 on 3rd down, that would clearly be an area they need to improve on in the second half. In these instances I never attributed anything I said to a player or coach,” she said on Instagram.
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Whether or not you believe Thompson that she was simply being misinterpreted (and for the record, I do) the heavy-handed backlash has been a bit extreme. When asked for comment, her current employer, Amazon, seemed to agree, saying, “she was telling a story from 15 years ago,” business reporter Daniel Kaplan said in a now-deleted tweet.
Fellow Fox Sports broadcaster Laura Okmin appeared to chastise Thompson for not recognizing her privilege, tweeting “THE privilege of a sideline role is being the 1 person in the entire world who has the opportunity to ask coaches what’s happening in that moment. I can’t express the amount of time it takes to build that trust. Devastated w/the texts I’m getting asking if this is ok. No. Never.”
Chill out lady, you report on football.
NBC blowhards Mike Florio and Peter King also traded jabs on Florio’s “Pro Football Talk” show.
“This is about our country right now,” King claimed. “The more damaging thing is not to sideline reporters as a group, the more damaging thing is to journalism in our country.”
Yeah Pete, it’s NFL sideline reporters that are denigrating the public’s trust in the media, not NBC. (RELATED: NBC News Dragged For Hiding Sexually Explicit Details In Book Taught To Middle Schoolers)
Florio added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if people use this beyond the boundaries of sports media, just as evidence of ‘it’s all fake, it’s all made up, don’t pay attention to any of it.'” (RELATED: NBC News Quietly Stealth-Edits Headline After Downplaying Death Of Jewish Man Killed In Pro-Palestinian Protest)
“It’s going to fit everybody’s interpretation of what they think of the news media,” King agreed. How ironic.
Those are just three of the MANY sports media folks who chose to pile on, calling Thompson things like “deplorable” and “not normal or ethical.”
I wonder how many of these people called Thompson to ask her to clarify before jumping on the bandwagon in public.
The endless stream of righteousness and hand wringing is absurd.