Charissa Thompson Walks Back Admission That She Used to Make Up Sideline Reports
Matt Freed/AP
Thursday Night Football host Charissa Thompson claims she simply “chose the wrong words” when she admitted to making up reports back when she was a sideline reporter.
Thompson made the admission on Wednesday’s episode of the Pardon My Take podcast. Her explanation was that if she was unable to interview a coach in time during a game, she would simply make up reports. She even claimed she’d make up quotes from coaches and justified it by claiming coaches wouldn’t get mad at her stating obvious things they likely would have told her.
While she played it off like a harmless story about her old job, other reporters took exception to the behavior. Countless veteran reporters — including CBS’s Tracy Wolfson and ESPN’s Lisa Salters — publicly called out Thompson for her actions.
On Friday, Thompson took to Instagram to clarify her comments.
“Working in the media I understand how important words are and chose the wrong words to describe the situation,” Thompson said. “I’m sorry. I have never lied about anything or been unethical during my time as a sports broadcaster.”
Thompson then explained that she would merely report her own observations if she was unable to speak to a coach.
“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,” she continued. “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.”
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In the clip, however, Thompson explicitly describes the act of making up her own quotes based on her observations.
Amazon, which owns the exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football, has not commented on the situation.
