"I have never lied about anything or been unethical during my time as a sports broadcaster,” Charissa Thompson said.
A Thursday Night Football co-host and former sideline reporter is apologizing after admitting to making up sideline reports.
Charissa Thompson has been working as a Fox Sports reporter since 2008 and admitted to making up some of the sideline reports during NFL games.
“I haven’t been fired for saying it, but I’ll say it again. I would make up the report sometimes,” Thompson said. “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.’”
In an attempt to justify the false reports, Thompson said “No coach is gonna get mad if I say, ‘Hey, we need to stop hurting ourselves, we need to be better on third down, we need to stop turning the ball over. They’re not gonna correct me on that. So I’m like, It’s fine, I’ll just make up the report.”
In a field where only 20% of sports reporters are female, many other female sportscasters have spoken up against Thompson’s actions.
“Absolutely not ok, not the norm and upsetting on so many levels.” Tracy Wolfson with CBS Sports said.
“We've come so far and for this to happen, she's almost bragging about it,” Adriana Diaz said on CBS Mornings.
Thompson took to Instagram to try and clear up the situation, saying “I chose the wrong words ... I'm sorry,” she wrote. "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 and 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," Thompson wrote on Instagram.
