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UPDATED with the latest: A growing chorus of like-minded people are weighing in on Fox Sports NFL kickoff host Charissa Thompson’s admission that she would “make up” sidelines at games because, as she says, “the coach didn’t come out at halftime or it was too late.” .” ”
The final comment came from Tracy Wolfson, the NFL’s lead sideline reporter on CBS, who called Thompson’s behavior “absolutely not OK, not the norm and disturbing in many ways.”
Wolfson continued: “I take my job very seriously, I take responsibility for everything I say, I build trust with coaches and I never make anything up.”
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This is absolutely not okay, not the norm and disturbing in many ways. I take my job very seriously, take responsibility for everything I say, build trust with coaches and never make anything up. I know my fellow reporters do the same. https://t.co/sl0T7w32u9
— Tracy Wolfson (@tracywolfson) November 16, 2023
PREVIOUSLY at 1:13 p.m.: Mollie McGrath, ESPN’s college football and basketball sideline reporter, echoed Fox Sports’ NFL Kickoff host Charissa Thompson’s recent comments, calling Thompson’s behavior as a sideline reporter for Fox “not normal or ethical.”
During an appearance this week on the Pardon My Take podcast, Thompson, who also does pregame, halftime and postgame reporting for Amazon Prime’s “Thursday Night Football,” repeated her confession from last year that she sometimes completely made up reports .
“I’ve said this before, so I didn’t get fired for it, but I’ll say it again,” Thompson said. “I sometimes made up the report because A.) the coach didn’t come or it was too late and… I didn’t want to mess up the report, so I was like, ‘I’ll just make that up.'”
Thompson then presented her reasoning.
“First of all, no coach gets mad when I say, ‘Hey, we need to stop hurting ourselves, we need to be better in the third period, we need to stop turning the ball over.'” . . and make it better to leave the field.’ They won’t correct me.”
Today, McGrath responded: “Young reporters: This is neither normal nor ethical. Coaches and players trust us with confidential information, and if they know you are being dishonest and not taking your role seriously, you have lost all trust and credibility.”
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Young Reporter: This is neither normal nor ethical. Coaches and players trust us with confidential information, and if they know you are being dishonest and not taking your role seriously, you have lost all trust and credibility. https://t.co/yMnM1T995P
— Molly McGrath (@MollyAMcGrath) November 16, 2023
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