Journalist Charissa Thompson Admits To ‘Making Up’ Quotes While Working As NFL Sideline Reporter

Sports journalist Charissa Thompson has sparked outrage after admitting to fabricating coaches’ comments while working as a sideline reporter for the NFL, claiming that she never did anything “unethical.”

Thompson, who now reports for Fox Sports and Amazon Prime’s Thursday Night Football, made the controversial comments during Wednesday’s episode of the Pardon My Take podcast.

“I’ve said this before, so I haven’t been fired for saying it, but I’ll say it again,” she prefaced. “I would make up the report sometimes because A, the coach wouldn’t come out at halftime or it was too late and I was like, ‘I didn’t want to screw up the report,’ so I was like, ‘I’m just going to make this up.'”

The 41-year-old explained that she felt comfortable making up quotes because she believed she had a solid idea of what the coaches would have said if they had been interviewed.

“First of all, no coach is going to 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 and do a better job of getting it off the field,'” Thompson said. “Like, they’re not going to correct me on that. So I’m like it’s fine, I’m just going to make up the report.”

Thompson’s honesty immediately sparked a backlash from other sports journalists. Fox Sports broadcaster Laura Okmin tweeted that she was “devastated with the texts I’m getting asking if this is ok. No. Never.”

“The privilege of a sideline role is being the one person in the entire world who has the opportunity to ask the coaches what’s happening in that moment. I can’t express the amount of time it takes to build that trust,” she wrote.

ESPN broadcaster Molly McGrath also took to X, formerly Twitter, to warn young journalists against Thompson’s actions.

“This is not normal or ethical,” she wrote. “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.”

Thompson walked back on her comments on Friday, writing on Instagram that she has “never lied about anything or been unethical during [her] time as a sports broadcaster.”

“I have a responsibility to myself and my employers to clarify what is being reported,” she continued. “When on a podcast this week, I said I would make up reports early in my career when I worked as a sideline reporter before I transitioned to my current host role. Working in media I understand how important words are and I chose the wrong words to describe the situation. I’m sorry.”

She went on to say that if a coach did not grant her request to interview, “I would use information that I had learned and say during the first half to create my report.”

In 2018, Thompson was in the news when her racy photos were leaked online.