Last week, the sports media world went wild when Fox Sports sideline reporter and Prime TNF studio show host Charissa Thompson admitted that she would sometimes make up an in-game report when she didn’t have access to a coach or player.
As part of that admission, which she gave during an appearance on Barstool’s Pardon My Take podcast, Thompson noted that she had discussed this before on her podcast with Erin Andrews. Two years earlier, the two sideline reporters both said they had taken liberties with some of their reports.
“I was like ‘oh coach what adjustments are you gonna make at halftime?’ He goes, ‘that’s a great perfume you’re wearing.’ I was like ‘oh ****, this isn’t gonna work.’ I’m not kidding, I made up a report,” Thompson said on the latest episode of Calm Down with Erin and Charissa.
“I’ve done that too,” Andrews jumped in. “For a coach that I didn’t wanna throw under the bus because he was telling me all the wrong stuff!”
Thompson offered an explanation and correction last week over her comments. Now, Andrews’ representative is offering up an explanation regarding her previous comments about playing fast and loose with in-game reporting.
Jill Fritzo, a spokeswoman for Ms. Andrews, said, “For her entire career, Erin Andrews has worked very closely with coaches, players and P.R. staffs to ensure accuracy in her reporting.” She added that what Ms. Andrews meant was that she took information from earlier meetings with coaches to include in her reports, and that when she was on the air she was always “clear” about where her information comes from.
Both Thompson and Andrews are now trying to tamp down the verbiage they used during their podcast appearances. That flippancy that they used in describing their reports is what rubbed a lot of their contemporaries and peers the wrong way, especially when there’s already a stigma around sideline reporting’s value. Perhaps it was always true that their “made-up” reports were based on prior knowledge, but that’s also a different thing than what they described on the podcasts.
You can read both podcast appearances as instances where both Thompson and Andrews were trying to seem relatable and tamp down their own hype, but in doing so, they devalued the work that a lot of other reporters do, not to mention the many reporters who would love to have their roles but aren’t given that shot.
