"Thursday Night Football" reporter Charissa Thompson has been under fire from journalism social media ahead of Thursday's matchup between the Bengals and Ravens.
Earlier this week, Thompson hopped on Barstool Sports' "Pardon My Take" podcast with Dan Katz and PFT Commenter and explained her art of sideline reporting.
The backlash she's receiving is coming from a statement she made about how she used to make up stories when she didn't have anything to report, and people are up in arms about the ethics of her comment.
“I’ve said this before,” Thompson began. “I haven’t been fired to saying it, but I’ll say it again. I would make up the report sometimes, because A, 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.’
“Because first of all, 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 and do a better job of getting off the field.’ They’re not gonna correct me on that. So I’m like, it’s fine, I’ll just make up the report," Thompson concluded.
When she mentioned she had said this before, Thompson was referencing a conversation she had with sideline reporter Erin Andrews in 2022 on their podcast, "Calm Down with Erin and Charissa."
“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 f—, this isn’t gonna work.’ I’m not kidding, I made up a report,” Thompson had said on the podcast.
“I’ve done that too,” Andrews agreed. “For a coach that I didn’t wanna throw under the bus because he was telling me all the wrong stuff!”
As Thompson continues to receive criticism on social media, business reporter Daniel Kaplan reached out to Amazon — who hosts "Thursday Night Football" — to see if Thompson will be addressing her recent comments on tonight's broadcast.
"She was telling a story from 15 years ago," Amazon said, according to Kaplan.
So, unless Thompson feels the need to address it herself, don't expect any sort of mandated official statement.
