I spent most of the day pondering the Charissa Thompson case.
A Fox Sports sideline reporter, Thompson said in a podcast that occasionally, she fabricated coaches’ remarks if she didn’t connect with the coach.
Others in the sports media field were displeased. I think they’re overdoing their rebuke. When Erin Andrews — one of the big names in sideline reporting — said she’d done that herself, it wasn’t news in my feed.
Today, it is news. I thought about it a great deal, because I think it’s a big deal in two respects:
1) Sports media crafted the environment in which quotes can be faked with zero risk of harm or foul.
2) To what level of journalistic ethics should sports media be held, if they are really practing journalism.
In “Bull Durham”, the veteran catcher (Kevin Costner) teaches a media relations formula to the star rookie (Tim Robbins). I think it’s satire, but real-life players and coaches embraced the practice. Then media changed its questions to fit.
“Coach, you’re down 35 points at halftime. What adjustments will you make at halftime?”
“We just have to get back to doing what we do. We need to play smarter football, and show more intensity.”
“Your quarterback turned the ball over five times in the first half. What does he have to do to bring your team back?”
“Shlabotnik is our coach on the field. We believe in him, we have faith. We just have to play better football, keep within ourselves, and follow our game plan.”
I’ve always said that sports reporters don’t have to attend press conferences, and we don’t even have to go to the effing games. I could copy two quotes from last night’s NFL game while pulling one from my butt, and no one could spot the fake — not even the coach being quoted!
We all know we could do it and get away with it — Thompson did it, and could’ve continued doing it, no one the wiser. Her mistake was talking about it.
Real journalists get fired for fabricating quotes, because it undermines us as a reliable news source. But I wouldn’t use the word ‘journalist’ to describe TV football sideline personalities.
The NFL and Fox Sports products are “sports entertainment”.
Fox Sports “sideline reporters” are not reporting. Reporters find what happened, and tell you. Sports entertainment performers follow the script that Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) learned from Crash Davis (Kevin Costner).
That’s what makes Thompson’s misstep more palatable. The quotes she fabricated were from the script. She just read the coach’s lines.
She shouldn’t’ve done it, if she were really a journalist or if her bosses want to maintain their pretense of being a news organization.
She shouldn’t’ve talked about it, because that exposes the making of the sausage. Her colleagues making a huge deal of it forget what they are. The sports reporters who talk to Nuke LaLoosh in the movie don’t have names. They’re interchangeable, and disposable, like Fox News anchors.