After a clip from Pardon My Take emerged on Thursday where FOX Sports and Amazon Prime Video host Charissa Thompson revealed that she used to fabricate sideline reports in certain situations. She was the subject of considerable vitriol from other sports media figures after her admission. Gregg Giannotti does not see the situation in quite the same way.
While he was working at KDKA in Pittsburgh, he served as the sideline reporter for broadcasts of the Pitt Panthers. Giannotti revealed a moment where he made up one of his reports. He claims had a strong enough relationship with former head coach Paul Chryst, he was forced to make up a report as a result of the coach’s television interview taking too long. He offered a proposition to the Pitt head coach.
“I said, ‘Listen, man. I’ve got 10 seconds. I don’t need to talk to you. Are you okay if I just make something up?,’” Giannotti said on Friday’s edition of Boomer & Gio on WFAN. “He laughs and he goes, ‘Yeah.’ When I heard that story, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”
The Pardon My Take admission isn’t the first time Charissa Thompson has shared that she fabricated reports. In an episode of the Calm Down podcast in January, Thompson admitted that she made up a sideline report when a coach commented on her perfume instead of answering her question about the adjustments his team would make at halftime. Her co-host, FOX sideline reporter Erin Andrews, admitted that she had done the same thing for a coach that she did not want to throw under the bus, deeming that he told her all the wrong things within the interview.
“We could make up reports,” Thompson said at the time. “You’re not going to say anything that’s going to put them in a bad spot.”
Gregg Giannotti noticed how Thompson’s statements were being perceived and believed that sideline reporters who conveyed their thoughts on the matter were reacting in such a way as to placate social media users.
Within his remarks, he stated how she did not mention a specific sideline reporter, instead disclosing what she would do while on the job. Boomer Esiason concurred that many of these professionals did not want to be seen within the same group as Thompson and articulated the reprehensible nature of the actions to protect their own credibility.
“So we’re going to have to react to that, which is exactly the point,” Giannotti said. “So everybody’s going to react to that stuff and then they’ll try to one-up each other – who was more disgusted by the next one – and if you didn’t say something, that was almost like you were co-signing that it was okay to make up reports like Charissa Thompson did.”
“I would think that the extreme fallout would be if an executive read all the commentary that basically undercuts what these people do for a living, and they started losing jobs because people don’t really care about the sideline reporter,” Esiason said. “If that’s exactly what is being written in social media, then they’ve got to protect their jobs is what they’re doing.”
Gregg Giannotti replied to Esiason’s assertion by articulating that he does not believe most television executives think in the same way as social media hounds. In fact, he infers that if executives had thought sideline reporters were not needed on a broadcast, they would have eliminated the position a long time ago. Esiason understands that people in the role are subject to a deluge of criticism from viewers and shots from writers alike, and he recognizes the battle that they have had to face.
“They have one of the best jobs ever,” Gregg Giannotti countered. “You get to hang out at football games, you’re on the air for a little bit, you’re on the sidelines, (and) you get to interact with coaches. Go ahead – take your shot.”
“That’s why they take it seriously,” Esiason averred. “They’re reacting to the hounds on social media is what they’re doing. I don’t think they’re really reacting to Charissa Thompson. Charissa started the conversation, yes, and then all of a sudden everybody started piling on.”
