One week ago this morning, a clip emerged of Fox Sports and Amazon Prime host Charissa Thompson admitting — for the second time — that she would at times fabricate sideline reports earlier in her career. It became a pretty big deal, especially for other sideline reporters who fight for credibility and legitimacy.
This morning, it’s basically gone and largely forgotten.
This isn’t to say it shouldn’t be. It’s just an acknowledgement that it is.
Things move fast during football season. Bright shiny objects are rolling down the assembly line. There’s always something new, something else, something more that draws our attention away from the last thing and pulls it to the next thing.
In hindsight, Fox and Amazon played it perfectly. They said nothing. But for a comment to Dan Kaplan that he posted and deleted from X, Amazon managed to avoid giving the fire any oxygen.
Should they have said something? Even if they had, it would have been forgotten by now.
There was still one last chance to get a comment. On Tuesday, the NFL conducted a media conference call aimed at providing reporters with content that could be used to publicize tomorrow’s Black Friday game. Amazon Prime executive Jay Marine participated in the call. During the 37-minute session, he was not asked a single question about Thompson.
Apparently, the bright, shiny object of a Black Friday game drew the attention of the reporters away from the fact that Marine’s NFL pregame host admitted to fabricating reports while working as a reporter.
The league also declined comment on the situation, even though the fabricated reports emerged on game broadcasts over which the league typically exercises (or at least tries to) obsessive oversight and control.
It’s not as if Thompson emerged from the episode unscathed. Much was said. Much was written. Most was not favorable. Along the way, the original comments on the subject emerged. Erin Andrews of Fox Sports openly admitted to doing the same thing. Although that wrinkle made it to an item in the New York Times, the Charissa Thompson controversy never became the Charissa Thompson/Erin Andrews controversy.
Regardless, it’s now over. It’s done. It’s gone. Reporter admits to fabricating reports. People say what they have to say about it, and then it’s gone.
Again, this isn’t to say it shouldn’t be. It’s just an acknowledgement that it is.
The takeaway for P.R. professionals in any industry to which the public pays attention is clear. As long as your industry has new stuff to which the public will pay attention, every scandal will die faster than a yellow banana turns brown.