Integrity

Broadcaster Charissa Thompson getting lots of stick for admitting Wednesday she made things up from the sideline of football games. 

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 going to make this up.’

The stick is justified, and not just from the quantity of sports broadcast people piling on. I read she tried to walk things back on Friday. But not too successfully.

She’s not the first. Ronald Reagan was a remote baseball announcer in Des Moines Iowa in the 1930s, relaying Chicago Cubs games to baseball fans in the Hawkeye State:

Dutch Reagan, as he was known to listeners, would receive game updates via telegraph and then, accompanied by sound effects, bring the action to life with a vivid description of the details. In one famous instance, the telegraph feed went down in the ninth inning of a tight ballgame, forcing Reagan to improvise on the spot. With no updates forthcoming, Reagan anxiously described the action as Augie Galan battled Dizzy Dean in an epic batter/pitcher confrontation. Foul ball after foul ball was broadcast to the audience until the telegraph messages finally resumed. Even at an early age, the comfort and ease with which Reagan worked a microphone was evident.

Ronald Reagan on the episode, from his autobiography Where’s the Rest of Me?

Curly started typing. I clutched at the slip. It said: ‘Galan popped out on the first pitch’. Not in my game he didn’t. He popped out after practically making a career of foul balls.

Trust is important. I think the careless reporting of events like these without a smidgen of contrition is damaging.