Not Journalism 101

 I know what you think of sideline reporters. They're eye candy who like to bug Coach at halftime while he's trying to scheme his way out of a 42-0 rockslide, right?

Wrong.

Yes, the halftime thing is something I've never quite understood, and something the coaches hate. But last night it was a sideline reporter who kept you appraised of Joe Burrow's injured wrist and Ravens tight end Mark Andrews' wrecked ankle in real time. Almost all of these reporters are women, and they're serious people who are there to commit journalism. The best of them you know: Pam Oliver, Laura Okmin, Michelle Tafoya, Lisa Salters, Tracy Wolfson.

Needless to say, they're all appalled right now by one of their "colleagues" -- Charissa Thompson, sideline reporter for Amazon Prime on NFL Thursday Night Football.

Who admitted on a podcast recently that, when she was starting out, she occasionally made up quotes from coaches when they wouldn't talk to her. 

What's been most amazing about that, and most disheartening, is not only Amazon Prime's reaction -- essentially a shrug -- but the reaction of a lot of others in the Internet Whatsissphere. Which is "I don't get why this is a big deal."

Most of those reacting this way aren't journalists, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. As a sports print journalist for almost 40 years, I realized a long time ago that civilians don't get what we do. They see the world through the lens of Joe or Jill Fanboy/girl, and just assume everyone sees it the same way.

And don't even get me started on the Former Guy and the members of his cult, who think we're all liars with no morals, and "enemies of the people."

As to the former, I stopped trying years ago to convince them I don't hate Purdue or IU or Notre Dame -- or maybe all three at once. You can't talk sense to the irrational, and fanboys/girls are nothing if not irrational.

The latter, however, is exactly why what Thompson did is a big deal.

It's a big deal because demagogues like the Former Guy always have the biggest megaphones, and when they use those megaphones to continually howl about the corrupt lying enemy-of-the-people free press, people tend to start believing it. Toss around bullshite often enough, and it doesn't smell anymore. It becomes the truth.

Even if it's not.

That's why when a Charissa Thompson practically brags about making stuff up, and her employers shrug, they harm more than just the credibility of sideline reporters or broadcasters or even us poor schlubs banging out words on deadline. They harm the credibility of journalists as a whole, at a time when journalistic credibility is loudly and constantly under attack.

Look. I'm not here to tell you professional journalists don't screw up on occasion, or that they always act professionally. We make mistakes, sometimes egregious ones. We cling  to stories long after they cease being stories because we get obsessed. Sheer laziness even comes into play on occasion, when an unbalanced story hits the street because whoever reported it didn't report it enough.

But the vast, vast, vast majority of us aren't like that. Contrary to what the Former Guy imagines in his fevered brain, we don't sit around all day hatching evil journalism plots against him. Here in the era of the incredible shrinking newsroom, we're too busy chasing the 12 other stories we've been assigned that day.

As to the lying immoral part ... I've spent most of my working life in pressboxes, and rarely have I seen Al Capone hanging out in any of them. Almost every one of my former colleagues was a good person just trying to do the job the best he or she could. And that's harder than you think sometimes.

Making stuff up would surely have made the job easier. But we didn't do it.

Charissa Thompson or no Charissa Thompson.