I'm putting this out there. I was duped, along with the rest of America, into believing a gut-wrenching story about a star linebacker who lost his grandmother and his girlfriend within hours of each other; about the typical football player who uses adversity to his advantage. He goes out, has a spectacular year, brings in the team to feed off of that, and collectively, they overperform for the entire season.
What amazes me about this story, is that the media is now demonizing Manti Te'o into oblivion, making him out to be some decrepit individual who will pay for the rest of his career for lying about having a girlfriend. Another aspect of this story is that this same media who perpetuated this story every chance it got, from the days before the Michigan State/Notre Dame (9/15/12) game through the BCS National Championship game (1/7/13), is now eating crow, washing the pie from its face, and throwing out unsourced stories to cover its ass. A "non-mainstream" site, Deadspin, scooped the rest of the sports world with the story of Manti Te'o, and how he made up his girlfriend. Now? Watch out Manti, the national media is pissed they got scooped and they will come for you. On all 4 horses. To crush you in every way possible.
This story, if nothing else, exposes the lack of journalistic integrity anymore. This story exposes everything we need to know about a media today, and a public willing to believe whatever is written or put on Sportscenter. The Manti stories from before the hoax was reported were numerous; from local to national, and were even the centerpiece of a couple of pre-game segments of the National Championship. It was always mentioned in conjunction with Manti's name. Whenever you heard "Manti", you also heard a variation of "who played so valiantly this year when..."
I guess, now that the shock of what is bizarre at the most and a lie at the least is out there for public consumption, what needs to be brought to this story is a little perspective. First, who cares if Manti lied about having a girlfriend? Was anyone hurt? Did anyone lose any money? Were there any crimes committed? The answer is no to all of those questions. If this is a lie, then Manti will be haunted by this for the rest of his career, and the media has been exposed as an empty boilerplate for not doing some basic fact checking. If it turns out that Manti can cover his tracks and provide a plausible timeline of events, it should be good enough. He's a great linebacker, and up until this week, he was a golden child playing at the golden dome. No one thought anything adverse about him, and he was going to be a great star at the next level.
12 years ago, after Super Bowl XXXIV (that's 34), another great linebacker was charged with conspiracy to murder. Ray Lewis is a celebrated icon in the NFL, and he recently played what would have been his last home game for the Baltimore Ravens. They are still in the playoffs, and they will play the Patriots in the AFC Championship game on 1/20. Ray Lewis is a certified 1st ballot hall of famer, racking up great statistics in a great football career. The media loves Ray, and I have no doubt that he will be a great analyst in the years that follow football. He is well spoken, has great football acumen, and is a very entertaining interview. Yet, to get out of murder charges, he had to testify against his then co-defendants in the crime of murder. He plead guilty to a misdemeanor, served out his probation, and went on for another 12 years to play some great football.
Manti Te'o, at worst, lied about having a girlfriend who died of leukemia. At worst, he pulled the wool over the nation's eyes, used it to fuel his teams successes, and might have embelished a little bit more for a sympathy vote for the Heisman trophy, college football's most prestigious award. Nobody was murdered. The media was exposed as a hackjob of an institution. The nation was duped. That's it.
So, in the scheme of things, can the media just do its job of reporting factual information for the masses, remind the nation that people can overcome adversity in the mold of a Ray Lewis, and move on to some real news? Remember, the only people who look silly here are the entire sports media (Deadspin excluded) and Manti Te'o. Why perpetuate a story that was totally mishandled, distributed without fact checking, and destroy somebody in the process? No matter what happens, the media will be more scrutinized (as they should be), and they will have to scrutinize those subjects of a future story. Let's just move on, shall we? The media has done more to hurt its credibility by trying to cover its tracks than Manti Te'o will ever do in the first 10 tackle game of his rookie season. Funny how when a guy has a good game, the media forgets that he almost got away with something... even murder.
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