The media in general, especially the sports media, is doing everything in its power to rid themselves of any responsibility with regard to the Manti Te'o story.
On Thursday, Te'o's interview with Katie Couric will air, where the former Notre Dame linebacker admits to briefly lying about his "girlfriend." He had been informed that she died of leukemia in September, but received a strange phone call on December 6th from "her" (supposedly). While he allegedly informed family and the school about the call, he lied a couple days later at the Heisman Trophy ceremony when asked about her. I'm not going to say that lying about it was morally right. However, what was the guy supposed to do? Here's a 21-year old college kid - one of the finalists for the most coveted award in all of college football - who thought his "girlfriend" had died of leukemia two months prior, only to be called by this "girlfriend" two days before the ceremony. Was he to just tell the millions of people watching, "Well, the truth is that I just heard from this girl two days ago. Something's not right. I don't know what it is, but I think I may have been scammed. I'm not thinking this girl was ever actually real and I was part of a big, sick prank." Really? Does the media seriously think any person would do this, especially a 21-year old college football linebacker at the University of Notre Dame, who is likely embarrassed about having an online relationship in general, let alone being pranked by this very person?
The media is doing everything they possibly can to lay the full blame on Te'o for the hoax, for being extremely gullible in believing this hoax, and for the story to have been reported for almost the entire college football season all the way through the national championship game.
No matter how hard the media tries to rid itself of any responsibility in this case, however, the fact remains that Manti Te'o's "job" was a student and football player at Notre Dame. He seems like a trusting person - too trusting perhaps - who got sucked in by someone online, when that person's only intent was to prank the star linebacker. The media's job is to research stories, to investigate them, garner credible sources, and make certain there's validity to a story before spreading it to millions of readers, watchers, and listeners. They didn't do that. So they can blame Te'o all they want that he was gullible, naive, and dishonest. Te'o's only real job was to go to class and play football. The media's job was to research the claims and report the facts and at that, they failed miserably.
On Thursday, Te'o's interview with Katie Couric will air, where the former Notre Dame linebacker admits to briefly lying about his "girlfriend." He had been informed that she died of leukemia in September, but received a strange phone call on December 6th from "her" (supposedly). While he allegedly informed family and the school about the call, he lied a couple days later at the Heisman Trophy ceremony when asked about her. I'm not going to say that lying about it was morally right. However, what was the guy supposed to do? Here's a 21-year old college kid - one of the finalists for the most coveted award in all of college football - who thought his "girlfriend" had died of leukemia two months prior, only to be called by this "girlfriend" two days before the ceremony. Was he to just tell the millions of people watching, "Well, the truth is that I just heard from this girl two days ago. Something's not right. I don't know what it is, but I think I may have been scammed. I'm not thinking this girl was ever actually real and I was part of a big, sick prank." Really? Does the media seriously think any person would do this, especially a 21-year old college football linebacker at the University of Notre Dame, who is likely embarrassed about having an online relationship in general, let alone being pranked by this very person?
The media is doing everything they possibly can to lay the full blame on Te'o for the hoax, for being extremely gullible in believing this hoax, and for the story to have been reported for almost the entire college football season all the way through the national championship game.
No matter how hard the media tries to rid itself of any responsibility in this case, however, the fact remains that Manti Te'o's "job" was a student and football player at Notre Dame. He seems like a trusting person - too trusting perhaps - who got sucked in by someone online, when that person's only intent was to prank the star linebacker. The media's job is to research stories, to investigate them, garner credible sources, and make certain there's validity to a story before spreading it to millions of readers, watchers, and listeners. They didn't do that. So they can blame Te'o all they want that he was gullible, naive, and dishonest. Te'o's only real job was to go to class and play football. The media's job was to research the claims and report the facts and at that, they failed miserably.
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