Manti Te'o's Fake Girlfriend Exposes Lazy Journalism

By now most everyone has either read or heard about the Deadspin article exposing Notre Dame's star linebacker, Manti Te'o and now we are in the "aftermath" period of that story.  Here's are the points that I find the most interesting in this entire story, for I am not a big Notre Dame or Manti Te'o fan, I was unaware of how "big" this story was at the time and now how big it has become.

The first is the lazy journalism.  Sure, people are quick to say, are you really going to fact check every time someone says they are in remorse because someone died?  No, you don't have to do that...but when you look at the circumstances of this entire episode, you would think that the impact this "girlfriend" had on Te'o's life - he broke down and cried more than once - you would think at one point someone that was putting together their "feature" on Te'o they would have tried to contact someone that knew the deceased girlfriend to get some comments from them...a family member, neighbor, co-worker, friend, etc... but no, neither ESPN nor Sports Illustrated nor did any of the other media outlets that were quick to pick up Te'o's story and run with it.  What likely happened, is the journalist made a half-hearted effort to contact someone but because of deadlines and what not if that part of the story fell through, oh well, the "meat" of the story, Manti Te'o, is still there for ya.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg for shoddy reporting...we can go on and on about how the major media, once again, didn't let facts get in the way of a good story.

So let's move to the phase this story is in now, namely that Te'o is saying he was "duped".  Notre Dame, ESPN and other media outlets are going along with that angle and even making up excuses as to why it could be plausible that this happened.  To that I say HA HA!  The only reason Notre Dame, ESPN and the others are trying to stick up for this liar is because they don't want to admit that they were swindled...but EVERYONE knows that Te'o and his pal were doing this knowingly and for personal gain.  All ESPN, Notre Dame and the others that are defending this guy's excuse is to simply put a plea to their viewers...that buy into everything they say..."is hey, we were swindled just like you!"  But the reality is, if ESPN and the others don't like it when they dictate the story...ESPN likes to manipulate the story to their liking and here they were manipulated...but they can't be wrong, so they side with Te'o and say that he is just an idiot...which is still true...but he is also ranked as one of the biggest lying scumbags of all time as well.