This seems to be the Month of Frauds in the world of sports. So before we go any further, let’s expose a few more hoaxes. Deadspin, you can thank me later. Brace yourselves:
-Adrian Peterson purposefully busted his left knee. In fact, that move worked out so well he’s planning on tearing his right ACL next week.
-Mike Trout is Mickey Mantle’s clone. (Teddy Ballgame wasn’t the only outfielder preserved cryogenically.)
-Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho is the last Sith lord. The upcoming Disney Star Wars trilogy is his life story.
Those sound ridiculous? Well, just remember that two weeks ago our bar for calling BS on a story was set at “inventing a girlfriend whose story fools the national media and vaults a linebacker to national celebrity.”
The Manti Te’o myth befuddles me. I simply cannot understand why a guy who had first-round riches, the adoration of an entire university, the love of a whole island — in short, anything he desired — at his feet would go down such a ridiculously unwise path.
But what befuddles me even more is the media’s complicity in this charade. Te’o is not the first, nor will he be the last, person to pull a stunt like this. Knowing this leaves me wondering whether I’m willing to believe any of the heroes I’m presented with again.
Every news outlet until Deadspin botched this story. For the love of all that is holy, the New York Times reported the existence of a girlfriend in its Oct. 14 article about Te’o. When even the Gray Lady fails to investigate, you know we’re in trouble.
In the same way that steroids have eroded my trust in the baseball establishment — including the writers who covered baseball during that era — so too do I find my faith in the stories the national media tells slipping around the edges. Are the Harbaughs really brothers? Is The Play CGI? Did George W. Bush really win the 2000 election?
Sure, the media as a whole ultimately got it right, but that’s only because a smaller sports blog actually went out and reported the story (it should be noted, while ESPN dithered on whether to go forward without an on-camera interview with Te’o). ESPN and Sports Illustrated, the two biggest sports media companies in the country, both failed to do their due diligence.
SI writer Pete Thamel’s account of his reporting of his Te’o story — a glowing profile that perpetuated the tale of the fictional girlfriend — is extraordinary. Not only did he encounter warning signs, like a failure to find any evidence of the girlfriend at Stanford or the complete lack of an obituary, but he edited his story to remove anything he couldn’t confirm rather than getting to the bottom of it.
The same goes for ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski, who made no pretense towards attempts at reporting. After Te’o rebuffed his requests to contact the girlfriend’s family or see photos of her, he gave up, saying, “at that moment, you simply think that you have to respect those wishes.” Good thing Woodward and Bernstein didn’t let go of their lead so easily. “Of course, Mr. President, we understand how this story might make you uncomfortable. We respect your wishes!”
Of course, armchair quarterbacking the reporting of professionals far more experienced than me is dangerous territory; maybe Te’o would have duped me as well. But as an avid sports news reader — and someone who funds this reporting through a SI subscription I hold in part because of their assertion that they do the best sports journalism around — it feels fair to demand more.
Contact Jordan Bach-Lombardo at [email protected]