Anyone else notice that Lennay rhymes with umkay?
Well, it at least point to something that Manti didn’t concoct on his own. Or else he is really good at planning ahead.
I really cannot get enough of this story, I don’t know why. I don’t think it is incredibly important, to be honest, but man is it intriguing.
The athletic director of Notre Dame said Te’o would ask to Skype with her from time to time, but she “always found an excuse not to.”
I think he was hoaxed, realized it some point after her ‘death’ and was too embarrassed at that point. So he kept finding answers to media questions and building on them.
The more that comes out, the more it seems that he was duped. Maybe he had an online relationship and imagined it to be more than it was. Maybe he met a girl posing as someone else. The truth will shake out in a matter of days, and I think it’s premature to be making fun of him.
I’m shocked, shocked, that this obviously brilliant hoax fooled our nations’ journalists.
Eh, to be fair, its not like “I have a girlfriend with cancer” is going to set off a lot of scepticism. Especially in sports stories, where its basically background flavour to the stuff people are actually interested in.
Mike Greenburg more or less admitted that ESPN was embarrassed not to have been all over this months ago. They don’t like to be scooped by blogs like Deadspin.
Catfish shows this happening with surprising frequency (and not just to sheltered or religious kids). I think that once you’ve gotten invested to some extent, you don’t want to admit to yourself that all that time was wasted, so you overlook the red flags. It’s like any bad relationship that way.
Journalists probably got suckered in part because this story played so neatly into the ‘player loses loved one and is inspired to lead the team to victory’ trope. It does sound like the scheme could’ve unraveled if someone had tried to reach Kekua through Stanford or looked for details about her funeral, for example. That said, if they had gotten her number they probably would have wound up on the phone (or exchanging emails) with Tei pretending to be Kekua, so that doesn’t mean they would have figured it out. The original story is not unbelievable at all: player dates girl who dies of cancer. It’s when you hear details like the fact that they had never met in person that it sounds obviously fake. And OK, the stuff SI published about the letters she left for him is kind of ridiculous. But Te’o and his family perpetuated the hoax out of embarrassment (or so they say, and it sounds increasingly credible), and Te’o didn’t say anything in his press conference before the championship game. This kind of story is more suited for sites like Deadspin than it is for ESPN and SI, and Deadspin did a good job here.
Embarrassed for not having dug up dirt on a college student’s girlfriend?
Sports journalism exists in a strange place, especially at a place like ESPN. They have a financial interest in the very things they are supposed to be covering as journalists. We’re not talking about advertisers here, but the essence of their network is the very sports they are supposed to be objectively covering. ESPN is the most obvious example of this, but they aren’t alone. And then there is the idea of access, good sports reporting requires access to people and goodwill with various organizations. You want to interview Chip Kelly? Better not have pissed off the Eagles at this point. So difficult questions aren’t always asked or pursued and certain details are not questioned, the benefit is hardly outweighed by the gain. Te’o is a nice guy, nice enough to do an interview, Notre Dame is a valued sports partner, if he politely asks you not to talk to his girlfriends family, you don’t. Why would you? What are the chances it’s going to get you anything more than a couple of quotes anyway at the risk of pissing off the player and the University. The chances there is anything worth looking into are probably small, right?
Having said that, there were red flags that it is surprising no one looked into. No pictures of them together, no info anywhere about a car accident or here death other than stories linked to Te’o. it was there, they just weren’t wired to look for it.
Per AD/independent investigation. He was duped. He found out Dec 6 when “she” called him - alive and well. He discussed with his family over Christmas break. He told ND/coaches Dec. 26. The Te’o’s were going to release the hoax story next week - but deadspin beat them. I’m sure they’ll be telling us their side soon.
You have to believe the AD to believe the above. I do.
Te’o is only guilty of not letting an online relationship blossom into something more. The feelings/emotions/belief in her were all the real, the facts of perception of physically meeting were not squashed/corrected. If she was in fact real, the perception is not that big a deal - the fact it turned out to be a hoax makes it seem like a big deal.
What you said about the conflict of interest in sports journalism is true, but I think the above is the major issue here: the reliance on organizations for athletes and the chummy nature of the relationship between writers covering sports and some of the athletes they cover. There’s the tendency to get star struck, the desire to build up a hero, and the fact that if the athlete thinks you’re being too harsh or critical, he stops talking to you and you lose out on stories- so doing your job may hurt your ability to do your job. That’s a problem for all journalists who need access, but in sports it’s a bigger problem.
Yeah, I’ll agree with that part. It sort of sounds like nobody ever Googled her or looked her up on Facebook or asked to speak to her (before she “died”).
That and being extremely, extremely credulous, anyway.
Assuming Notre Dame’s story is true then they fucked up. They had a responsibility to immediately come out and tell folks the stories were false. Instead they held on to the story and launched some sort of investigation for some unknown reason.
Yea, that was my thought as well. ESPN presumably reports tidbits on hundreds of players families and romantic lives. I sort of presume they take that stuff at the athletes word. It would be kind of crazy for them to put a lot of effort into getting a second source for what kind of cat Tim Tebow owns, or if LeBron James is really as close to his grandmother as he claims.
They launched the investigation to figure out the facts.
And its not their responsibility at all.
From stories I’ve seen today, his fellow ND players think he’s at least partially full of it. He definitely milked the story for all it was worth, and other guys on the football team thought it was ridiculous that he referred to the girl as his girlfriend, even back in September.
They knew enough already, she was fake and she didn’t die. As this was a narrative pushed by their Athletic Department and their star player, of course they have a responsibly to make correct it as soon as they know it to be false. Waiting for the results of some sort of investigation is nonsense.