Manti Te’o lied about his girlfriend. We know that. The evidence suggests that he knew about the hoax and participated in it. We know that.
So instead let’s discuss the most mind boggling part of this crazy story. No, not the reason why Te’o lied to the country and lived a lie in the national spotlight—he craziest part of this story is that ESPN essentially knew it was bull and ran the story anyway!
ESPN reporter Gene Wojciechowski wrote and produced a piece on Te’o’s heartbreaking story for the “Worldwide Leader.” While reporting, Wojciechowski stumbled on some red flags.
“…[I]n researching it before I wrote the script, I remember trying to find an obituary for his girlfriend and could not,” he said on SportsCenter the night the Deadspin story that outed Te’o’s girlfriend as fake ran. “And couldn’t find any record of this car accident.”
Wojciechowski brought his concerns to Te’o, who essentially told him not to worry about it. Then he finished writing the story and produced it.
The piece aired and everyone felt bad for Te’o, who springboarded to a near-successful Heisman campaign.
It nearly worked out for everyone. Te’o almost got the recognition and ESPN got the ratings. But some reporters did their actual job.
What planet is this? Is this a dream? ESPN had the actual story of the year in their stupid hands and then blew it.
People mock Deadspin for being unintelligent and most times that’s true. But ESPN is even stupider. All journalistic integrity was thrown out of the window with the bathwater so they could produce a tearjerker sob story—a story that they knew stood on shaky ground.
Ugh.
ESPN, Manti Te’o and Gene Wojciechowski are the worst.
Mike Hopey is a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in journalism and media studies. He can be reached at hopey@mail.usf.edu.
