The Manti Te'o Saga

I’m not a big fan of soap operas dominating the sports media world. I figure leave that to the magazines near the grocery checkout line or the news magazine programs after your local news.

My question is what is the fascination with the Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o’s apparent hoax regarding an imaginary girlfriend who died. The details continue to come forward and they will for a few more days. This story needs to go away.

The media is receiving some serious egg on the face here. Somebody, somewhere in this Twitter instant information age forgot to do Journalism 101. I was always taught to make sure you have all the facts. Somebody somewhere forgot that elementary journalism rule. The result: a story is blown way out of proportion. Somehow, a young lady died of a disease but she really didn’t die because in reality there was no such person.

Information or lack of information is a powerful thing. This case reveals the dark side of that equation.