Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate this year’s Woodward and Bernstein.
Timothy Burke (Scripps, BSJ Broadcast News ’99) and Jack Dickey of the popular sports website Deadspin.com are just that: the early heroes of 2013 in the world of journalism.
What did they do? Well, actually, they did what us journalists are taught in college. They simply fact-checked, and because they did, they were able to write the story of the year. They proved that Manti Te’o, superstar linebacker from the University of Notre Dame and top flight NFL prospect, had been involved in one of the largest hoaxes the sports world has ever seen.
It involved Te’o’s supposed girlfriend, who had apparently been in a car accident, developed leukemia and died, leaving Te’o to dedicate his entire season to her. It provided breathtaking moments, and major media outlets such as ESPN were eating this story up right out of his hand.
One problem: said girlfriend doesn’t, and never did, exist.
While others were producing long segments on the powerful story Te’o had brought to the press, Burke and Dickey were confirming if this woman existed at all, something more predominant media outlets figured was a waste of time.
Now caught in a lie, Te’o claims he never met the girl but just got to know her online. It is now being confirmed that one of his friends was behind the fake girlfriend, and it’s unknown whether Te’o was involved, though reasonable thought leads one to assume he was in it to gain some publicity, as he is known as an attention-craver.
And oh, how sweet the victory was when the story broke.
Once it was out there that Te’o was enveloped in a monumental lie, ESPN had to credit its arch-nemesis at Deadspin, a website that bashes the sports media mogul daily, for delivering the news they didn’t have the brains to uncover themselves.
Trust me, it’s as outrageous as Fox News admitting a mistake, or worse, siding with Obama.
What makes it even more interesting is that this story doesn’t matter. That’s right. It’s meaningless, harmless and stupid. Te’o will still be a first-round pick, will still get paid millions, will still inevitably date hot women (just hopefully not via the Internet). It’s not as if he cheated the game or broke the law, something far more athletes have been guilty of recently (see: Lance Armstrong).
And that’s where this story gets even sweeter for the two men who were brave enough to do what we are all taught from day one.
Their piece of journalism was too great to be ignored, the lie too compelling to not be covered. This is a story that caught everyone off guard, leaving them with their jaws at the floor.
These writers even got to have the holy grail of ESPN bowing at their online-journalism feet.
So hats off to you, Burke and Dickey. I sincerely hope your names are soon as synonymous with greatness as the two listed in line one.
Allan Smith is the assistant local editor for The Post. What do you think of Te’o’s fake girlfriend? Email him at as299180@ohiou.edu.
