Full of Shit

Is everybody full of shit?

The latest shattered public narrative is that of Manti Te’o, the Notre Dame who admitted his girlfriend, who he said died of cancer a few months ago, did not actually exist. I have been oddly fascinated by this. The media had extensively reported on the existence of the dead long-distance girlfriend but I had never before heard of this story (probably because I don’t follow college sports).

I don’t buy it that Te’o was the victim of some hoax. I think he was in on it. He appears to have changed his tune about whether or not he ever met her. There are cynics who say Te’o made this whole thing up to aid his campaign for the Heisman Trophy and some other people think he made up the girlfriend as a beard since he was intimidated by coming out. Maybe he’s just a young, single guy who made up a hot girlfriend who lived somewhere else and then one lie led to another and it got out of hand. (Then why kill her off in dramatic fashion? Why not just say “we broke up” and lose track of her?) I don’t know what to make of this soap opera.

What I do know is that I don’t feel betrayed by this deception because I never bought into the story, since I had been unaware of the story until yesterday. I feel bad for the guy because he’s been so humiliated over something that doesn’t really affect the public that much. What I do feel betrayed by is the concept of accurate reporting, which does have ramifications for the public. Here are some questions:

In the whole time numerous mainstream media outlets reported this guy and his girlfriend, nobody thought to look her up and interview her? It’s not like she lived on the moon. You can track down anybody these days but nobody bothered.

Nobody looked into the inconsistencies of the given dates of death of his girlfriend and grandmother? Some accounts said they died hours apart and some said the girlfriend died days later. If you were Te’o or his family, wouldn’t every detail of those deaths be seared into you, especially that this was only a few months ago? I remember the dates and sequence of events surrounding my grandparents’ deaths, including just what was happening when I got the news and I’m sure most other people remember such details.

I don’t know why nobody dug deeper. Maybe it’s due to a lack of resources at media organizations. Maybe nobody in the media wanted to doubt the story — guy’s girlfriend dies of cancer the same day (roughly) as his grandmother dies and guy goes out and kicks ass on the football field — since it was “too good to check,” as the journalism saying goes. Maybe Notre Dame went along with the feel-good fiction to cover up the fact that they have (ahem) a football player rape scandal.

Any way you play it, it’s embarrassing to the industry that no reporter at any venerable institution was diligent enough to check on these details until Deadspin did some phenomenal reporting work.

A liar who offends me more is Lance Armstrong. What bothers me wasn’t so much the fact that he doped because other cyclists were probably doing the same. What bothers me is that he lied repeatedly about it for years, going so far as to sue and intimidate people who tried to blow the whistle on him. He intimated to Oprah that he had sued so many people for accusing him of doping that he couldn’t remember them all. What bothers me is that he was an asshole about it for years and used cancer as a shield against criticism.

I’m sure Livestrong did do good for cancer but that doesn’t mean he’s not still an asshole. One person can do right and wrong at the same time and the contradiction shouldn’t blow people’s minds. People can contain multitudes.

The next time we debate “are athletes role models” or “where have the heroes gone,” that’s a key point to keep in mind: People can be heroes and villains. Nobody is as perfect as you want him to be.