Deadspin is saying Te'o's girlfriend's death was a hoax created for publicity

DCETP said:

Hey Everyone,

I haven't participated in this thread yet, but have been reading stuff as it comes out, including parts of this thread. I wrote my thoughts up for an email over lunch, and figured I would share them here too. I'm sure most of what I have to say has probably already been said but I tried to summarize the way I'm seeing it currently:

First, at this point, both Te'o and Notre Dame are caught in multiple lies, concerning the dates they claim to have discovered the hoax, and public statements or actions they made AFTER those claimed dates, still pretending the girlfriend was real. Everyone is still speculating as to what really happened, but the inconsistency in their story is becoming undeniable.

Furthermore, ND won't release the details of their investigation, and what they have said publicly fails to address much of the information contained in the original Deadspin report, the report that came out several hours BEFORE they and Te'o made their statements. I'm sorry, but ND can't expect the public to take their word on their investigation if they won't make it transparent. There's a really obvious conflict of interest, because ND had so much invested in the girlfriend story prior to all this coming out.


Besides that, the entire mainstream sports media is looking like a bunch of fools, for not doing ANY checking whatsoever on the girlfriend story in the first place (or in some cases doing the checks, and then ignoring the fact that they couldn't find a shred of evidence for the girl's existence from day one). The transcript (released yesterday) of the original Sports Illustrated interview from September is chock full of what should have been seen as obvious red flags, including very questionable statements by Te'o that weren't published at that time, and the reporter's own half-baked attempts at fact-checking that turned up nothing.

It looks like Te'o was, at best, embellishing the facts for personal gain (or allowing them to be embellished), and at worst, outright lying. He's young so you can kind of forgive him, but what he did was wrong and there should be some consequences. Then there was the media, which gave him a complete pass, transforming what could have been a little white lie into a big brown smelly one. Why did they do that? Probably because they automatically hero-worship athletes, and possibly particularly ones who play for Notre Dame. Then, when it became known internally at ND that this was a hoax, I hate to say it, but it kind of looks like they were trying to cover it up. I'm not convinced it would ever have come out, if not for Deadspin, which was a relatively unknown website before Wednesday. In my opinion Notre Dame and the media are both more culpable than Te'o in this situation, but unfortunately he's primarily the one getting his name dragged through the mud at the moment. That may change though: the situation is also lending itself to a rather unflattering comparison with the Lizzy Seeberg case, which frankly is something that ND should be ashamed of. As much as I enjoy seeing a rival get beat by Alabama, this situation has gotten really ugly, really quick.

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