On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 2:59 PM, Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote:
> ESPN was tipped to the Te'o story being a hoax a day before Deadspin. > Deadspin beat them to publishing the story because ESPN executives demanded > a comment by Te'o before allowing the story to go live. The article also > raises the possibility that ESPN was too cautious because they air all > those college football bowl games, especially the national championship > game. > > I'm posting this to the list because I find two things relevant to recent > discussions: the question of ESPN's reticence to make the story public > (they claimed to hold the story for further research but the Deadspin > writer says that none of his on-the-record sources talked to ESPN), and > what happened with Te'o after Deadspin published - ESPN wanted an on-camera > interview, but Te'o's agent dictated access to him and decided among all > offers to give the on camera interview to Katie Couric. I think the second > point answers Kevin's point about why journalism is failing these days. > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/sports/ncaafootball/as-debate-raged-at-espn-manti-teo-story-slipped-from-its-hands.html?pagewanted=all > I think the first point tells us a lot about ESPN in particular. I believe the article says that ESPN held the story because they were holding out for an on-camera comment from Teo, suggesting that in addition to the obvious and intense conflicts of interest at play in Bristol, their rigid adherence to getting video that makes for "good tv" can get in the way of good journalism. Later, with egg all over their faces, they were forced to swallow an audio-only interview which, frankly, was lame. I just watched the Katie interview, and like Oprah she did not do a bad job. She asked most of the right questions, and within the context of her afternoon ladies talk show, kept the heat dialed up fairly high. We had to suffer though 10 minutes of family and audience tears at the end, but I suppose that is par for this course. I think what she needed was 10 minutes with one of the Deadspin guys after the interview to get their take on the interview; surely they would have put it in a different and more objective frame. Even if we assume that everything Teo is now saying is the truth, what it adds up to is that he told lies (e.g. that he had actually met the girl, told first to his father, but then he allowed them to be repeated in dozens of media stories, not only without correcting them, but answering questions based on the premise that they were true), mislead the nation via lies of omission (e.g. referring to the girl as the "love of my life", while witholding the fact that he had never met her, and only knew her from online chatting and phone conversations), and lied explicitly to the media saying she had died of cancer when to the best of his knowledge that was not true. Why did he do all of this? He says he was embarrassed for his family to know he had never met her, and then later caught up and over his head with the media attention and pressure and expectations. But that is another way of saying that he realized that intense national media attention to his "tragic story and inspiring triumph" made him look good, and helped his chances of winning awards - and ultimately a hell of a lot of additional money as that would translate into a higher draft position in the NFL. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
