Netflix doc revisits Te'o girlfriend story

Instead of digging up the original thread that's nearly 10 years (!!) old, figured I'd start fresh with the recent release of a Netflix doc about the Te'o/Kekua story.

To keep it central to the board, there are now a lot of questions about the original Deadspin piece, which seems at odds with Teo consistently saying that he wasn't involved in the hoax. Lots of interesting layers to this, especially considering that's probably the biggest legit story during Deadspin's best days.

Timothy Burke, one of the authors, just shared the original Google Doc they used when working on the story: te'o story questions

 

Just started this last night. Only got about 30 minutes in but think it's good. There's already a lot of stuff I had totally forgotten about, or never knew.

I was never a huge fan of Deadspin, but I read that one for sure.

 

Deadspin passing the buck on everything that came after was so smarmy and low class

“we just wanted to dunk on SI and espn!!” Irresponsible dopes

 

Deadspin's piece is reliant upon some of the same issues as the hagiographic stories that initially propped up the T'eo story, particularly the South Bend Tribune.

Namely, it is too reliant on a single source or a biased source.

South Bend Tribune did these stories and not once connected with the girlfriend's family. Neither family ever met. Alarm bells should've gone off when a public figure says Person A really matters in their life but no one in Person A' s orbit has ever met that influential person.

And Deadspin did a terrible job of managing its credibility for this. The 80% sure quote, the assumptions that T'eo is involved...all wouldn't make it past the edit pen in most newsrooms.

Sloppy original stories. Sloppy investigative stories.

 

Manti Te'o documentary was very good

 

I kept watching the Te'o doc waiting for for Manti to, I don't know, sound like he has matured from a gullible rube to a grown-ass man who realizes he got taken?

Never really felt that evolution. He still feels hella gullible, and I want to go sell him some prime real estate.

rb

 

The shows under the same title on Mardy Fish and the Malice at the Palace were excellent. Highly, highly recommend them.

 

I thought the Malice at the Palace one was very underwhelming, actually turned it off halfway through. Honestly, came into it skeptically because I saw on the intro credits that Jermaine O’Neal was a producer. Way too Pacers-centric, as if they were using the doc as a platform to talk about the team they could have been but never were.

 

If I had to guess, I'd say Manti Te'o is deep in the closet.

Given his religious background, he might not have known on-line girlfriend wss fake but she certainly was convenient.

 

I thought the same. He seems like an utter moron regardless.

 

I have not seen the Netflix documentary, but I can only assume it's compelling based on the sheer volume of podcast time devoted to it these past two weeks.

 

From a sports journalism perspective, the biggest thing that I found interesting was Jack Dickey was merely an intern at Deadspin when the story published. And yet, despite being fresh at the company, he nailed the Deadspin ethos of "Let's stick it to ESPN as much as possible."