In one of the strangest hoaxes to
hit national media coverage, Heisman candidate and Notre Dame football player,
Manti Te’o was apparently duped by someone he developed a relationship with
online. According to reports, Te’o
never actually met his online girlfriend, who supposedly died of cancer shortly
after his grandmother passed away.
Although reporters wrote stories about the hardships with which Te’o was
dealing with while in the running for the Heisman, it appears that none of the
reporters made significant efforts to verify the identity or story of his
girlfriend. Te’o now says that he was
the victim of a cruel hoax, and that his girlfriend, who he had never met in
person, actually never existed. However, Te’o wasn’t the only one who was
duped, the media was too.
