Madison Taylor

The still unraveling story involving Notre Dame’s Heisman Trophy runner-up, linebacker Manti Te’o, and his non-existent girlfriend is a journalism horror story. It’s every cautionary tale from a wise old editor come to life. It’s the sum of all fears when people in our business report stories.

There’s a journalism adage that sums it up neatly, but always makes me squeamish. It goes like this:

“We don’t report the truth. We report what people tell us.”

And so it’s left for multiple news agencies who told readers and viewers the heart-wrenching story of Te’o and a girlfriend by the name of Lennay Kekua, who reportedly died of Leukemia within hours of the actual death of Te’s grandmother on the day the Irish played Michigan State. Te’o went out and had one of his best games, while battling the compounded grief.

It’s the kind of story Lifetime channel movies are made of. It was repeated in newspapers, magazines — including venerable Sports Illustrated — on TV and via the Internet. Before then-unbeaten Notre Dame played Alabama is was a major plot line via ESPN.

Only it’s not exactly right. In fact, it’s way wrong.

Deadspin.com, a website dedicated to media and sports coverage, spent untold hours unraveling what is said to be a hoax perpetrated on Te’o, perhaps by someone he knows well. Deadspin found a vacuum of material about Te’o’s alleged girlfriend — who was purported to be a Stanford co-ed. If other sites spent the amount of time and effort Deadspin did to this story, there would be no questions at all about anything in government.

For example: Deadspin found no death certificate for Lennay Kekua, no obit and no funeral service. There is no record that anyone by that name attended Stanford University. There is no birth record. A widely reported car accident she was involved in had no police report.

What Lennay Kekua was, was an online entity, reachable via Twitter. Even the photo that accompanied her posts were that of a woman whose image was stolen from her Facebook page without her knowledge.

Welcome to the digital world.

And then, of course, the story took on a life of its own. So far, it’s difficult to tell where the hoax begins or ends. There are multiple accounts of people saying that Te’o spoke of seeing Lennay Kekua face to face. But what’s not clear is if Te’o told these stories, or if such details sprang from family members, to whom Te’o wasn’t very honest. Notre Dame and Te’o both contend that it was an online only relationship and that Te’o is crushed by this turn of events.

That will all be sorted out over time, no doubt, After all, Te’o still has a pro football career ahead of him.

But troubling journalism questions remain — and none of the answers will be pretty. It all boils down to this:

“We don’t report the truth. We report what people tell us.”

Indeed, reporters have walked a tightrope for years. Every day we go to events where someone might not be exactly honest. Writers have a couple of hours to turn those stories in, and sometimes just a few moments until the words are placed on a page to go on a press. Online, stories go up immediately.

And while some facts are easy to check on the fly, other times it’s not so simple.

When I worked for the Jacksonville Daily News, for example, we often ran into people who claimed to be Vietnam veterans. We caught a few in that lie when things about their ages or experiences didn’t add up. On another occasion, a woman claimed to be the daughter of a Marine killed in the Beirut barracks bombing in 1983. She was widely accepted by a survivor’s organization attached to that awful event. Only she wasn’t related to anyone among the 241 service members killed there.

In another Jacksonville case, we wrote a feature about a blind woman from Eastern Europe who came to America. She began working at a place where people could ride horses for therapy. She was highly touted by all in the community as a feel-good story about someone who had overcome incredible odds. She was a friend of the sheriff.

Only as it turned out, she was neither blind, nor from Eastern Europe. She was a fraud.

And at the Times-News we had a situation a few months ago. One of our reporters attended a memorial event. One of the people she spoke to claimed to have been an employee with a fire-rescue outfit near Washington on the day of the 9/11 attacks. A representative of that Virginia-based organization contacted us to say this person never worked there.

It’s the kind of thing that could happen every day. We have neither the time nor the resources to check the employment or other records of the dozens of people we speak to just to publish the newspaper by the next morning. That said, this kind of stuff usually comes back to haunt those who mislead our reporters. Every case I mentioned above had an unpleasant ending.

In the case of Manti Te’o, there were red flags. Some media outlets have admitted to not finding an obituary and asking to speak with the girlfriend’s alleged family. Te’o aided to the subterfuge — knowingly or not — by saying the funeral was private and that the family did not wish to be disturbed at such a distressing time. Plausible, but still a red flag when no obituary information can be found of any kind.

Makes me think of something I used to tell reporters in Jacksonville when they came to me with conflicting information from a source. “Uh-oh, this person’s a bad pony and I’m not going to bet on (him/her).”

And there’s the matter of Notre Dame’s sports information department. Usually things stated by a high-profile athlete on campus are pretty thoroughly vetted. Journalists have come to rely on it.

Perhaps too much so.

The lessons for journalists are as old as the business itself. Check everything, if humanly possible. And if the story doesn’t add up, spike it.

In the Boneheaded Social Media Posts Department put this one near the top.

This rather disturbing message was placed on the news feed for @thetimesnews on Twitter. It happened on Sunday. And if true, it would perhaps constitute the most terrifying social media post of all time.

Yes, such a thing would be clear signal to immediately alert the local authorities, call the FBI, bring in the National Guard, have the state Highway Patrol block all road accesses and by all means call in Batman.

Terrifying, right?

The good news is, Monday passed without widespread mayhem. The day passed with remarkable calm in Alamance County. Batman could take the day off.

Of course, the post was a mistake — and a pretty bad one — by the person who typed it. The post was supposed to read, “Murder trial starts Monday in Alamance County.”

Pretty big difference I’d say.

Now some might wonder who the boob is who wrote this original post. Well, in this case, that boob would be … me.

Yes, I’m the author of this particular boneheaded social media post. We don’t have any one person responsible for populating our social media sites with content. It’s a job passed around to a few people in our department. And on weekends, I’m sometimes the one.

Now, brain farts while typing aren’t uncommon. That’s why editors were invented over the objections of writers. But in a world where few editors exist the job falls upon others. On Twitter or Facebook it’s up to readers to catch the typing mishaps which happen from time to time.

That led to this exchange on Twitter several hours after I posed the original blood-curdling message.

I’m trying to make light of the situation because I can. And thanks to Amanda for pointing out the error.

 But it’s also a reminder to proofread what we post on social media at all times. I never want to give anyone the wrong idea — or a p0tentially horrifying one.

 In this day and time folks can’t be too careful.