Just like the mainstream media in politics, the old media that failed to unearth the Manti Te’o fake girlfriend hoax is petulantly trying to denigrate an outlet that scooped them.
The Boston Globe, which is owned by the the New York Times, an outlet that also falsely wrote that Te’o’s girlfriend was a “Stanford alumnus,” just could not resist labeling Deadspin, the outlet that sleuthed and revealed that Te’o’s girlfriend had never existed and was a hoax, as an outlet not “regarded for journalistic standards.”
In a story on January 17, the Globe wrote (emphasis added):
“Now, it appears Te’o’s inspiring story was a hoax. According to a report on Deadspin.com, a website that has broken some high-profile stories but not an outlet regarded for journalistic standards, Kekua never existed.”
Though Deadspin’s political leanings are to the left, the website’s shoe-leather journalism in uncovering the Te’o hoax was the type of journalism that the old media, which is losing subscribers, page views, and relevancy, has always claimed it does but often does not practice. Mainstream sports reporters from Sports Illustrated and ESPN–and every other outlet including the Globe and the Times–when reporters visibly ignored obvious red flags to perpetuate what has now been proven to be a hoax. They fell in love with the story–before examining if the story was first true.
And when an online outlet that the mainstream media does not consider a part of its club breaks stories that embarrasses the mainstream organizations, which have more reporters and collective resources, the mainstream press’s only resort it to claim the outlet that out-scooped and outworked them is not “regarded”–by the mainstream press–for it “journalistic standards.”
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