Media culpa

 Perspective lends wisdom, or so the wise say. It's one of those eternal verities that only become eternal verities with, well, perspective.

("The hell does that mean, Mr. Blob?" you're asking now. "You trying to go all philosopher on us, and hit Jim Morrison instead?") 

Well ... maybe.

But the rest of that thought is perspective sometimes lends other things, too. Like, say, the overwhelming urge to say "What the hell were we thinking?"

Watched the Netflix doc about Manti Te'o and his imaginary girlfriend last night, and I came away from it with an enormous sense of shame. Like most of American media, I weighed in on the whole bizarre story, too. I fed with just as much frenzy on it. And I speculated with just as little restraint as everyone else.

Ten years later, watching it all unfold again, I marvel at how easily I was duped into thinking the  victim of a cruel hoax was less sinned against than sinning.  

Somehow, in tone at the very least, a lot of us insinuated it was his own fault, because who develops a relationship with someone he's never met? We questioned his motives for keeping the truth from us even as he was still trying to figure it all out himself. We even speculated he orchestrated the whole thing because he was gay and was trying to hide it. 

Rock bottom in all that was when Te'o was asked point-blank on national TV if he was gay. He handled that question a lot better than I would have.

In the end, disgustingly, even the NFL succumbed to the victim-blaming, apparently deciding it meant Te'o had some sort of flaw in his character. No one will ever admit it, but why else would he have dropped to the second round after being projected by everyone as a mid-first round pick?

Crazy. Absolutely, batshite crazy.

Ten years removed now, I can see how the way the media covered this story said far more about it than about Manti Te'o. I can see that running roughshod over a 21-year-old kid who'd just lost his grandmother, and speculating that he made up the girlfriend and her death, was not exactly a shining moment in American journalism. 

Maybe someone, in some newsroom, stopped to ask why one of the most famous college athletes in America would need to concoct an immensely elaborate dead-girlfriend narrative for publicity. Or do it to hide his alleged sexual orientation in 2012 America.

I would hope someone did that. 'Cause that would have been thinking like a reporter.

I defend journalists a lot these days, because so many in America bash them for doing what they do in a free society, which is ask questions some people don't like to be asked. That happened a lot during the term of our 45th president, because he and the truth were so often strangers. It's why 45 called the free press "the enemy of the people," the way tinpot dictators have since time immemorial.

But sometimes the criticisms are on the mark. Sometimes a mea culpa (media culpa?) is not only necessary, but ought to be demanded.

This is one of those times.