Caveat Emptor! Lance, Manti and Believing the Sports Media

If you happen to take your inspiration from sports figures, last week was not your week. First, Lance Armstrong confessed that his Tour de France titles were fueled by blood doping and performance enhancing drugs. Next, Deadspin.com reported that the most “heartbreaking and inspirational story of the college football season” was a hoax. Turns out Manti Te’o’s deceased girlfriend Lennay Kekua, to whom the Notre Dame linebacker dedicated much of his play this season, was never real. These revelations are shocking to be sure—Armstrong’s for the sheer duration of his previous denials and Te’o’s for the sheer weirdness. The idea, however, that these revelations will make the sports media change the way it reports them is as much an illusion as Kekua herself.

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News Week in Review- 10/15-10/21

Binders Full of Women

With a new, increasingly plugged-in generation coming of voting age, this election is arguably the first where social media has played a substantial role in the race. While most voters were simply happy that Tuesday night’s Presidential Debate was actually watchable, the internet took particular delight in some of the candidates’ more colorful slips of the tongue. Case in point: within minutes of Mitt Romney’s now infamous “binders full of women” comment, there were new Facebook pages, Tumblrs, and several Twitter hashtags and handles poking fun at the gaffe. Read More