Media MonsterNCAA Football

Let’s See How America’s Newspapers Are Treating This Manti Te’o Story, Shall We?

Much of the discussion that originates on the internet more or less stays there. The case of star Notre Dame linebacker/Heisman runner-up Manti Te’o's fake dead girlfriend was pretty clearly not going to be that kind of story. In fact, few sports stories have ever moved from the internet to traditional mainstream media more quickly: Deadspin published the story at 4:10 p.m. yesterday, and it was leading off Pardon the Interruption by 5:30 and got covered on the 6 p.m. SportsCenter.

And if the story made the rounds that quickly, it was a foregone conclusion that it would be all over newspapers – especially those from Te’o's home state of Hawaii and those in Notre Dame’s general vicinity – the following morning. And sure enough, it was. The tone of the headlines varied, but the headlines were there, and more often than not, they were loud. We’ve collected several of the most prominent of those headlines below, a snapshot of the reaction to one of the most stunning, bizarre stories we’ve seen come along in some time. All photos via Newseum except one via the New York Post:

Depending on where this story goes from here, there may be more front pages yet to come. We’re not even going to try predict what might be coming next.. but whenever Te’o does an interview, we will be highly interested to see what he says.

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