What's happening today in the media:
Following Oprah's much-hyped Thursday night interview, the Washington Post's Fact Checker asks, "Is Lance Armstrong the world's biggest liar?" And the verdict...
Armstrong, unlike some other sports heroes, has not been charged or convicted of criminal perjury. But his lies are monumental, endured for years and were aimed at creating an image that made him famous, wealthy and an inspiration for people with cancer. He was the ringleader of lying on his team -- and he kept lying even after many of his co-conspirators and teammates had abandoned him.
It is a record of shame that he has only begun to confront reluctantly and under pressure -- after almost his entire professional career has been wiped from the pages of history. Armstrong earns Four Pinocchios -- for each Tour de France race in which he claimed he won first place without doping.
-- Big-time sports media isn't looking too good in light of Deadspin's scoop that Manti Te'o's girlfriend not only didn't die, but didn't exist. NY Times public editor Margaret Sullivan caught up with sports editor Joe Sexton about how the Times had covered Te'o' and his nonexistent girlfriend.
"The death of his grandmother and ostensible girlfriend were never the focus of any article we did. They were mentioned, glancingly, as part of the accepted, to date unchallenged public narrative of a prominent athlete. I could never imagine in editing such a story, with the references existing as they did, asking the reporters: Do you know for a fact his grandmother is dead? Do you know for a fact his girlfriend is dead? Do you know for a fact his grandmother existed? Do you know for a fact his girlfriend ever existed? And any editor who tells you they would have or should have asked those questions is kidding you."
-- Ever wonder what Piers Morgan thinks of Andrew Sullivan?
"Andrew Sullivan is a dick," Morgan told Politico. "He's an extremely bitchy, deeply unpleasant, rather confused individual who for whatever reason despises the very spittle I put on the floor. Well, good luck to you, mate. But I couldn't give a toss."
It's not like Sullivan thinks much of Morgan either.
More links:
-- Hearst magazines will appear on Apple's Newsstand before they arrive in print.
-- The Onion's publishing a Joe Biden biography.