Actually, I did believe a couple of things Lance Armstrong said. He called himself an “arrogant prick.” Highly believable.  Then when he began an answer by saying, “Why would anyone believe me now?”

Indeed, Armstrong knows he has as much credibility as Jon Lovitz’s liar character on SNL. Do you believe him when he said he wasn’t doping in his last two Tour de France races? If you do, I’ve got a story to tell you about Manti Te’o’s girlfriend.

You couldn’t believe a word Armstrong said Thursday during part one of his big interview. The guy is a serial liar and always will be.

Still, it made for good TV. Oprah Winfrey did a good job for the most part. Opening with quick yes-no questions on the key issues was solid scene-setter. I do think Winfrey missed the opportunity for some follow-up questions, especially on Armstrong’s Italian doctor.

But Winfrey did make Armstrong squirm. There was some satisfaction in watching his humiliation. I’ll tune in for round 2 tonight.

Here’s a round-up of what they’re writing today:

Richard Deitsch, SI.com:

It was interesting theater, at least for those who could find the  little-watched network, and a night where the interviewer came off far better  than her subject.

Winfrey wasted little time in asking Armstrong a series of yes-or-no  questions, including whether he had used the blood booster EPO, whether he had  used cortisone and HGH, and whether he doped for each of his seven Tour de  France victories. He answered “yes,” to each of her first five questions and  then said he did not believe it would have been possible to win the Tour seven  times had he not doped. On the surface, it was curious choice by Winfrey to opt  for such closed-ended questions at the start, but it worked. Armstrong’s  affirmative answers shifted immediate power to Winfrey and she controlled most  of the 90-minute interview, even if the former cyclist was often light on the  details to queries.

Bonnie Ford, ESPN.com:

It was a typical Lance Event, although it was about as far from the bike as it gets. It was about spectacle and managed production and trying to craft another chapter in a punctured epic that has lost its helium and sunk to earth.

It was about what it is always about with Lance Armstrong: hubris and control, the same tightly intertwined strands of his DNA that convinced him he would never be exposed, that the dozens and dozens of people privy to his pyramid scheme would remain muzzled forever.

It was desperate. And huge chunks of it ranged from disingenuous to unbelievable. There was far too much defiance and contradiction of evidence and abdication of responsibility to respond to in one column, although I will start by saying that I don’t believe for a minute that he was clean in his comeback. And we’ve seen only half the footage from the Oprah Winfrey interview.

Philip Hersh, Chicago Tribune:

Armstrong’s admissions in many areas were incomplete, and that failure to tell the whole truth for whatever reasons — legal protection or more defiance — will continue to impugn his credibility. His failure to make a public apology for the lies he told about other people also undermined Armstrong’s attempt to turn the interview to his benefit.

Christine Brennan, USA Today:

If it was possible to like Lance Armstrong even less, his 90-minute interview with Winfrey on Thursday night went a long way to accomplishing that fact. If he was hoping to win over some supporters in the court of public opinion while trying to return to some semblance of public life less than three months after being officially banned and stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, it’s hard to imagine how he might have accomplished that.

He was even more unlikable than one might have imagined. He was smug. He was curt. He was cold and unfeeling. And he doesn’t yet seem to get what he’s in for if he ever wants to even consider having a chance to come back to compete someday in age-group triathlons and marathons.

Will Leitch, Sports on Earth:

Rather than pile on Lance Armstrong after watching Part One of his interview with Oprah Winfrey on Thursday night, I decided to do some math.

Yes/No Questions Asked By Oprah in the first 20 seconds: 6

Times Lance touched his chest: 7

Times Lance said the word “technically”: 2

Times Lance said “biological passport”: 3

Times Lance said “absolutely not”: 5

Times Lance denied something: 27

Times Lance admitted something: 28

Times Lance said “I deserve this”: 2

You can be sure Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey’s reporting on the Manti Te’o story is being dissected at journalism schools throughout the country. They did a solid job putting together the pieces of this incredible puzzle. They set a new standard for reporting through social media.

Yet I have a quibble with their story, and it isn’t insignificant. The end of the post includes this passage:

A friend of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo told us he was “80 percent sure” that Manti Te’o was “in on it,” and that the two perpetrated Lennay Kekua’s death with publicity in mind. According to the friend, there were numerous photos of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and Te’o together on Tuiasosopo’s now-deleted Instagram account.

The “80 percent sure” was cited in most news accounts as possible evidence that Te’o was in on the hoax.

If I’m the editor, I don’t let that quote go through. Who was this friend of Tuiasosopo? Was this person also involved? Friends have a tendency to talk out of school. Maybe this person exaggerated the quote just to be part of the story?

Also, how can Deadspin be sure there were pictures of Te’o with Tuiasosopo?

Also, there’s the “80 percent” angle. What does that mean? Obviously, the person isn’t sure.

So now you’re running an incredibly damning quote from a single source who likely doesn’t know the complete story. 80 percent sure is long way from 100 percent sure in this instance.

And even if that friend was certain, most editors would require a corroborating source or two before running such an allegation. It is the only place in the story where Te’o is linked to being more than a victim of a hoax. The strong allegation is too much to hang on one person.

Clearly, there are plenty of questions for Te’o. However, using that “80 percent sure” quote wasn’t fair to him in this instance.

Mallary Jean Tenore of Poynter interviewed Deadspin editor Tommy Craggs about the Manti Te’o story. I’ll have further analysis of the piece, but my initial take was that Deadspin did a solid job.

From the post:

What sort of editing went into the piece?

Craggs: From the start, Tim Burke and Jack Dickey kept a running notes file in Google Docs that acted as a skeleton for both their reporting and for the story itself. They asked themselves the obvious questions, Socratically: Who is the person in the photos? Where was Lennay Kekua born? When was Lennay Kekua born? Where did Lennay Kekua live? Did Lennay Kekua attend Stanford? When was Lennay Kekua’s car accident? When did Lennay Kekua die? [Then they] set about answering them, through public records and media reports.

There was a fat pile of the latter, contradictions and all, and absolutely nothing of the former. From there, the story wrote itself. That’s all pretty obvious, and anyone who reports a story goes through at least a mental catechism like this. But putting it all on the page made the holes in the Lennay story plain to see.

What sorts of questions did the editor ask to make sure that this was a thoroughly reported story?

We began reporting on Friday. By Monday, Burke had found and contacted the woman in the Lennay photos. Once we had her on the record, we knew we had enough for a story. By Tuesday, we had a draft.

The only question, really: What lengths do we go to to try and prove a negative? Do we call funeral homes in Carson (we did)? Do we call funeral homes *near* Carson (we didn’t)? Once we got an answer from Stanford on the question of Lennay’s enrollment, I was satisfied.

All sorts of reaction this morning to the most incredible story I can recall. Many are blaming reporters like Sports Illustrated’s Pete Thamel and ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski, who did big high-profile reports on Manti Te’o, for not confirming that the girlfriend actually existed and that she actually died.

Writes Josh Levin at Slate:

If Thamel or anyone else at SI had used Nexis or Google, they would’ve discovered that Lennay Kekua (not to mention her brother and sister) didn’t exist. A reporter doesn’t expect to learn that his subject’s dead girlfriend is nothing but a fake Twitter avatar. But a reporter, especially at a fact-checked magazine like SI, also doesn’t generally put someone’s name into print and say that she smashed up her car on April 28 without confirming the spelling and the wreckage. That assumption of basic competence filters down to everyone else in the sports media ecosystem: If Manti Te’o’s story of woe is in Sports Illustrated, then it must be true.

Later, Levin writes:

Manti Te’o was a sports hero, and his standout play this year demanded the details to flesh out that storyline. There’s a journalistic cliché: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. For sports hagiographers, it’s more like: If he makes a lot of tackles, don’t you dare check anything. Stardom demands that feature writers color in the lines with off-field greatness. And Te’o’s character, it seemed, was unimpeachable. After all, there had been all these stories about how humble and religious he was, and how he’d been led to Notre Dame to do something.

Regarding Wojciechowski, he said he did try to find an obituary for the dead girlfriend and a newspaper account of her accident. However, I’m sure he did it to try to learn more details about the girl in effort to personalize the story. He wasn’t trying to confirm that she actually existed.

Wojciechowski also said he asked Te’o for a picture of the girl. Te’o responded that the family wanted to remain private. Wojciechowski decided to respect that privacy.

I’ve known Wojciechowski for more than 20 years. He is at the top of his class when it comes to being a thorough and diligent reporter.

Really, who among us out there wouldn’t have done the same thing? Name me a reporter who says, “Sorry to hear about your loss, Manti. Can I see a copy of the death certificate?”

Michael Rosenberg on SI.com writes:

The question is: Who got duped?

Well, most of media, for one. This includes Sports Illustrated — we put Te’o on our cover in October, and the story includes Te’o talking about his girlfriend dying. I didn’t write the story, but I’m going to be honest here and say I could have written the story.

Other media outlets had already written about Te’o’s girlfriend dying, and Te’o talked about it … I mean, we’re all supposed to have b.s. detectors in this business, but mine would not have gone off there. Evidently, I’m not alone, because dozens of media outlets mentioned the girlfriend without wondering if she existed. In that situation, a reporter tries to talk to her family, other people who knew her — you fill in the edges of the story. But if you don’t get a hold of those people, would you really think “Hey, this is probably just a hoax, and this girlfriend doesn’t exist”? Be honest.

Exactly.

In this new world, if a player’s grandma dies, he/she better have a death certificate handy. Right? And a picture too.

Otherwise, we’re not running the story. Is that what it is going to come to?

My goodness.

Sally Jenkins, who wrote two books with Lance Armstrong and had been a staunch defender, appeared on the Charlie Rose Show Tuesday. Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Blog transcribed the interview.

Here are some excerpts:

Rose: Did he apologize to you?

Jenkins: He did. He did.

Rose: And what did he say?

Jenkins: He said he was sorry for misleading me. He said he was sorry — and this is a very small thing — but he expressed that he was sorry that my reputation had taken a hit because of my association with him, which I appreciated. And it wasn’t a very long conversation, but it was a meaningful one to me. I had hoped he was clean. He’s not. Am I angry about that? You know, I don’t rise to the level of anger that I think a lot of people want me to. I think that there’s a level of anger at Lance that is out of proportion to the offense of doping.

Rose: Why do you say that?

Jenkins: Because let’s face it, he’s a bicyclist. I don’t condone doping, I don’t condone breaking the rules. What I have said to him and what I’ve written is that I forgive him. I don’t condone it, but I forgive him. I think that doping is so endemic in cycling, apparently, that it was the price of competing in that era. Do I agree with it? Do I like it? No. I don’t have the heart to be full of rage at him. I just don’t. People are going to have to accept that I don’t feel that for him. I feel disappointment. But he’s my friend.

******

Rose: But there’s also this aspect of intimidation and threats…that is to many people believable.

Jenkins: Right. I think that that’s what he’s going to have to address with Oprah. I think it’s certainly equal to the doping, to be honest. Quite honestly, I thought that was the most damaging stuff in the USADA report. I think those are the toughest questions for him. You know, the Lance Armstrong that I know and that I have dealt with has never been threatening. He’s certainly complicated. He’s certainly flawed. He is certainly angry, at times, and combative. He’s never been menacing. Now, that’s my personal experience with him, and I’m a friend. I would not want to meet him as an adversary, I can say that. I think that he’s got some work to do to persuade people that that Lance Armstrong – the threatening, the intimidating Lance Armstrong that’s been portrayed – he’s got some work to do to convince people that that’s a mis-portrayal.