Katie Couric lands Manti Te’o interview

Lance Armstrong presumably booked last week’s doping confession interview with Oprah Winfrey because he knew the former talk show host would be more sympathetic toward him than a journalist from ESPN or “60 Minutes,” which reported his lies as truth for years.

Now another sports figure caught in a high-profile hoax, Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o, has booked his first on-camera interview since news broke that his dead girlfriend didn’t actually exist, and he’s found a similarly sympathetic figure to do it with.

Te’o will appear on “Katie,” Katie Couric’s talk show, on Thursday to discuss the odd case. It’s the biggest interview “get” for Couric since her much-hyped talk show premiered in September.

The sports site Deadspin last week broke the story that Lennay Kekua, the girlfriend that Te’o claimed died of leukemia in September, inspiring him to lead his team to the national championship game, had never existed.

Te’o says he was the victim of an elaborate internet prank referred to as “catfishing.” But some have questioned whether Te’o was perhaps in on the hoax or exaggerated his relationship with Kekua to draw public sympathy.

Te’o denied those charges in an off-camera interview last week with ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap, though he did admit lying to his father about meeting Kekua. He never actually met her in the flesh.

Though some have already questioned whether Couric is the right person to conduct a sports-focused interview, Te’o’s choice may not be so random. The New York Times notes that he and the talk show host share the same spokesperson, Matthew Hiltzik.

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