The 74-page document is a piece of advocacy. The ensuing #longread from Shaun King of the Daily News is at times hard to follow, as it attempts to summarize most of the 74 pages in chronological order. Also, King’s article displays a clear anti-Peyton bias, and more than a little melodrama. This #notaslongread item comes from the 74-page document itself, which has been published in full by the Daily News.īefore going any farther, it’s important to understand what the 74-page document is, and what it isn’t. Now that Peyton Manning has won his second Super Bowl and potentially will be walking off into the sunset, the same 74-page document has been sent to the New York Daily News. USA Today didn’t publish the full document, and it released no details beyond the reference to Manning allegedly placing “his ‘naked butt and rectum’ on face.” The longest-standing members of PFT Planet know that, from time to time over the years, we’ve used the phrase “naked butt and rectum” in reference to the story, which never caught fire in the pre-social media days of the Internet - even though the USA Today item was titled “Manning’s image could take hit in suit.” That article, which didn’t characterize the incident as a sexual assault, apparently flowed from a 74-page document filed in the defamation lawsuit. The litigation, which arose from an allegation that the Mannings defamed a former University of Tennessee trainer in a book they had written (Peyton said that the trainer had a “vulgar mouth”), sparked the publication of an accusation that Manning had placed his “naked butt and rectum” on the face of the trainer while she was examining him in 1996. In the early days of PFT, an article emerged regarding a defamation lawsuit filed against Peyton and Archie Manning.

Headlines GB by Malcolm Hall