Look, I'm not naive to think this story about the Jerry Sandusky scandal is dead by any means, but every article I read seems to rehash the same details as the other 20 articles on the same website. I'm talking to you ESPN. You put up an article about how JoePa was proud of the team, dedicating about 4 lines of text to his reaction before filling the rest of it with details about the sex scandal.Even those who haven't bothered to read the 23 page grand jury report should now be intimately familiar with the specifics of the allegations facing Sandusky. Lord knows we've been bludgeoned to death by them over the past week or so.
We've reached the point where every rumor and possibility is being overblown in the media and on Twitter.
One of the latest rumors circling the net was that the Joe Paterno statue outside of Beaver Stadium is going to be taken down. Immediately the comments filled up about how PSU students were surely going to riot when this news became official.
I'm not defending any of the actions, or lack thereof, of those involved in this mess. Even if he wasn't the one committing the crimes, it certainly appears Paterno could have done more to prevent more victims from being harmed by Sandusky.
Paterno was responsible as head coach for many things and as a result, had to lose his job. It just seems like many people out there don't want to stop there. Some would see Paterno go to jail despite the fact he committed no crime. There are already talks about civil lawsuits, tarnished legacies, and other football related news (Paterno's name removed from the Big Ten Championship Trophy).
I've even read comments on ESPN articles from Big Ten Rival school's fans about how PSU deserves the NCAA death penalty. Don't worry, PSU will take a huge hit in this for far longer than the NCAA could possibly impose a sanction for.
At this point, the legal investigations and trials need to run their course before any other action is taken. I think way too many people are fanning flames that shouldn't be burning yet. Even worse, so many uninformed people who haven't bothered to read the grand jury report continue to chime in their opinions.
Armen Keteyian and CBS promoted an exclusive interview with Mike McQueary which was in actuality a 24 second conversation mostly with Keteyian putting words in McQueary's mouth. One of the lamest and most over hyped interviews I have ever seen. It seems to be a great symbol for what passes as journalism in this case. Short, uninformed, and over promoted.
To be fair, Bob Costas had a strong interview with Jerry Sandusky, in which he asked very relevant questions to try and get to the bottom of Sandusky's inner psyche. What we found is haunting to say the least. The fact it took Sandusky about 3-4 seconds to try and answer whether he is sexually attracted to young boys is just sick.
The media needs to stick to reporting facts instead of spreading every possible unfounded rumor they hear about this mess in an attempt to "break a story" first. It's just irresponsible.
I doubt it'll happen though because there are a lot of people out there who would rather get ratings and attention out of all of this than to see the truth or justice find the light of day.
2 comments:
The entire story from day two has been about getting ratings. Day 1 was the reporting on the grand jury report. Day 2 all of the focus went to Joe Paterno regardless of facts. By the way, the only facts known about JoePa's involvement is that he was told by Mcqueary and escalated it to Curley and Schultz. Schultz, being the VP of business is in charge of the local police, even though he doesn't have a badge. All talk about Joe Paterno after he reported it is purely conjecture and assumptions. No where in the report does it say that JoePa did not follow up. That is out of the scope of the report. Now there is an email reportedly by Mcqueary saying that he DID go to the police. So, if that were to be true, you have JoePa being told a story by Mcqueary, possibly knowing (or thinking) that Mcqueary went to the cops, escalating the matter to the AD who controlled Sandusky's access to the facilities and to Schultz who controls the local police. I don't know what else you wanted him to do.... Of course, though, that doesn't sell stories, so the media (yourself included) jumped on lynch mob bandwagon to try to publicly execute JoePa without even waiting to find out what actually happened... Who needs facts or proof anyway! Now, I can understand that the university would not want him to coach if he is possibly involved, but why not do the same procedure that has been done thousands of times and SUSPEND him pending an INVESTIGATION? Hell, even a teacher that is caught red handed molesting a kid gets the benefit of an investigation before being fired!
Glad that you and your media got your public lynching.... Who's next?
There were a lot of factors in why I felt he needed to be removed.
I'm emotionally involved in the mess because I went to PSU. I've always been a huge Joe Paterno fan. In my heart I didn't want them to fire Paterno, but you can't have one of the worst scandals in history and let the head coach remain in power.
Removing him as coach was as far as it needed to go though.
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