ESPN Has Some Explaining To Do

During the excessive coverage of the Penn State/Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal, we heard from many analysts at ESPN taking the moral high road and calling for the head of Joe Paterno for "not doing enough" to report sexual abuse to the police.

Reporters were staked out all throughout State College, and the wall to wall coverage on ESPN's TV outlets, online website, and ESPN Radio was overwhelming.

Calls for PSU to forfeit the season, skip their bowl game, Fire Paterno immediately.  We heard it all from ESPN analysts.  Many said if they had known about sexual abuse they surely would have reported it. 

Robert MacLeish in story published by ESPN: “The victims don’t need his prayers right now; they needed his help when they were being preyed upon. Second, fess up.”

ESPN reporter Mark Schlabach: “Finally, adults with backbones and courage made a prudent decision at Penn State.  Paterno was fired because he failed miserably while making the biggest decision of his life.  He is guilty of gross indifference, if nothing else. Morally, Paterno should have done more”

ESPN reporter Howard Bryant: “There is no defense for the number of people in positions of authority who had an opportunity to stop Sandusky and did not.”

ESPN reporter Jemele Hill: “Paterno should never have been allowed to coach another game, but we’re free to judge Paterno outside the constricts of the law.”

ESPN reporter Mark Schwarz: “Well we don’t see it as our jobs to go to authorities with evidence that we collect…”

ESPN Senior Vice President & Director of News Vince Doria: “All journalists could be asking themselves this very same question: What role should journalists play in providing information that may or may not have been reported? It’s complex and something we must continue to evaluate.”

Ironically we find out a few weeks later that people at ESPN had a tape of one of Bernie Fine's alleged victims talking with Fine's wife.  ESPN themselves had evidence of Fine allegedly doing these things at least 8 years ago.  They didn't report it to the police.  Hypocrites...

You should hear the excuses flying from the "Worldwide Leader" as to why they didn't go forward with the taped phone conversation between Bobby Davis and Fine's wife Laurie.  "We wanted to be sure it was her voice before we proceeded," said reporter Mark Schwartz. 

Doria said, "From a professional standpoint our role as a journalist is to seek out information and vet that information and when we’re satisfied with the credibility of that information to report it to the public. It’s what journalists do. It’s not necessarily the journalist’s role to go to the police with potential evidence that at the time we didn’t believe was strong enough to report ourselves."

It took them 8 years to find a way to verify her voice.  Either that or they were never trying in the first place. 
Penn State lost a University president, the head football coach, the athletic director and a vice president for not doing enough, so what's a fair and just penalty for ESPN?  Who knew?  When did they know it?  Who did they tell?

More importantly, why did they wait?  Were they trying to be sure they got the scoop on an awful story?  Afraid of losing exclusive rights to the videotape?  How many victims were abused because they didn't report what they knew? 

ESPN wasn't the only media outlet who knew and did nothing.  The Syracuse Post-Standard was also told about the allegations and also failed to turn over the tape to the authorities.   Both of them felt it wasn't much of a story.  Regardless of the level of the story at the time we're talking about abused children here.  Isn't this what we heard ad nauseam from ESPN reporters and talking heads throughout their PSU coverage?

I want to know what ESPN's parent company, Disney, has to say about this situation.  I'm sure it reflects favorably upon a family oriented company like Disney to have ESPN become known for not reporting a suspected child abuser to the authorities.

In the end though, if we listened to all of the ESPN reporters and analysts, people had a moral responsibility outside of their normal duties to make sure this information made it into the hands of the police.  ESPN failed in this regards.  I wonder who out there is ready to take them to task for it?