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发帖数: 1984 | 1 http://www.johnziegler.com/editorials_details.asp?editorial=220
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Editorial by John Ziegler
How the Media May Have Framed Joe Paterno
7/19/2012
Regardless of what the final facts eventually say about what Joe Paterno
knew and when he knew it about Jerry Sandusky’s criminal behavior (contrary
to what the media has told you, they aren’t in yet), the media coverage of
him has been as unfair as any I have ever seen. In some ways, the media
coverage of Joe Paterno has combined some of the worst elements of both the
reporting of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the 2008 presidential
election.
And while it is possible that they may end up being “right” about their
seemingly insatiable desire to destroy Paterno’s reputation, if that indeed
turns out to be the case it will be due far more to pure luck than to
actual credible journalism.
Here is the story of how the media may have framed Joe Paterno .
After the grand jury presentment was made available at a Saturday press
conference which announced the Sandusky indictments last November, the
initial media coverage was, in retrospect remarkably, and tellingly, rather
muted.
ESPN, who would later the next week drive most of the narrative of the
overall story, limited most of their coverage over the weekend to a passing
news mention and a perfunctory place on the ubiquitous scroll on the bottom
of the screen. After all, they had actual college and pro football games to
broadcast/cover and no need to interrupt those ratings winners for the story
of some guy who hadn’t coached football in over a decade.
The first edition of Sports Illustrated (which went to press about 48 hours
after the indictments) after the news broke does not make mention of the
Sandusky story in even one news article. Sandusky didn’t even make the “
For the Record” section under “Arrests.” The story is only cited in an
opinion column on the back page which reads somewhat like the “last word”
on a story which is horrible but which may not provide much opportunity to
write about in the future.
By the next week, Joe Paterno was somehow on the cover of SI along with
multiple banner headlines, including one indicating that this was the
biggest scandal in college sports history.
What changed in the ensuing week? Well, Paterno was fired, but not because
we learned anything significantly new about the scandal during that time.
Instead, what happened was that ESPN, with the help of popular website
Deadspin (which was the first outlet to jump all over the story and predict
Paterno’s demise), decided that they could change the rules of this game
and make what was an otherwise dead sports week into a dramatic, ratings
winning, passion play.
The initial take of the mainstream media was that this was not really a Joe
Paterno story because, while Sandusky had been his assistant coach and there
was a major allegation which occurred on campus, it was after he had
already left the program. Paterno had testified but had not been charged.
The prosecutors said that Paterno had done what was legally required of him,
though they did raise the issue (in the response to a leading question from
the media) of whether Paterno had fulfilled his moral responsibility with
regard to making sure the allegations were properly followed up.
Seemingly lulled into a false sense of security by the relative rationality
of the initial coverage (which was neither as intense nor as insane as it
soon would be), Penn State made a couple of critical errors. The first was
that they failed to make it clear that when Paterno had reported the Mike
McQueary allegations to Gary Schultz, that he was doing so to the person in
charge of the campus police. The media, either out of incompetence,
deceitfulness, or both, never made that clear and in fact often reported
that Paterno “never went to the police.” This omission created a huge hole
in Paterno’s ship, which should have been easily plugged. Instead, it was
an unnecessary leak in his story which still exists in public perception
today.
The second big mistake Penn State made was related to Paterno’s weekly
press conference that Tuesday. At first they announced that it would go on
as normal, but naively/stupidly they also put out a press release saying
that they would not allow any questions on the Sandusky matter. This was the
equivalent of telling a child they can’t have a particular brand of candy;
it made the media want to go in that direction exponentially more than they
already did.
When hundreds of reporters/jackels showed up salivating for what they surely
hoped would be the fresh carcass of a cranky old man being bombarded with
questions he wasn’t supposed to answer, Penn State foolishly pulled the
plug. To the sharks in the news media this was essentially like pouring
blood in the water. It was simultaneously an admission of guilt in their
eyes as well as an indication that Paterno was doomed because Penn State was
not going to back him. The feeding frenzy began in earnest.
Now the media had what they wanted. They suddenly processed all the excuses
they needed to turn a story about a likely child molester who hadn’t
coached at Penn State for twelve years, into a tale of whether a legend had
failed in his moral responsibility to protect children he may or may not
have even known were ever in danger.
The public wouldn’t care much about Sandusky, but everyone knew Joe Paterno
. The tearing down of a pious legend makes for incredible copy and it
transformed that week from a remarkably slow sports period (the NBA was
still on strike, baseball was over, and football was in a midseason lull)
into a ratings bonanza.
Now it should be noted that one of the primary weapons which drove the deep
passion and anger on this story at the outset was the misuse of one key
phrase in the grand jury presentment. The prosecutors brilliantly (though
deceitfully) claimed that Mike McQueary had witnessed Sandusky having “anal
intercourse” with a ten year old boy in the Penn State showers.
Quite simply, there is very little in the human condition which makes our
brains turn off their logic mechanisms faster than the concept of a child
being anally raped by an old man. Like the color red to a raging bull, this
phrase turned what would have been reasonable outrage into a communal blind
fury. It also made it nearly impossible to discuss the actual facts of the
matter because people understandably don’t like talking about the subject.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that had the grand jury presentment
not used the words “anal intercourse,” that Joe Paterno would not have
been fired the way that he was and likely would have coached out the season.
I also have little uncertainty that the phrase was purposely misused in the
grand jury presentment because prosecutors knew exactly what kind of public
reaction it would provoke.
I also believe that part of the reason that the phrase “anal intercourse”
was placed in the grand jury presentment was because, at that time, contrary
to public perception, the legal case against Jerry Sandusky was actually
remarkably weak.
Incredibly, there was/is no known victim in the McQueary episode (Don’t
tell the media that! They still don’t realize it!), and, though somehow no
one knew it at the time, McQueary had inexplicably testified incorrectly
about which day, month and year the incident he supposedly witnessed took
place.
Few people realize (and none of them are in the media) that at the time of
the indictments there was only one allegation of actual “sex” from a known
witness, and that person’s story had been disbelieved by officials at his
own school. The prosecution needed a big explosion in order to blow the case
wide open and bring in other accusers they had to be sure were still out
there. Their tactic worked perfectly, but it also had the side effect (one
with which it seems they weren’t unpleased) of making it impossible for
Paterno to get a remotely fair public examination.
As it ultimately turned out, the “hanging” jury in the Jerry Sandusky case
actually rightly acquitted him of “anal intercourse” in the McQueary
allegation. But by that time it no longer mattered and this inconvenient
fact was almost universally ignored by the media.
As for Paterno’s firing, ESPN basically campaigned for it continuously over
two straight days and at least one member of the Penn State board of
trustees admitted that, the body which somehow voted unanimously to
unceremoniously terminate the man who put their school on the map, had done
so in direct reaction to the intimidating media coverage.
One of the most absurd moments in ESPN’s wall to wall coverage came when
former Penn State player Matt Millen cried live on air while implying
Paterno had let everyone down. Like something out of Alice in Wonderland, it
was barely ever mentioned, and never put in its proper context, that Millen
himself was an active member of the Second Mile board (and not just in a
ceremonial capacity). He was never even asked if the Second Mile or perhaps
maybe even he himself deserved far more blame than Paterno considering that
all of the victims originated there and Sandusky had had far more contact
with them than he did with Penn State over the previous twelve years.
Instead, all people saw on TV was a former Paterno player (one who was not
at all close to Paterno) crying while being sympathetically consoled by an
ESPN anchor. This opened the floodgates and began a momentum which quickly
convinced even strong Paterno supporters that they had better jump on the
media’s bandwagon or be made to look like they were supporting child
molestation.
Even former Penn State quarterback (and ESPN commentator) Todd Blackledge
eventually came out for Paterno’s firing and yet somehow ended up
prominently speaking on behalf of the 1980’s at Paterno’s memorial service
. When I watched Blackledge being interviewed, I had a very strong sense he
had essentially been bullied by the coverage of his own network into
throwing Paterno under the metaphorical bus. The fact that he would praise
him so dramatically just two months later would only augment that feeling.
When Paterno finally released his now infamous statement announcing that he
would resign at the end of the season and stating that, “with the benefit
of hindsight, I wish I had done more,” the media twisted it into something
completely different than it really was.
Here, much like Tiger Woods at the beginning of his scandal, Paterno, used
to mostly fawning media coverage, was slow to realize that all the old rules
had changed. In the eyes of his former friends in the media he had been
instantly transformed from a protected species to one with a large bounty on
its head..
Previously, that written statement would have been warmly received as a
grand gesture from a great/wise old man who was the first to admit what
literally hundreds of people should have been forced to acknowledge: that
the signs that Jerry Sandusky was a monster were missed. Now, in this
frigidly cold media environment in which Paterno suddenly found himself, the
statement instead was viewed as an arrogant, out of touch, admission of
actual guilt.
This last point has been repeated, almost as if it were a mantra, by
countless people with whom I have spoken about this in the last seven months
. I even heard highly respected “journalist” John Feinstein grossly
misquote Paterno on a national radio show as having said, “I didn’t do
enough.” When I quickly messaged the co-host who is an old colleague of
mine to please correct him on air, Feinstein laughably insisted that there
is no real difference between the two quotations, even though it is obvious
that they have two very dissimilar meanings (incredibly, I asked to go on
the show as a guest to explain why Feinstein was wrong, but the co host told
me that Feinstein was afraid of the debate and vetoed the idea).
Contrary to media created perception, what Paterno said there was in no way
an admission of guilt. Instead, it was exactly the right thing to say at
that time, but the media wanted a head on a spike and they needed it fast.
Paterno’s was by far the most appealing scalp and nothing short of total
decapitation was going to quench their thirst for blood.
When they finally got it (without Joe Paterno, an employee of over sixty
years who literally built the school’s library, even getting a formal
hearing) the students understandably reacted with their own rage, but one
which the media purposely misunderstood in order to fit their own narrative
and forward their own agenda.
According ESPN’s live coverage (as well as most of the rest of the print
reporting) of the student “riots” which ensued after the announcement of
the Paterno firing, the Penn State campus was upset because their precious
football team might be harmed and they couldn’t care less about the victims
. This analysis was as absurd as it was self serving.
It was very clear that the students were mostly angry over the lack of due
process and simple respect shown for a man who was the reason many of them
had applied to the school in the first place. It was also obvious that the
focus of their outrage was on the news media for their disgraceful coverage
of the story and the board of trustees for caving into the media pressure.
This was not just proven by the fact that the most serious act of vandalism
was directed at a television news van (something the media bizarrely seemed
to think was simply a coincidence). It was also exposed in a classic moment
when, as if by accident, ESPN’s entire narrative for the whole episode blew
up in their faces on live television.
If there was one clip I wish everyone would have watched that fateful week,
it would be this one of a Penn State student being interviewed live on the
network which had created most of the uproar, the remnants of which they
were now covering. The unidentified student succinctly laid out the entire
case in way that was in direct contradiction to the way that ESPN had been
reporting it.
When the field reporter sent it back to the studio (where they had been
covering the events with all of the fairness and objectivity of the
Hatfields reporting on the McCoys) the anchors Steve Levy and Stuart Scott
were literally stunned. After pausing as if they had just heard for the
first time that there is no Santa Claus, an exasperated Levy was forced to
acknowledge that the student was “a relatively well informed fan…ah, I
would say. He had some of the facts correct.”
Levy didn’t mention which facts the student didn’t have correct, probably
because there weren’t any. His partner, an equally shocked Scott, looking
as if he was realizing live on the air that maybe there really was another
way to look at this entire story, laughably opined, “It is a very
interesting dichotomy…”
After Paterno was fired, the media, having its pound of flesh, decided to
quickly move on and some relatively pro-Paterno stories began to sneak out,
even on ESPN (I believe because some there, like Tom Rinaldi, were angling
themselves for what was thought would be the inevitable Paterno interview).
However, the simultaneous revelations that the Syracuse basketball team
apparently had a pedophile on its current staff were treated completely
differently (even when their head coach Jim Boeheim called the victims money
-seeking liars) and further exposed the unfairness of the media’s Penn
State/Paterno coverage. I am sure that it is just a coincidence that many of
the staff at ESPN just happened to attend Syracuse.
When Paterno died, most of the coverage was rather respectful, while
certainly nothing like the celebration of an amazing life it would have been
had he passed just two months earlier,
At the memorial service, when Phil Knight finally stood up and said what so
many people with the actual facts but without access to broadcast platforms
had been silently thinking, the media really had no idea what to do. The
last thing they wanted was their initial conviction of Paterno to be exposed
as a ratings-driven rush to judgment, but they also have trained themselves
to not speak ill of the recently deceased (even actual pedophiles like
Michael Jackson). Clearly conflicted, they pretty much decided to ignore
Knight’s comments and hope that the evidence would eventually come back in
favor of the judgment they had already rendered (they treated similar
comments from usual media darling, Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, in
much the same way).
When the Sandusky trial was completed in record time and it was announced
that a verdict had been reached, Piers Morgan casually stated on CNN,
without a shred of evidence at that time, that “clearly Joe Paterno took
part in a cover up here.” What was so infuriating about watching that
moment was that it was clear that Morgan had no idea what the actual facts
of the case were then, and that absolutely no one even bothered to question
him about his potentially slanderous statement.
When Sandusky was acquitted of the very charge which was the source of the
vast majority of the media coverage which directly led to Paterno’s firing,
you probably had to research that information for yourself. The broadcast
outlets either weren’t even aware of this incredible fact, or simply just
didn’t care. They had their story and they were going to stick with it no
matter what transpired.
In that context, the media’s reaction to the Freeh report becomes far more
easily understood and almost humorous. They had already universally decided
that there was only one legitimate view of this story.
I myself was continually frustrated that I couldn’t even get straight
forward columns questioning this narrative placed at any of the outlets
which had routinely run my work. Time and again I either got no explanation
for why this was the case or the editors in charge made it clear that their
grasp of the facts was so poor that they actually mistakenly thought that I
was the one who had no idea what I was talking about (a perfect example of
this phenomenon was the fact that there was no actual known victim in the
McQueary allegation; most media people I communicated with thought that was
just not possible and wrongly presumed I was just wrong). I have gone
against the grain of the conventional media wisdom many times in my career,
but I have never experienced a worse example of group think producing
virtual censorship than this one.
So when CNN got the leak of just one email prior to the Freeh Report’s
official release, the media made it very clear that they were going to
accept any crumbs of anti-Paterno evidence with mouths as wide open as their
minds were closed. The report (not even the actual email) of only one very
vague note from Paterno’s boss Tim Curley mentioning that he had spoken to
“Joe” and had decided to change the plan on how to deal with Sandusky, was
treated as if it was clear evidence of the coach having taken part in a
cover up. Sports Illustrated couldn’t even wait for the actual report to
come out and essentially convicted Paterno based on just that remarkably
thin evidence.
The media, of course, never even bothered to point out that Curley, after
casually mentioning having spoken to Joe, goes on to start each of the next
four sentences not with the word “we,” but rather “I.” While this doesn
’t prove what influence Paterno did or didn’t have over the discussions,
in a remotely fair media environment it should have certainly raised
important questions about Paterno’s presumed guilt. Unfortunately, this has
still somehow never happened.
So, when the Freeh Report actually did come out, you could almost hear the
media preparing their pom-poms and readying their cheers of “See! See! We
really did get it right when we rushed to judgment against Paterno because
the story was just too good to resist!” (Though, for some reason, no one
ever questioned, if the Freeh Report really contained new evidence proving
Paterno’s guilt, why was it that the media felt so comfortable “convicting
” him before that information was ever known? Wasn’t the media essentially
admitting that they didn’t have enough evidence to come to that conclusion
before the Freeh Report?)
Whether Freeh understood this or not, his scheduling of the report’s
release was certainly consistent with someone who knew he was likely to get
a chorus of cheering from the media (which by the way, could have also
influenced his conclusions as everyone is more likely to do something they
if know is going to get them adulation). The report was released at 9 am on
the Thursday of one of the slowest sports weeks of the year and,
preposterously, his press conference was just one hour later.
Only in a story like this could a press conference an hour after the release
of a detailed report which took at least three hours to properly read be
taken remotely seriously. And yet, no one bothered to even point out that
the very same media asking the questions of Freeh barely had time to read
his remarkably biased conclusions and certainly had no way of examining the
actual evidence in the report.
This pathetic reality reared its head with a massive amount of misreporting
regarding the report. The most obvious example of this was that several
commentators immediately took to ESPN and, based on the report’s debatable
conclusion that Paterno knew about the 1998 Sandusky investigation,
erroneously stated that this meant that Sandusky’s 1999 retirement had to
have been related.
The amazing thing about this was that Freeh’s report specifically
exonerates Paterno on that very issue and these people (including former
Paterno “friend” Brent Musberger and ESPN’s beat reporter Jeremy Schaap)
not only got it dead wrong, but they also unwittingly revealed that they
hadn’t even bothered to read the report.
There was also no coverage of a major mistake Freeh made during his press
conference (no, not calling the key witness “McQuade”) when he appeared to
claim that his team had spoken to the two janitors who allegedly witnessed
Sandusky molesting a boy in the Penn State locker room in 2000. Freeh seemed
completely oblivious to the fact that the only witness to that episode has
dementia and can’t speak to anyone. His team only spoke to someone to whom
the original witness told his story (and, for the record, there is no known
victim for that allegation either). Incredibly, I contacted the reporter who
asked Freeh the question that got this response and it appears he had no
idea Freeh had made a glaring error.
But the most significant problem with the media coverage of the report was
that, partially because of the haste to get to the bottom line in a “
breaking” news story (TV has no patience any more for actual facts), most
of what got discussed were the report’s “conclusions,” and not the nature
of the actual evidence on which they were based.
There was next to zero analysis of how it is that a man’s entire life and
reputation can be destroyed by three extremely vague emails written by
someone else (with whom Freeh never spoke who has never been asked publicly
about them) over a decade ago. Quite literally, if Tim Curley was simply “
name dropping” Paterno in an effort to bolster his position in the two most
critical of those emails (a very plausible but seemingly impossible theory
to prove), then the entire case against Paterno is dramatically different
and, frankly, almost non existent. And yet in the mind of the media, and
therefore the public, the evidence is perceived as both overwhelming and
rock solid.
What makes this particularly galling is that it is never even mentioned that
the very same Curley whose emails are now said to “prove’ that Paterno
took part in a “cover up” and “protected” Sandusky, is also the guy who,
when Paterno died, released a glowing written statement praising the coach
’s “honor and integrity.”
Why has there not been even a perfunctory effort on the part of the media to
understand how that public pronouncement makes any sense at all under their
own current narrative? In the media’s view, Paterno must have forced
Curley into a cover up and caused him to be charged with serious crimes. Why
in the world would he praise Paterno’s “honor and integrity,” especially
when it could take away the legal defense of “Joe made me do it”?
These are questions that the media is simply just not interested in even
asking because they might not like the answer they get (that, and most of
them don’t even realize that Curley did this, or aren’t inquisitive enough
to connect the dots). Instead, their narrative has now quickly turned to
whether or not Paterno’s statue should stay in place or whether Penn State
football should somehow get the death penalty.
So now that the media thinks they have all the answers they want (and too
much of the public, and even Penn State supporters, have bought it hook,
line and sinker), the need for further information is now over. There is no
need to wait for the Curley trial when we might actually learn whether the
“leads” that Freeh found are actually real evidence.
Most maddeningly, the media is now openly mocking the Paterno family for
continuing to speak out and for their plan to come up with their own version
of the Freeh Report.
So, let me get this straight. The media rushes to judgment against Paterno,
the family says they just want the truth to come out, the media finally gets
some vague evidence which can be interpreted as backing up their original
view, and now the case is closed because once they have gotten the answer
they want they decide it is wrong to ask any further questions? Really? Why
does this feel like something out of a Cold War era fascist country?
The bottom line here is that we simply don’t know exactly for sure what Joe
Paterno knew and how his actions regarding Sandusky should finally be
evaluated. Unfortunately, barring Tim Curley coming forward with the whole
truth, there seems to be a good chance that we will never know all the
answers on that issue. What we do know for sure is that the media’s
coverage of Joe Paterno has been a disgrace which has further proven that
real journalism in this country is dead. Whether the media ends up having
guessed right here is irrelevant to that sad and obvious conclusion. | l*********e
发帖数: 680 | 2 I am not totally sure the credibility of this guy, but I think he has a
point here. |
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