On Thursday last week, I felt physically ill as I drove to work. The wave of nausea started when I turned the dial to ESPN radio.
The entire past week has been a lesson, for me, in parsing out information as it is released by various media outlets and tracking that information across multiple reporting sources. Each outlet appears to have an agenda during the news cycle and it comes across clearly during this crisis. The closer to the subject someone is, the more they want to protect.
On Tuesday night, Joe Paterno spoke outside his home to a gathering of students. He statement was videotaped and recorded. The full statement, courtesy of Deadspin.com, is as follows:
You guys have lived for this place. I've lived for people like you guys and girls. I'm just so happy to see that you feel so strongly about us and about our school. And as I said, I don't know if you heard me or not, is, you know, the kids who were victims or whatever they want to say, I think we all ought to say a prayer for them. It's a tough life when people do certain things to you. But anyway, you've been great. Everything's great, all right.
Deadspin did their own take on this at http://deadspin.com/5857944/whatever-they-want-to-say-how-media-outlets-handled-joe-paternos-weird-quote-last-night, but I found a different piece on Cnnsi.com - where the actual written word, in quotations, was never said. A citation in quotation should be an exact representation of the spoken word. A paraphrase is clearly visible to the user with the notable absence of quotation marks.
Compare the two segments and you can see what appears to be CNN agenda to protect Joe Paterno.
Deadspin: "And as I said, I don't know if you heard me or not, is, you know, the kids who were victims or whatever they want to say, I think we all ought to say a prayer for them.
CNN: "As you know, the kids that were the victims, I think we ought to say a prayer for them," Paterno said Tuesday night
"Or whatever they want to say". Leaving that out of the quote isn't merely editing. That's context obfuscation.
Now ESPN, which should I feel be renamed C-ESPN because there is not an item that comes out of their vast complex which does not appear to be compromised by corporate sponsors or partnerships. There is no worrying about whether boundaries should be crossed because they simply do not exist.
I have listened to the morning show enough times to know that it is a scripted presence with even the arguments rehearsed down to the rebuttals. There is not an ounce of spontaneity from the show. For that reason alone, it is hard to digest.
Today was worse. Bill Callahan, a former college coach, a former NFL coach was on the air. You can find their podcast online, but he was staunchly defending Joe Paterno. Saying he was a man because he owned up to his mistakes post-release of the grand jury testimony and when he said 'In hindsight I wish could have done more'. We should all say a prayer for the kids.' I'm paraphrasing but he said 'That's what man does. A man owns up to his mistakes'
Joe Paterno
Joe Paterno is a man who lied to the public with his faux grief for the kids.
Joe Paterno is a man who has known about the allegations since 1998.
Joe Paterno is a man who testified before a grand jury in 2009 about these circumstances. And still professed shock in 2011.
Joe Paterno could have said 'We should all say a prayer for the kids' in 1998. He didn't.
Joe Paterno could have said 'We should all say a prayer for the kids' in 2002. He didn't.
Joe Paterno could have said 'We should all say a prayer for the kids' in 2007. He didn't.
Joe Paterno could have said We should all say a prayer for the kids' in 2009. He didn't.
Joe Paterno could have said 'We should all say a prayer for the kids' every day in 2011 up to November 3 and he chose not too.
An active decision to not say a prayer for the kids. Only after, in hindsight when grand jury testimony forces his hand, when it means absolutely nothing, does he say 'We should all say a prayer for the kids'
I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting for the hosts to call him out on this. You have to. You have to call this guest out, no matter your in-bed partnership with him. You have to stand up to him and say 'Bill I disagree with you. Joe was not man enough. If he was, he would have done something in 1998 and not waited until grand jury testimony was made public.'
But nothing. The bile rises in my throat and I can't listen any more. In the depths of this crisis, the hosts follow the corporate line and remain silent as the guest contains down a path I no longer care about. His voice is just noise now.
At the end of the interview, a final kiss on the lips and a loving hug from the hosts, the we'll always have each other in this corporate bedroom as he gets off the phone.
'Thank you Bill for coming on today. You know we love you'
Later on I hear Todd Christensen, a Penn State Alum on Tuesday before the firing, what do you think should be done about Joe Paterno? Should he be fired? Fired right now?
In paraphrase, 'Ahh, oh. That's a tough one. Really tough one. I don't have an answer for that.' What I think he really meant was "I have to work with this man or those around him in the future. I need that access to Penn State. I can't have this blared all over the internet that I called for him to be fired. What will people think about me?
Yes. Because it's all about you Todd Christensen.
