How The Media May Have Framed Joe Paterno
I'm posting this, not to start a debate, but to try to illustrate this whole thing from a Penn Stater's point of view. Many of you will probably not bother to read it because you've already made up your minds. But if you actually care about the victims, censorship of the media, and knowing the actual truth beyond the headlines, then please take the time to read.
http://www.johnziegler.com/editorials_details.asp?editorial=220
I am not posting this because I'm a "JoePa hero worshipper" or "drinking the kool-aid". I just want people to see that everything isn't what it seems. Something that those of us closest to this have noticed from the beginning and have been trying to say for months - that the media's portrayal (and therefore what the nation believes) is very different from the reality. We just simply want the real truth to come out. Not hearsay, not assumptions. Truth based on evidence.
Malcolm X said, "The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."
This article is not saying that Joe Paterno wasn't at fault, it's just saying that the way the media took this story and spun it, taking it farther away from the truth. He's saying that the media isn't interesting in learning the facts, only making money. What do I think of everything? How do I feel about Joe Paterno? That's a really hard question to ask. I'm hurt and saddened and mad. But I know there is still more evidence coming (Curley and Shultz's trials) and I'm trying to wait to pass judgement until we have more information. What do I think about Sandusky? That I hope he rots in hell for what he has done to those boys and for blackening our community with his deceptions.
Okay that's all. Go ahead and start telling me I'm an enabler and a supporter of child molesters. That I'm a terrible person for simply being guilty of living in this town and wanting to hear the real truth. Everyone who lives here are sickos and aren't putting the victims first. I've heard it all, believe me. Thank you, national media.
Quoting krysstizzle:I agree with Malcolm X. And is there anyone who doesn't know that the media is a business, out to make money any way they can?
That doesn't change the facts. The Freeh report, from the FBI, paints a very serious, very disturbing picture. Paterno get no pity from me.
If you would read the entire Freeh report (Freeh who was a former FBI agent, this was not investigated by the FBI) then you would see the three times which Paterno is mentioned (and the media brings up), are not actual facts. Assumptions of what he said - yes - but actual facts? No. He was mentioned in an email from Curley but it is not known what he had spoken to Curley about. Freeh filled in the blanks himself without actually having evidence to back it up. He never even spoke to Curley, who at this point is the only person who actually knows what Joe had said. The media says its a fact, so everyone believes it. But it's actually. It is absolutely possible that Joe did these things and was behind the whole thing. I'm not saying it isn't possible. I'm not tryign to deny that. I'm saying that there isn't evidence to support that YET. Hopefully we'll find out more information when Curley and Shultz go through their trials.
Quoting krysstizzle:I agree with Malcolm X. And is there anyone who doesn't know that the media is a business, out to make money any way they can?
That doesn't change the facts. The Freeh report, from the FBI, paints a very serious, very disturbing picture. Paterno get no pity from me.
And do people not have minds of their own?
Just because it's said, doesn't make it true.
So many lack common sense.
Look at all the evidence and connect the dots- figure out what can/could be plausible and what obviously are red herrings. Just like with the Zimmerman case. Drives me crazy when people can not look at myriad of information and determine what does not fit. Didn't Sesame Street introduce this skill in the "one of these things does not belong; isn't the same" episode?
I realize the FBI didn't investigate Penn State, I should have made my meaning clearer.
Even if we disregard absolutely everything else, these are Paterno's own words:
“I didn’t know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was,” he said. “So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn’t work out that way.”
He knew. He had information. He "backed away". That is not information you back away from, no matter what. That alone, even disregarding everything else, nails his guilt in this situation.
Quoting CarrieJ401:
Quoting krysstizzle:I agree with Malcolm X. And is there anyone who doesn't know that the media is a business, out to make money any way they can?
That doesn't change the facts. The Freeh report, from the FBI, paints a very serious, very disturbing picture. Paterno get no pity from me.
If you would read the entire Freeh report (Freeh who was a former FBI agent, this was not investigated by the FBI) then you would see the three times which Paterno is mentioned (and the media brings up), are not actual facts. Assumptions of what he said - yes - but actual facts? No. He was mentioned in an email from Curley but it is not known what he had spoken to Curley about. Freeh filled in the blanks himself without actually having evidence to back it up. He never even spoke to Curley, who at this point is the only person who actually knows what Joe had said. The media says its a fact, so everyone believes it. But it's actually. It is absolutely possible that Joe did these things and was behind the whole thing. I'm not saying it isn't possible. I'm not tryign to deny that. I'm saying that there isn't evidence to support that YET. Hopefully we'll find out more information when Curley and Shultz go through their trials.
One becomes a "university matter" easily controlled by those in power who wish, above all, to not tarnish the reputation of the university. The other opens a needed investigation, based solely on protecting those who are incapable of protecting themselves.
He should have, upon realizing nothing was going to come of his report, gone further and reported to outside authorities.
"I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief" Gerry Spence
SO many of the people involved could have done more. Curley and Shultz if they had actually followed through and filed a report with police, Mike McQueary if he went to police right away, Mike's dad if he would have told his son to call police, Dotty Sandusky, Matt Sandusky, Tom Corbett, the president of the university Graham Spanier, the officials at the Second Mile who dismissed any wrong-doing, all the Child and Youth Services officers who had to do background checks on Sandusky for every adoption and foster child they had, the DA, the principal and councelors at the school when one Sandusky's victims told them what was happening and they did nothing...SO SO many people should have done more. Some of them were actual witnesses to the crime or a secondary witness because a victim came to them for help and didn't do anything. But they don't make headlines sooooo....
Quoting SLTmom:
While I agree to the extent that he has been singled out and treated as badly as Sandusky, perhaps because of his extraordinary popularity (and the media does love nothing more than destroying a legend) the truth is, going to CAMPUS POLICE is not the same as going to THE POLICE.
One becomes a "university matter" easily controlled by thoe in power who wish, above all, to not tarnish the reputation of the university. The other opens a needed investigation, based solely on protecting those who are incapable of protecting themselves.
He should have, upon realizing nothing was going to come of his report, gone further and reported to outside authorities.
I certainly don't disagree with you on that. He should have done more and was wrong not to. I think that is what is so upsetting to Penn Staters. Why didn't he do more? It just doesn't add up. We're hoping that we'll get more info from the upcoming trials.
The media did not fabricate the emails that the special prosecutor has between Paterno and the other three heads of PSU discussing that they should ignore this problem and hoped it went away. So no, I'm sorry, but the media didn't misrepresent Joe Paterno. He may have been a great football coach, but he was a lousy human being.
Read the part in red below. I read the entire Freeh report. And I've read stories discussing the emails that the special prosecutor in this case has, and those emails are damning. Paterno would likely face perjury charges for lying to the grand jury if he were alive today, and that's just the start of it.
Quoting CarrieJ401:
Quoting krysstizzle:I agree with Malcolm X. And is there anyone who doesn't know that the media is a business, out to make money any way they can?
That doesn't change the facts. The Freeh report, from the FBI, paints a very serious, very disturbing picture. Paterno get no pity from me.
If you would read the entire Freeh report (Freeh who was a former FBI agent, this was not investigated by the FBI) then you would see the three times which Paterno is mentioned (and the media brings up), are not actual facts. Assumptions of what he said - yes - but actual facts? No. He was mentioned in an email from Curley but it is not known what he had spoken to Curley about. Freeh filled in the blanks himself without actually having evidence to back it up. He never even spoke to Curley, who at this point is the only person who actually knows what Joe had said. The media says its a fact, so everyone believes it. But it's actually. It is absolutely possible that Joe did these things and was behind the whole thing. I'm not saying it isn't possible. I'm not tryign to deny that. I'm saying that there isn't evidence to support that YET. Hopefully we'll find out more information when Curley and Shultz go through their trials.
Joe Paterno may have faced charges
Impact On Paterno's Legacy
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HARRISBURG, Pa. -- If he were alive today, Joe Paterno -- the coach who stood for so long for character and integrity both on and off the football field -- could be looking at charges such as child endangerment, perjury and conspiracy.
Legal experts said emails and other evidence in the Penn State investigative report released Thursday suggest Paterno may have misled a grand jury when asked when he first heard about Jerry Sandusky's misconduct, and show that Paterno and other university officials put boys in danger with their failure to report sexual-abuse allegations leveled against Sandusky more than a decade ago.
Duquesne law professor Wes Oliver said the report by former FBI director Louis Freeh reads like a prosecution case for a child endangerment charge against Paterno, then-president Graham Spanier, athletic director Tim Curley and now-retired vice president Gary Schultz. Oliver noted that a former top official in the Philadelphia Archdiocese was convicted of that very charge in June for allowing a suspected pedophile priest to be around children.
"If you look at what happened here, it's very clear that they were aware that they had a pedophile on their campus," Oliver said.
Will Spade, a former Philadelphia prosecutor who worked on a grand jury investigation of priests about a decade ago, agreed: "Spanier, Paterno, Schultz and Curley are arguably responsible for endangering all of those kids that were abused later."
So far, the only two figures arrested in the alleged cover-up are Curley and Schultz. They were charged last fall with perjury and failure to report suspected child abuse and are awaiting trial. They have denied any wrongdoing.
Spanier, who was ousted as Penn State president because of the scandal, has not been charged, but a grand jury continues to investigate. Paterno died in January of lung cancer at age 85.
Paterno family spokesman Dan McGinn declined to comment on the criminal legal issues on Friday.
At the very least, the Freeh report provides powerful ammunition to Sandusky victims looking to sue the university or Paterno's estate.
The report said Paterno and the other university officials hushed up child sexual abuse allegations against Sandusky in 2001 for fear of bad publicity. Asked on Thursday whether the actions of the four men amounted to a crime such as conspiracy or obstruction, Freeh said that would be for a grand jury to decide. But the former FBI chief and federal judge said the evidence shows "an active agreement to conceal."
Freeh described Paterno as "an integral part" of that agreement. According to his report, Spanier, Schultz and Curley drew up a plan that called for reporting Sandusky to the state Department of Public Welfare in 2001. But Curley later said in an email that he changed his mind "after giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe."
The report also called into question the truthfulness of Paterno's grand jury testimony last year, when he was asked whether he knew of any abuse allegations against Sandusky before the 2001 episode in which Sandusky was spotted assaulting a boy in the locker room showers.
"I do not know of anything else that Jerry would be involved in of that nature, no," Paterno testified in a grand jury appearance that lasted only a few minutes. He added that a rumor "may have been discussed in my presence, something else about somebody. I don't know. I don't remember, and I could not honestly say I heard a rumor."
But emails published in the Freeh report suggest Paterno closely followed a 1998 police investigation of Sandusky that ended without charges. In an email captioned "Jerry," Curley asked Schultz: "Anything new in this department? Coach is anxious to know where it stands."
Paterno, "were he alive, he would probably be scrutinized right now, as we speak, by a grand jury," said Jeff Anderson, a lawyer who represents a young man suing Sandusky, Penn State and Sandusky's charity over claims of sexual abuse. "When he did give testimony, now revealed to have been dubious at best and false on its face, that is illegal perjury because it was given under oath. So he is exposed."
Perjury, though, is rarely charged and is famously difficult to prove at trial. A jury has to find corroborating evidence of the falsehood, and the lie has to be intentional, not a simple misstatement. In Paterno's case, prosecutors would have had to prove that Paterno had not simply forgotten about the 1998 investigation, according to University of Pennsylvania law professor Chris Sanchirico.
When the scandal broke wide open last November, Pennsylvania attorney general Linda Kelly said Paterno was not an investigative target. On Friday, Kelly spokesman Nils Frederiksen refused to discuss the investigation, citing the confidentiality of grand jury proceedings.
Spanier's lawyers had no comment Friday but have denied he knowingly covered up Sandusky's crimes.
On the civil side, Paterno's role in the scandal could expose his estate to liability, said Altoona lawyer Richard Serbin, who has pursued lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church and other institutions in Pennsylvania for the past 25 years. Paterno was considerably wealthy; he and his wife donated millions to the university, and in April the school paid millions in retirement benefits to his family and estate.
"When a responsible party passes away, that does not mean to say their wrongful conduct is excused by death," said Serbin, who does not represent any of Sandusky's victims. "Their estate becomes the representative of that person, and assets of their estate ... remain exposed to any verdict or judgment."
Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press
and what "generation" are you?
- CarrieJ401
on Jul. 19, 2012 at 4:17 PM