Valuing a coach’s word over the safety and sanctity of victims is what led Penn State here in the first place. The university deciding to take this stand - deciding to challenge the story of at least one person it has paid to settle claims of sexual abuse by an employee - is deplorable. ![]() The Paterno family’s inclination to defend their father is understandable. Sandusky kept abusing boys and remained free for a decade. Penn State supporters seem aghast that Paterno and the university aren’t getting the benefit of the doubt in that equation. So we basically have the word of two alleged Sandusky victims against Joe Paterno’s word (he maintained that the only time he heard about Sandusky abusing a boy was when a graduate assistant told him about an incident in the locker room showers in 2001.) The cases from the 1970s could never be tried in court anyway because they fall outside the statute of limitations. That’s not in any way the only standard for newsworthiness in journalism. Whether or not that claim has been proven in a court of law is irrelevant. He said in a sworn deposition that he told Joe Paterno what happened in 1976. ![]() That never happens.īut this much is inarguable: A man who says he was a victim of Jerry Sandusky was paid a settlement by Penn State. This is not to say that the media handled the story perfectly. At this point I am only embarrassed, again, and, mostly, sad. Penn State’s response is too predictable for that. Because the word appalled, I think, suggests some element of shock to go with outrage. I’m not appalled that my alma mater has once again proven so tone deaf, so blind to the one lesson it most needed to learn from the Sandusky scandal. And the vocal minority of Penn State supporters (and some big-money boosters), as far as I can tell, take their cues from the Paterno family. He echoes Joe Paterno’s family, who blamed the “clickbait media” for jumping on the story. “Appalled” is the same word he uses to describe how he feels about Jerry Sandusky molesting boys.īarron is playing to his audience. One of those men identified himself as Joe, and the accuser said he has no doubt, based on the distinctive voice, that it was Paterno.īarron points out that these new allegations are “not established fact.” He twice says he is “appalled” at how they were reported. Including the fact that he says he eventually spoke to two people from Penn State who bullied him into silence. NBC reported that as many as six assistant coaches allegedly witnessed inappropriate behavior between Sandusky and boys in the 1970s and 1990s.Īnd a CNN story - written by Penn State graduate and Pulitzer winner Sara Ganim - delivers vivid, excruciating detail about Sandusky’s oldest known victim’s claims that he was raped in 1971. ![]() That allegation, made public as part of civil litigation between the university and an insurance company, was quickly followed by two other stories addressing the decades prior to the incidents for which Sandusky was charged and found guilty. Penn State president Eric Barron swiped at the media over the weekend, chastising us for reporting about a new allegation that Joe Paterno spoke to a boy claiming Jerry Sandusky had sexually abused him in 1976. Yet as word of the allegations dating back to the 1970s surfaced - creating questions about the established narrative suggesting Penn State officials heard nothing about Sandusky’s crimes until 1998 - the school reacted exactly as its detractors would have predicted: by ardently defending its former football coach. It did, over the weekend, admit to the Associated Press that it had agreed to a settlement covering abuse dating back to 1971. The university should have realized this was coming. It would have been naive for anyone to believe Sandusky’s predatory ways did not start until 1994, as the case built against him in court would later cover. He started the Second Mile, the foundation he used to target and then groom disadvantaged young boys, in 1977. Sandusky returned to his alma mater as an assistant coach in 1969. These reports also should not - cannot - come as a surprise. For Penn State, the latest allegations about Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing boys in the 1970s - and Joe Paterno hearing about it - represent the worst-case scenario.
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