Thursday, November 17, 2011

What Took You So Long?

There are times I'm very proud to be a member of the news media, and then there are times...

Let's start with the positive.  Much of the reporting on the Penn State Sex Scandal has been excellent.  Important questions are on the way to being answered, and that's a good thing.  Penn State gets a lot of your money, and the public has the right to know.  The public also has the right to responsible reporting.

Having said that...  Now that Joe Paterno is out of a position of power, his detractors in the media are coming out of the woodwork.  Yeah, it's easy to do now.  The bandwagon is getting crowded.

I will note that there have been a few blogs here over the years, questioning if Joe Paterno was the appropriate logo for the university.  I thought he should have been out years ago, and I said it.  He was out of touch.  When an opposing player was accused of sexual assault, the sainted JoePa's response was "Boys will be boys."  He should have been fired for that, alone.

Maybe if we all had kept a better eye on Penn State, maybe if we were all more intrepid and critical, maybe if we questioned Paterno's power, some of this wouldn't have happened.

Penn State allowed Joe Paterno to become bigger than university, with unrivaled influence.  We in the media were accomplices and enablers of the ascendancy.

Penn State is exempt from the state's open records law.  That, too has to change and change fast.