Tag Archives: Jerry Sandusky

A Strong Statement From The Editor Of The Patriot-News

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I know this is a long post, but please read it–it is important. Yesterday the Patriot-News posted the following statement by David Newhouse:

From the very beginning of reporting on the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse story, Patriot-News reporter Sara Ganim knew the identity and many details about the young man known in the grand jury presentment as Victim One.

It is the policy of The Patriot-News and PennLive not to identify alleged victims of sexual abuse, whether children or adults. In all of our reporting, we have been extremely careful not to reveal any of those details about Victim One which would help someone make that identification. Instead, through her stories and interviews, Sara Ganim put the focus where it should be – on the alleged crimes, the pain that this young man says he has suffered, and the alarming frustrations he and his mother describe in trying to report it.But the Sandusky child sex abuse story has showed the difference between truly protecting the identity of a victim and the fiction of protecting the identity of a victim.

In Wednesday’s story in The New York Times, for example, a profile entitled “For a Reported Penn State Victim, a Search for Trust,” reporters Nate Schweber and Jo Becker write a profile so detailed that, even though they do not name him, googling certain information in the profile results in the young man’s name within seconds. The Patriot-News has learned that other news organizations, which did not have the young man’s name, have already done so.

 
Although the Times story has been all over the web, and of course the Times web site draws a huge amount of traffic on its own, we decline to link to it here.
The story quotes his next-door neighbor and names his neighborhood. It describes the detailed circumstances of a car accident which was reported in local papers at the time. It says he liked to wear tie-dyed socks. None of these details have the slightest to do with why or how the boy was allegedly befriended and then assaulted over several years by Sandusky. They do not serve the story of Jerry Sandusky. They only serve to make an alleged victim of sexual assault easily identifiable.You could call the anonymity maintained in the story a polite fiction, but there is nothing polite about it.

To be clear, the Times story is not alone. It is just the latest and most prominent example so far of such reporting. 

 
The pledge of most news organizations to withhold the names of sexual assault victims – men and women, children and adults – is not some journalistic game of who can say the most while following some arbitrary rule. Most media have adopted it because, tragically, reporting sexual assaults still carries a stigma. It is no accident that Victim One was only the second boy to come forward to authorities in what is alleged to have been more than 15 years of assaults by Sandusky. Stories like these, if anything, could discourage future victims from speaking up. 
 
Victim One told the grand jury that he had been victimized by Jerry Sandusky. Now one could argue that he is being victimized again – this time, by frenzied news media who essentially name the victim in the pursuit of salacious details, all done in the name of anonymity.
 

David Newhouse is the editor of the Patriot-News.

 

 


 

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The Problem With Scandals Is That They Grow…Fast

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We have all learned more than we wanted to know about the scandal at Penn State. The real bottom line for me is that the school officials did not carry out their responsibilities to report what they had been told to police and other authorities. Because of the Penn State coaching staff’s failure to report what Mike McQueary told Joe Paterno he saw, more children fell victim to the activities of Jerry Sandusky.

The International Business Times reported yesterday that Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary has been placed on administrative leave indefinitely. The article explains the awkward situation the school is in regarding Mr. McQueary:

Interim coach Tom Bradley said on Thursday that the decision wasn’t up to him whether McQueary would coach, but CBS Sports’ Gregg Doyel posited that Penn State might be retaining the coach in order to not open itself up to a whistleblower lawsuit. The alluded to complexities to firing McQueary are that the coach could be protected under the whistleblower laws and the school could be found liable of violating those laws if they dismissed the coach.

It seems as if a lot of people dropped the ball in this situation. Meanwhile, the Sun Gazette reported today that the Jerry Sandusky scandal may include the Keystone Central School District.

The article at the Sun Gazette reports that after a parent of a student at the Central Mountain High School reported in 2009 that her son was sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky, she was discouraged from pursuing the matter:

* Several reputable sources say the guidance office talked to the victim and his mother, then discouraged them from contacting Children and Youth.

* Those same sources said when the family questioned that outcome, they were told by a Keystone administrator (Karen Probst) that Sandusky was a “great man” and they should go home and think about it before taking further action.

* The district only took action after the family, frustrated with the school’s response, went directly to Children and Youth Services with its complaint, and after C&Y officials told the district Sandusky should be banned from contact with students and barred from school property.

Only after the family acted, did the school take any action to protect its students. That is truly sad.

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What’s Wrong With This Picture

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Jonah Goldberg posted an article at the New York Post yesterday about the riots on the Penn State campus when the firing of football coach Joe Paterno was announced.

Mr. Goldberg observes:

You have to wonder what’s wrong with our society when someone can say, “Of course we’re going to riot,” but not over the coverup of pedophiliac rape. Rather, students feel it is their obvious right, perhaps even duty, to throw violent temper tantrums when a multimillionaire football coach is fired, simply because the coach is part of their “college experience.”

If the students actually knew why Coach Paterno was fired, where in the world was their compassion for the victims of Coach Sandusky? What in the world are our children learning in college?

Mr. Goldberg concludes:

Most of the time, I find campus protest culture to be shallow and predictable. But I would have cheered it this time around, if only someone rioted for the alleged victims of Jerry Sandusky.

I linked to the Grand Jury testimony in a previous article (rightwinggranny). It is difficult to read the testimony. Coach Sandusky was caught in the act of raping a child and everyone in charge looked the other way–oh, wait, they didn’t look the other way–they told him he could no longer bring children into the athletic facility. Coach Sandusky’s activities continued for another ten years. There are some serious legal issues here–authorities of the school were required to report the incident to the police when it occurred–no one seems to have done that. Because the school was aware of the incident, I would think that children (now young adults) who were molested after the incident that was discovered could very easily sue to school. I hope they do. I won’t bring healing, but it might teach people in charge to fulfill their legal reporting obligations.

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I Don’t Follow College Football–But This Is Disturbing

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Number 12, Penn State quarterback Michael Robi...

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John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting writes a column for Sports Illustrated. His latest column was about the scandal in the Penn State football program involving Jerry Sandusky.  The article features a link to the Grand Jury report on Jerry Sandusky.

After reading the Grand Jury report, I would like to see the football program at Penn State suspended for at least ten years–that is how long the sexual abuse of young men was allowed to continue.

It is inappropriate to allow those who covered up the activities of Coach Sandusky continue in their current positions. There needs to be a total housecleaning of those who have overseen the football program for the past ten years and a suspension of the program for the next ten years.

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