Paterno guilty by the media

First of all, I’m not a huge Joe Paterno fan, or even much of a Penn State fan. But since this story broke a few days ago, it has bothered me because I knew they (the media) would not stop till this man lost his job. I knew he would not be given much of a chance to voice his side of the story or defend himself, and sure enough within a few days his whole world came tumbling down. Now, perhaps Paterno is not a moral man and he is well deserving of what he’s getting. Perhaps he knew all about what was going on, or on the contrary perhaps he knew very little (from what I've read it's hard to tell exactly what happend), but it’s besides the point. The issue he is guilty of is not the issue I’m talking about - I’m certainly not defending anyone’s actions who would ever be involved in a scandal like this and I’m sure most people would agree. My issue is that he was found guilty by the media very quickly without much of a chance to defend himself and that so many were quick to judge his character. Here is a man who coached for half a century with more wins than any other coach, yet he will now be remembered by the average person off the street as that guy involved in the sex scandal thing, which as I said may or may not be true. To me, it’s interesting the power of the media. I’m always fascinated when a case like this breaks to see how the general population’s opinion is influenced by the media about a person that they never personally knew. They’ll convince us that Osama’s evil or Gaddafi’s evil, and it may or may not be true, but there’s really no way for us to truly ever know without actually ever knowing them. I realize it’s an extreme comparison...one’s a sports coach, the other’s world leader/terroist. However the concept’s the same - that the media can persuade the general population to believe just about anything. It only took a few days to convince them that Paterno was a pervert who needed to be fired right away. It may or may not be true, I know I keep saying that. Again, I really don’t have an opinion one way or the other. I guess it doesn’t matter. The media found him guilty and no judge can overturn that.

reply to post by cleverhans


Well he was aware that young boys were being abused and did not go to authorities...I have trouble defending him

i agree with the above statement. he should be jailed. knowing about it and covering it up makes it a conspiracy. and any man or woman conspiring in child mollestation should be executed on site.

Let's be clear, Paterno did not cover up the activities in question. He did report them to his superiors at the college as he is required to do. While I believe he could have done more to push the issue, the fact is he did what he was supposed to do. The people that he reported the incident to then covered it up and lied about it. This is where he could have done more and used his influence to force people to act. There were a lot more people who have more responsibility than he did that did nothing.

I would like to point out that I find the accusations against the former coach disgusting and he should rot in jail if indeed he is guilty of them. In addition, the athletic director and president of Penn State should be held accountable. I also feel that the district attorney has some responsibility in that they had evidence 13 years ago and chose to do nothing, ostensibly because of his association with the university.

He was aware, but he did make others aware.

Talk about a moral delima. His friend has some freaked up fetish. I betting he wished he didn't walk in on it. This **** is going to leave a stain on great mans record. He did so much for the athletic program in general not just football and now he has an astrix next to his name.

Its too bad because there are some many other important people we could take down on this same count and yet we are taking down someone who really has no effect on any of us outside of the directly affected.

Apparently the university has decided to fire Coach Paterno effective immediately. It's a shame that his career will end this way.

They also fired the president of the school as well.

Paterno Gone at Penn State

Doesn't matter...their whole sports program, funding, etc. just went to Hell in a handbasket. Sponsors will pull out like rats on the Titanic, athletes will go to other schools, they'll lose a lot of alumni funding, and no doubt the school will face numerous high dollar lawsuits by the victims.

If I was a professor there, I'd be polishing up my resume'.....

reply to post by cleverhans


Paterno should have been fired. It was the right decision.

He was told his friend/employee was molesting little boys. Sure he told his "superiors" but we all know at Penn State Paterno could do anything he wanted. I understand him taking the proper channels at first, but once nothing came of it, being the moral man he claimed to be, he should have fired his friend and went to the police.

At the VERY LEAST he should have removed his friend from any activities involving children, not let him continue. What kind of moral man does that?

I also think Big Red needs to be fired if he walked in on an incident and didn't go to the cops right away, not to mention played in a basketball tournament sponsored by the accused.

And let's be clear here, he was fired by the people in charge of making sure Penn State keeps a good name. They already knew they lost so much money and reputation, they were doing damage control at that point so they could not be accused of being complaicent in this all, like Paterno is.

It's a sad day when people like Paterno stand by and let this sort of thing happen. The outrage at him being fired really confuses me. If a coach at a random high school in the country walked in on a similar thing, told the head coach, the head coach didn't go to police after nothing was done, they'd be fired. Just because Paterno is seen as some sort of god there doesn't excuse him. All the appropriate people have been fired, there is just one left now and I'm sure it will happen soon.