Night of Reports on Joe Paterno's Health Brings More Upheaval to Penn State

As if the Penn State Nittany Lions community needed more heartbreak and grief, a false report by CBS had the country thinking that former head coach and campus legend Joe Paterno had died. It wasn’t just CBS, though.

There were already reports that Paterno had summoned his family so that he could say his final goodbyes to everyone, but he was still alive. All of the “reporting” that was done made it clear that people were writing things and not verifying their sources.

Besides the unbelievable amount of damage that the tweet and story did, it was the impact it had on all the lives of the people that still support Joe Pa to this day that hurts the most. Friends and family were told Paterno was dead, and there is no way to undo that pain felt.

All the blame can’t fall on CBS, though. While it’s true that they reported false information that was apparently unsourced from a Penn State school newspaper, the Onward State is already feeling the heat. While a company like CBS has a plethora of lawyers and safety nets to protect them, a small school newspaper can be destroyed by something like this.

Not only was it the Onward State’s tweets that started this whole mess, the heat that they cause has forced the managing editor of the paper to step down.

Before stepping down, Onward State editor Devon Edwards apologized to the fans, friends and family of Joe Pa that were hurt in this careless act:

"

To all those who read and passed along our reports, I sincerely apologize for misleading you. To the Penn State community and to the Paterno family most of all, I could not be more sorry for the emotional anguish I am sure we caused. There are no excuses for what we did. We all make mistakes, but it's impossible to brush off one of this magnitude. Right now, we deserve all of the criticism headed our way.

"

The right reaction for CBS would have been to call the school or someone that the company considers an inside source and find out the truth. Instead, the lack of drive or direction saw a community torn apart at the seams that were just healing after the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal.

As much as people believe that Paterno should have been fired for his lack of action in the Sandusky case, he is not a bad man. This is a man that had dedicated himself to Penn State for 60 years and has taken an obvious physical downturn since leaving the job.

Just like Bear Bryant after he left Alabama, there were questions about whether or not Paterno could live on without football. That’s what happens when you take football away from a man that needs it.

Joe Paterno is football’s Samson and the Nittany Lions were his hair that was cut off while he slept.

While the topic of the sex scandal and Paterno’s role in the situation and his eventual dismissal have students, faculty and just plain fans debating about whether or not what went down was the right thing or not, everyone had a heavy heart at the "passing" of Joe Pa.

There is no doubt that reporting a death that didn’t happen is not right, but it is the pain that the false report cased that people don’t take into consideration.

Laugh if you want, but there are plenty of PSU faithful that cried last night when that tweet hit the open airways of the Internet because they loved Paterno. As much as the ending of Paterno’s career was terrible and drastic, it doesn’t erase the 60 years of service he provided for the school.

As poor as the reporting was, this is the kind of situation that will allow people to be more prepared for his eventual death because they essentially know exactly how they will feel when he does actually pass.

Thanks for the emotional roller coaster, CBS.

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