Penn State Scandal: The Media's Surgical Demolition of Joe Paterno and PSU

As we sit here still knee deep in one of the biggest news stories of the decade, the media coverage of the Penn State scandal has reached epic proportions and has begun to be in and of itself offensive.

A staunch, dedicated listener to both ESPN Radio and local sports talk here in Rochester, NY, I have been absolutely exhausted with the amount of coverage dedicated to this abomination. There is almost no facet of this investigation, or this alleged (an often ignored factoid by sports media outlets) series of incidents that we are not distinctly aware of thanks to those media outlets that have swooped onto this story like the most bloodthirsty of vultures.

Let me pose to my readers this question: The day following the death of Osama Bin Laden, Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall decided that he had the capacity to make commentary on our entire American society. He suggested that we as a collective people were behaving as a conscienceless monster, void of compassion for a fellow human being's demise.

That jaw-droppingly shocking example of ignorant stupidity was given about 15 minutes of coverage from the likes of ESPN compared to the relentless diatribe we are seeing with this Penn State story. As I write this column today, I have heard hours (and hours) of commentary complete with cleverly inserted, if not unoriginal and inappropriate, sound bites from films such as A Few Good Men, thinking a reference to Jack Nicholson's court scene is some sort of aptly cute illustration of what is going on today. I have seen that film on countless occasions and can't help but think that if ESPN really wants to run with that illustration maybe they should remember what happens to Colonel Markenson, the supervising officer who chooses to turn a blind eye to the offenses happening in front of him only to later take his own life to escape the internal pain he feels.

Penn State alumnus Matt Millen, a man who just a few short years ago was absolutely torn apart by everyone in the sports media for his laughable stint as general manager of the Detroit Lions, appeared on ESPN's SportsCenter and openly wept. This was a man with such a dear connection to Penn State and coach Joe Paterno that he could not contain his emotion on national television.

Following this near breakdown, ESPN found it necessary to have Millen interviewed by every radio show and just about every television show afterwards. It would be a tremendously difficult task to convince me that the entertainment value of a former Penn State alumnus and former NFL star crying on television did not play a factor in Millen's immediate omnipresence on the sports network. Each interviewer asked Millen about his outburst the night before as if they hoped for a repeat performance.

It was absolutely shocking, if not utterly transparent.

I fully understand that I am about to make a comparison will undoubtedly draw the ire of just about everyone who follows my column, but please allow a moment to reflect on the point I am about to make.

When the travesty of September 11 was brought upon our nation, it was one of the seminal life moments when everyone truly remembers where they were, what they were doing and who they were with. Every television station from one to 1,000 immediately dropped whatever they were doing at that very second and focused solely and completely on the devastation we all were experiencing.

Now I ask you to fast-forward in your memory bank to two or three months after the towers fell. I cannot possibly be the only American who felt that the 578th "why the towers fell"-type exposé documentary was excessive. I cannot be the only American who felt that the horrors we experienced on that day, and the days immediately afterwards, were those that I did not hope to relive purely for my own television entertainment value.

By that time, most who had tuned in at one time or another to some of these programs or read one of the many books published on the subject knew so much about the events surrounding 9/11 that we could all practically tell you what material the tower foundation's struts were made of and what octane the jet fuel in the doomed planes had in their tanks. It was a case study in media overkill.

If ESPN and their affiliates have their way, we are traveling down this same road. There is no question whatsoever that what happened was an absolute travesty. It is a shameful exhibition of the evils of modern man. I say this with total confidence that it is not at all hyperbole.

This is not a commentary on my opinion of the facts or morality of this case; that is surely for another time and another article. It is merely a cross-fingered hope that at some point, a point hopefully in the near future, that our dearest media link to professional sports remembers that this world will keep spinning with other sports in it.