Penn State Defended by the Media - How Can We Use It?

Just in case you've wondered where to go for positive media reports to share that were not articles written here on BSD there are a few that are quite good and useful for pointing out the truth. They just haven't gotten enough notice to counter the tsunami of negative press.

Three False Assertions by the Grand Jury turned the Press and Public against Joe Paterno and Penn State by Walter Uhler -This might be the best article yet written questioning the misleading work of the Attorney General Linda Kelly. I saw this article in a fanshot but it needs more notice. Uhler has written 5 additional stories that actually got at the truth of what happened. 5 Story Series

It's not that there haven't been any articles or stories that were kinder to Penn State than the mass of stories in the National Media Frenzy sparked by the lies and distortions of the Attorney General. They are simply few and far between and can be counted on our fingers as opposed to the 100's of negative stories broadcast and in the press. A few are listed beyond the jump

Michael McCann: Sandusky grand jury presentment doesn't tell the whole story

We still have much to learn about what happened at Penn State and the relationship between the school, its officials and Sandusky. We may learn new pieces of information that reshape how we assign blame and how we reconcile what appears to be immoral, almost inhuman decision-making by those we thought to be worthy of our respect and admiration.

It Was A Witch Hunt at Penn State - This is particularly interesting now we are questioning the actions of former Attorney General now Governor Tom Corbett

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, we learned, was pushing for the trustees to clean house. Why? Because Corbett does not like now-former Penn State President Graham Spanier (who also lost his job). Corbett did not like to do battle with Spanier, who has backed Paterno through the years, over appropriations for the state-related university. Bingo, here's a perfect opportunity for the governor to get rid of his problem and his underlings.

Maybe Joe Paterno Isn’t a Hypocrite and a Fraud

I was among those who threw former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno under the bus for his turning a blind eye to the rape allegations involving former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky. In a November column, I called Paterno a "hypocrite and a fraud."

Harris: JoePa deserves an apology

Ritchie Reacts To Sandusky Scandal

Echoes of Duke Lacrosse?

Public ignorance has become the currency of the Sandusky scandal. Not willful ignorance, although surely there have been ample amounts of that, but a more ordinary, everyday, lack-of-basic-information, we-just-don't-have-it-yet type of ignorance. It is terrifyingly obvious that many people are operating off shards of factoids and little else, and drawing broad conclusions based upon those shards

Questions Raised on Accuracy of Key Witness Statements

The details of what Mike McQueary, then a graduate assistant for Penn State's powerhouse football team, did or didn't witness in a shower where former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky allegedly was _______ assaulting a 10-year-old will be parsed Tueday during a scheduled preliminary hearing on the merits of the evidence in the case.

Excerpts from the lead story with comments (and I pat my own back for sending my last 4 posts to Walter Uhler prior to his writing this article as mentioned here and I've asked his permission to get it out to as many readers as possible) Five Part Study of Jackals and Jackasses of the Media and here The Second Mile Sandusky Sex Scandal First we have to remember how the Grand Jury investigation works:

"When the prosecutor has no further evidence to put before the grand jury, the jurors are asked to consider a presentment recommending that specific persons be charged with specific crimes. After considering this request in closed deliberations, the grand jury may ask to hear more evidence or may question the addition or exclusion of certain persons from the list of persons against whom charges are to be recommended. If the grand jury agrees to consider a presentment, prosecutors prepare a draft document which summarizes the evidence the grand jury has heard and sets out specific, recommended charges. The grand jury considers this document in secret proceedings. If twelve or more of the 23 permanent grand jurors agree, the presentment is 'returned' and submitted to the supervising judge for his approval." ["Investigating the Investigating Grand Jury -- What It Is, What It Does," by Andrea F. McKenna, Senior Deputy Attorney General, Appeals and Legal Services, Criminal Law Division, Pennsylvania Attorney General website]

Remember that the Presentment is written by the prosecutors who present it to the Grand Jury for a vote. And there is no doubt that the Presentment coming out of the Attorney General's office is approved if not written by the Attorney General in a case this big. Given that we now know that 3 times prior to the Grand Jury that finally voted to bring the charges, the Attorney General and her prosecutors failed to get 12 jurors to vote for the presentment. Trustees warned of prior probes we just learned there were three prior GJ investigations with no charges

What that means is at least 3 times the 12 grand jurors and a judge failed to approve the final summary prepared by the prosecutors and released to the public prior to 5 November 2011. And that means we know who to blame for the incendiary errors that the summary contains in the approved Presentment.

The approved grand jury presentment listed 8 unidentified boys allegedly abused by Sandusky and it contained extremely graphic language, designed not only to capture accurately the sordid nature of some of the assaults, but also to shock the reading and viewing public into outrage that demanded justice. According to the grand jury report some of Sandusky's despicable assaults occurred while he was still serving on Joe Paterno's football coaching staff and some of them occurred after he retired in 1999. There's no denying there were enough disturbing allegations in the report to merit the charges brought against Sandusky. But these allegations also drew the public's attention to his former boss, legendary Joe Paterno and Penn State's football program.

Although the Attorney General denies that Joe Paterno was a target or guilty of breaking any law it is clear that her language and the manner in which the presentment was laid out it would be difficult for anyone to reach that conclusion. The Victim 2 allegations were buried in the graphic accounts of six actual identified victims leading everyone to think Victim 2 was like the rest. - an actual complaining identified victim.

Many Americans took the grand jury presentment (or thoughtless reporting about it) as gospel and, predictably, expressed outrage that was off the charts. A distant relative asked me: "What do you think about all those pedophiles running around Penn State?" When, I corrected him by saying, "There's just one alleged pedophile, as far as I know," he responded by saying, "When there's one, there are many more." Can a person be any dumber than that? Often, so-called news reporters were just as idiotic. Consider the news article that gave the impression that Penn State had failed to report the assaults of all eight victims. Or the report that one of the assaults took place at Paterno's house.

These reactions were and are common among people who have not read Black Shoe Diaries since the Presentment was made public. Most people read the media accounts and believe everything from "Joe Paterno was the ________" to "All of the victims were assaulted at Penn State and Joe Paterno and others there knew but covered it up to protect the football program"

What really transformed so many lazy and mediocre reporters into jackals and so many lazy and ignorant citizens into jackasses -- all fulminating in righteous indignation against Joe Paterno and Penn State -- were three inflammatory, but false assertions that found their way into that part of the grand jury presentment that addressed "Victim 2" (who has yet to be located or identified by prosecutors, let alone testify.) and has been said by the defense to be willing to testify that he was not assaulted.

We now know the Presentment is a summary of allegations designed to justify and indictment that contains no quotes, no Q&A, no exculpatory evidence and no cross examination. The media never gave the public that description and they were too lazy or incompetent to realize it themselves.

The First False Assertion from the Presentment under the Victim 2 summary was the often repeated phrase about what McQueary SAW and who he told those specific word.

We have now seen Mike McQueary's Perjury Hearing Testimony that about 3 slapping sounds and the 2 second glances of Sandusky's back.

Based upon all of his published testimony, McQueary seems to have believed that the intercourse already had occurred, due to: (1) some "slapping sounds" he remembered hearing only in the hallway leading to the locker room and (2) the vision he had of a naked Sandusky standing closely behind a young boy, after McQueary entered the locker room and looked into a mirror seconds later. But that belief is much more tentative and speculative than the starkly certain eye-witness account of a graphic heinous act found in the grand jury presentment. Thus, somebody appears to have tampered with McQueary's testimony.

McQueary asserted the essence of this sworn testimony: "I did not see insertion nor was there any verbiage or protest, screaming or yelling, so I can't sit here and say that I know 100 percent sure that there was a specific act but that's what I said to myself and that's what I believed was happening." [Transcript of Preliminary Hearing, pp.13-14, p. 72] When he was asked if he saw "the look of pain on the boy's face," McQueary said, "no."[p. 97] Later, under cross-examination, McQueary was even more emphatic: "I have never used the words of a specific act in this - since day one." [Transcript, pp. 71-72] Thus, the reader must doubt the grand jury presentment every time it summarizes McQueary's testimony by asserting he saw something specific

Use your common sense: Should we believe the more prosaic first-hand testimony that McQueary provided both in his hand-written statement and in his subsequent testimony under oath? Or should we believe the vivid and inflammatory allegation of specific heinous acts found in the second-hand summary of his testimony?

The Second False Assertion:

After falsely asserting that McQueary "saw a naked boy...being subjected to a specific heinous act by a naked Sandusky," the author who summarized the grand jury presentment made a very misleading assertion when he wrote that: McQueary "went to Paterno's home, where he reported what he had seen." [Grand Jury Report, p. 7]

Obviously, by linking the false assertion that McQueary "saw a naked boy...being subjected to a specific heinous act by a naked Sandusky" to the assertion that McQueary "reported what he had seen" to Paterno, the author who summarized McQueary's testimony wants American readers to believe that the grand jurors believed that McQueary went to Paterno and told him that he witnessed Sandusky engaged in a specific heinous act with a young boy. Perhaps, the jurors did. But, as we now know - given his hand- written statement in December 2010 and his subsequent actual testimony under oath on 16 December 2011 - McQueary has testified that he never witnessed insertion and never used the word anal.

In addition, McQueary testified under oath that he never used the specific terms for heinous acts when he notified Paterno about what he saw in the shower on 1 March 2002. [p. Preliminary Hearing Transcript, p. 25] (In fact, McQueary testified under oath that he could not recall using the words when talking to Paterno, or even using the word "crime" to describe Sandusky's behavior) Actually, McQueary's preliminary hearing testimony substantiates Paterno's earlier assertion (in a news release) that McQueary "at no time related to me the very specific actions contained in the grand jury report." [Star-Ledger Wire Services, Nov. 8, 2011]

Mr. Uhler is just as outraged as I have been about the nature of these intentional lies and distortions of McQueary's stated observations.

I must admit, when I first heard Paterno dispute what I took to be McQueary's grand jury testimony, I thought, "McQueary must be lying!" Thus, like many other thoughtless Americans at the time, it didn't occur to me that the author who summarized McQueary's grand jury testimony in the presentment might have crafted a misleading assertion. It's also worth mentioning at this point that McQueary did testify he was sure he used the term "fondling" when talking to Paterno on 2 March 2002. Thus, that testimony clearly substantiates Paterno's grand jury testimony, where he asserted that he told Athletic Director Tim Curley that McQueary "had seen Jerry Sandusky in the Lasch Building showers fondling or doing something of a sexual nature to a young boy." [Grand Jury Report, p. 7] It also answers the question posed by many disparagers of Paterno: "How was the sordid act witnessed by McQueary passed up Penn State's chain of command by Paterno as mere "fondling?" Now you know. Anal intercourse was never mentioned, but Sandusky's rough positioning and fondling were!

Thus, the evidence strongly suggests that the grand jury presentment's second-hand summary of McQueary's testimony - which strongly and directly implied that McQueary told Paterno he witnessed A. I. -- is false.

Again, simply ask yourself: Should we believe the prosaic first-hand, testimony by both McQueary and Paterno about "fondling," and their denials about discussion of A I? Or should we believe the second-hand account of McQueary's testimony that misleads the reader into inferring that McQueary told Paterno about heinous acts ?

After you've reached the correct conclusion, think about all the misplaced outrage and abuse directed at Paterno by media jackals and the many jackasses they incited, who thoughtlessly swallowed that misleading inference and indignantly asked: "How could Paterno have done so little after being told about the specific heinous acts?" Message to planet earth: Paterno never was told about graphic detail!

Now we move on to The Third False Assertion concerning the Perjury Charges against Curley and Schultz. The Attorney General wants the world to believe that McQueary told them of graphic crime and this writer shoots that down with specifics.

On page seven of the grand jury presentment, the second-hand summary of McQueary's testimony states: McQueary "reported to Curley and Schultz that he had witnessed what he believed to be Sandusky having A S with a boy in the Lasch Building Showers." [p. 7] This assertion is closer to the truth, but also appears to be false, if only because McQueary subsequently testified on 16 December 2011 that he "never used the words in this - since day one." Moreover, McQueary specifically testified that he did not use the words when he reported what he saw to Curley and Schultz some ten days after talking to Paterno. [Transcript, p. 34.]

If you read the Grand Jury Testimony of Curley and Schultz contained in the Perjury Hearing testimony you find prosecutors persistently asking them if McQueary mentioned words McQueary did not use". Why do they use these questions since McQueary has stated numerous times that is not what he saw or said?

Nevertheless, McQueary's testimony at the preliminary hearing buttresses the assertion attributed to Curley in the grand jury report: "When asked if the graduate assistant had reported 'A S between Jerry Sandusky and this child,' Curley testified, 'Absolutely not.'" [p. 8] Thus, both McQueary and Curley have testified under oath that they never discussed "A S" notwithstanding the second-hand summary in the grand jury presentment that has McQueary testifying precisely to "anal sex."

This makes it sound almost like entrapment - or the PERJURY TRAP written about previously:

Similarly, since McQueary and Curley agree that they never discussed anal sex during their conversation, Gary Schultz - who was at that same meeting - could not have heard any discussion of "A S." But that did not stop one of the prosecutors from asking Schultz: "Would you agree with me that if it had been S, that is, anal sex, that would clearly be inappropriate sexual conduct." Schultz answered, "No doubt," but he subsequently asserted that he didn't recall McQueary "telling us what he observed specifically." [Transcript, p. 226] Thus, Schultz had "no indication that a crime occurred."[p. 229]

Again, ask yourself: Should I believe the first-hand testimony of McQueary, Paterno, Curley and Schultz? Or should I believe the second-hand summary of McQueary's testimony found in the grand jury presentment? Thus, for a third time, it appears that the grand jury presentment has falsely summarized McQueary's testimony. Should we be surprised? No. Not if you consider another example where the summarization of McQueary's testimony in the grand jury presentment is contradicted by his subsequent testimony at the preliminary hearing.

Consider this: The grand jury report asserts that: As McQueary "entered the locker room doors, he was surprised to find the lights and showers on. He then heard rhythmic slapping sounds." [p. 6] Yet, when under cross-examination by Curley's lawyer, McQueary testified that he passed through two sets of doors, separated by a hallway, before entering the locker room that had the showers. He also testified to hearing the slapping sounds upon entering the first set of doors. Thus, he was in the hallway, not the locker room when he heard the slapping sounds. In fact, when Curley's lawyer asked him if he heard the slapping sounds after he entered the second set of doors, McQueary asserted that he couldn't recall. [pp. 53-54 of Transcript]

If we compare McQueary's first hand testimony under oath to second-hand summaries of that testimony, then the grand jury presentment appears to have gotten the facts wrong again!

Were these false summaries of McQueary's testimony in the grand jury presentment accidental, or were they part and parcel of a prosecutorial document designed to get convictions and to sway public opinion? The very inflammatory use of graphic specifics when McQueary has made it a point to deny that he ever used the words convinces us the insertion of inflammatory false statements into the grand jury presentment was intentional. Now, I ask you: "Who doubts that it was the grand jury presentment's erroneous assertion the Mike McQueary "saw a naked boy...being subjected to A I by a naked Sandusky" that not only sparked the outrage of countless Americans against Sandusky, but also against Penn State University and Joe Paterno, due to their supposed failure to act appropriately after McQueary told them about them rape?

Here are a few examples of articles that took the Presentment as unassailable fact and used it to inflame the public against PSU and Paterno: In its 4 December 2011 editorial, the board of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote:

"Instead of alerting authorities, university officials and staff participated in what has all the markings of a cover-up. Their dismissal of the reported rape of a boy in a locker-room shower as mere 'horsing around' was an outrageous example of a mind-set that the university must now eradicate..."

Or consider the wicked bile spewed by Charles P. Pierce at grantland.com on Nov. 14, 2011:

"The crimes at Penn State are about the raping of children. That is all they are about...It no longer matters if there continues to be a football program at Penn State. It no longer even matters if there continues to be a university there at all."

Finally, consider the 11 November 2011 opinion of Howard Bryant at ESPN.

"The university, responding to information provided by a graduate student in 2002 that he had witnessed anal sex in the shower on a boy about 10 years old, did nothing."

(At least half a dozen writers at ESPN -- Ivan Maisle, Roderick MacLeish, Tim Keown, Gene Wojchiechowski, Jemele Hill and Bryant -- wrote asinine opinion pieces filled with misplaced outrage and indignation based upon the false assertions in the grand jury presentment. I wish I could say they gave sports reporters a bad name, but they're actually quite representative of the poorly educated slugs who stink up this so-called "profession."If you're looking for the bottom of the barrel, however, look for Dan Bernstein)

Such comments are very representative of the "intemperate sludge spewed by jackals" in the news media and lapped up by countless mindless jackasses in the court of public opinion.

And the depth of the indignation was accurately captured by a member of the righteously indignant in an email he sent to me about a month ago:

"Millions of Americans across the nation have been expressing passionately, without restraint, their judgment of this affair because of and motivated by one dominant issue. That issue being the tragic image of a defenseless little boy being overwhelmed and sexually exploited by a real live monster! A little boy image abstracted horrifically in the minds of a caring society has captured the emotions, defined the unlimited outrage of folks emotional and outraged! It is the victim who is the single most important issue -- the single most important "event." Walter, those same millions are screaming out daily the questions you so eloquently offer: "...What and when did Paterno know!" But again, understand the masses outrage is motivated, prompted exclusively by "one" single event having to do with one single little boy."

The breadth and depth of the media outrage was sufficient to intimidate the cowards populating Penn State's Board of Trustees to unceremoniously fire Joe Paterno, without even hearing his side of the story. In my opinion the answer to this next poser is quite clear.THE ATTORNEY GENERAL LINDA KELLY is responsible whether she was the actual author or not because it came out of her office and prosecutors under her employ.

Consequently, whoever summarized McQueary's testimony to falsely assert that he actually saw "anal intercourse" by Sandusky and reported what he actually saw to Paterno, Curley and Schultz needs to be identified, asked to explain himself or themselves, and, perhaps, pay a big price for the largely over-the-top outrage it sparked against Paterno and Penn State. But our concern for getting to the bottom of that problem shouldn't prevent us from insisting that an investigation be undertaken that would account for the false assertions in the grand jury presentment that proved so harmful to our football legend and alma mater. Let THAT investigation begin!

I hope we all can agree on that investigation because it is obviously the major reason Penn State has suffered such outrageous vilification for the past three months. I applaud Walter Uhler for his very complete and specific breakdown of the situation I have been attempting to illuminate from the beginning. Walter gets it and we need to try to get this and every other story explaining the situation out there and in the hands of every journalist we can. The real truth is now out there in limited supply in the media and we need to help it get more exposure.

IT IS TIME TO FIGHT BACK