Penn State, the mirror
So the Penn State crisis/tragedy has a lot of issues packed into it. Issues at the heart of our social and cultural landscape. So I find it interesting to see what people get upset out. Myself included.
The students at Penn State had the initial reaction of rioting (“mini-riot”~Philip DeFranco) to save their beloved Icon’s job and status at the university.
Dr. Drew (Pinsky) was outraged that the focus at Penn State seems to be football, and not that Penn State was an “excellent learning institution”.
My friend thesedeafeyes was upset about the hero worshiping of morally bankrupt public “heroes”.
Me?
The first thing that pissed me off was the ESPN coverage. They tried to tackle it like they had the obligation to do hard reporting. They did nothing but ramble on about Joe Paterno and the football program.
OMG JOE PATERNO GOT FIRED! All week.
They never even mentioned that the president of the fracking University of Penn State has also been fired. They didn’t (and of course were not capable of) talking about the culture at the university that lead to the tragedy, or the culture that let this apparent cover-up go on. Not to mention the victims, which always came as an after-thought.
By the time the real news outlets started running with it, it was too late. The story had already been shaped by ESPN. And, as is so often the case with televised news, there was little in-depth reporting on the actual event. The norm was coverage only about the story itself.
Finally, the footage of Saturday’s Penn State football game brought footage of the actual community, and students. It showed a clearly shaken football team, and a community rallying around them. It also showed a student body desperate to raise funds and awareness for the cause of preventing sexual assault on children.
For me, yesterday I stopped hearing dramatic declarations about a “campus tearing itself in half” and started seeing the complex reality of a community that had both defiant pride in itself, and deep sadness over what had happened. I saw kids new to the University, and older folks who lived in that community their whole lives.
In short, I saw an actual engaging story that no news outlet had uncovered.
But, OF COURSE, I had missed a news outlet that had some perspective. John Stewart’s The Daily Show.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-10-2011/penn-state-riots
And, of course there were other stories with some perspective, that were trying to dig up the complex story around the situation. But, if you watched the news on TC most of the week, ESPN all week, or even listed to the early story by NPR, you were missing out.
So. I guess what the Penn State Tragedy/Crisis has to say about me … I have my own issues with our news coverage, how we get information as a people, and what is chosen for us to care about as legitimate “news”.
PS. Dr. Drew has some pretty compelling, very angry, things to say about the reporting of child abuse. Which may or may not have been lost in the shuffle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aGYGv2XCvc
