posted on Nov, 9 2011 @ 06:09 PM
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.