Christine Brennan asserts that within reporting a groundbreaking news story, it’s imperative to stick to morals, and the case of the recent scandal that hit Penn State is no exception.
The USA Today sports columnist was joined by New York Times Correspondent Mark Viera, ESPN investigative reporter Jeremy Schaap, Assistant Managing Editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Jerry Micco and Patriot-News reporter Sarah Ganim on Tuesday night at Penn State in a panel discussion called “A Conversation About Covering Controversy,” where the group talked about the different ways that journalists are covering the scandal at the university, and how they cover all cutting-edge controversies. The discussion was streamed online.
“To keep standards high I think is essential, and I still think it’s absolutely the right thing to do,” said Brennan. “Knowing what’s right is still a value that I think is important in journalism.”
The panel discussion – which featured three Penn State alumni – comes in the wake of a scandal, involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. The retired coach was charged with several counts of child molestation earlier this month, which led to the firing of longtime head coach Joe Paterno.
Ganim, who began her journalistic career as a crime reporter at the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pa., said she heard about the Sandusky case years ago as just a regular allegation of a crime, and that she never expected it to blossom to the degree it did in early November.
She noted that the press conference in which the Penn State Board of Trustees announced the firing of longtime head coach Paterno was a reality check for her and a moment where she realized she needed to get back to the basics of reporting.
“I had never seen anything like that before, I just could not believe what was happening in that room,” said Ganim. “I think that’s the point where I realized that if some of us in the media are even losing our grasp on the situation, then this is really big.
“Then I said you need to go back to the basics,” she continued. “Back to the investigative reporting you’ve always done because that’s what this story is. At its core, every story has the same basic principles and reporters have to do the same basic things to get the facts.”
Viera, a graduate of Penn State and one of the first reporters to arrive to campus for the story, said his familiarity with the campus was particularly advantageous for him over other reporters scrambling onto the scene and trying to collect information for the story.
“It was invaluable. I knew who to go to, I knew who would be in the positions of power to know things that were going on,” he said. “There was just a context there that frankly, if I was parachuting in and having not gone to school here, I don’t know what I would have done.”
In a theme shared throughout the panel, the reporters added that they didn’t forget about the context and sensitivity of the situation, and the victims and the families affected by the alleged crimes.
Closing the discussion, the panel challenged students in attendance to create change at the university and to find the story and try and make a difficult situation right.
“You can affect change, and Penn State can affect change,” said Micco. “You have to make it right, but it starts with the students, and you have to work it hard. This happened because no one was accountable. Students, you be accountable, push your professors, your administrators, make it more open.”
Fighting back tears, Micco delivered an emotional closing message.
“It shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “Make sure it never happens again.”
Stephen Hewitt can be reached at [email protected].
