Washington Post does first Paterno interview following Sanduskygate

Thirded.

 

Awesome!

This heavily-promoted story wasn't nearly as bad as CBS' 20-second exclusive with McQueary, but that's kinda what it reminded me of. Very little new information. Good writing for sure, but the substance didn't live up to the hype.

 

You're kidding, right? Joe Paterno is a college educated football coach of a major program, who also is tenured professor at one of the country's most prestigious universities. There are plenty of things about which I know little, certainly. But there is nothing about which I cannot conceive -- especially in these circumstances.

 

He went to Brown, for heaven's sake.

Not to mention that to hear Joe tell it, he's much smarter than Al Davis.

 

It has been put around for half a century that Joe Paterno is a classics scholar.

So - given the art, history and literature of ancient Greece - the idea that he's "never heard of" that kind of male-to-male or male-to-pre-adolescent male sexuality is ridiculous.

He also seems to have changed his story about not wanting to bother anyone over the weekend.

Well written piece, certainly, but Ms. Jenkins needed to challenge him on obvious contradictions and inconsistencies like these. Otherwise it amounts to a press release from Paterno campaign headquarters.

 

Agreed.

 

No more of a get...? I suspect that somewhere around 10,000 sportswriters/columnists in the US would have jumped at this "get". Take away whatever emotion you have about the story itself and ask how many journalists would have "turned down this opportunity" had they had a shot at it. If the Over/Under line is 1.5, then I am taking Under.

 

And wouldn't people also have leapt at the chance to interview A-Rod? Hence the comparison. Jenkins was on the short list because the Paterno family could reasonably believe she would let Joe proffer whatever explanation he wanted, without much hardball scrutiny. And that's how it worked out.

 

"mash note" ... yeah, that sounds about right.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/01/thus-begins-the-rehabilitation-of-joe-paterno/251435/#.TxOGuA_t9KU.email

 

I heard Mars has a pretty good football team:

 

From Jenkins' Q&A on how the interview came to be:

I was contacted by a representative for Paterno who said Paterno wanted to go public with someone and would we want the interview, given certain conditions. He didn't want to go on television, as he doesn't look great or sound great, and also the chemo affects his ability to be fully lucid at times. The conditions were that his lawyer be present, since he's a witness in an ongoing criminal trial, which, after discussing it with my editors, we agreed to. This next part answers a question from above: I wrote a column back in November about "acquaintance molesters" in which I interviewed an FBI profiler named Ken Lanning who outlined how a molester is able to embed himself so deeply in the community and become so trusted. My understanding is that Paterno felt it was more reasonable than some things had been written, which is why he gave me the interview. Which may be one way of saying they took me for a patsy. At any rate, we jumped at the interview, as everyone wants to know what Paterno has to say about this case.

She got the interview entirely because of the softball she lobbed in November. Period.

 

Quite a disaster of a Q&A.