Washington Post does first Paterno interview following Sanduskygate

Quite. Loved where she posted her own reader love note to herself to "heal my wounded pride" at being called out by a reader for writing a softball love note.

 

I did not get anything from Jenkins' story other than Paterno is old, of even worse health than I thought and is extremely naive to the world. He comes off looking very bad, almost to the point that his words are merely a cover-up than actual truth.

But in regard to a big "get," it's nothing special, simply because Paterno offered almost nothing. It was disappointing. The worst thing when you get a story like that is to not have a single thing worth keeping its shelf life alive for a considerable amount of time. But this story will be old news in no time.

As far as the Q&A, my God. Jenkins comes off horribly as well with all the love notes to herself.

 

I just wish a major national paper could have handled this. The Washington Post was way out of its depth handling a Pennsylvania story.

 

Yeah, totally out of its coverage area. Walt Moody at the Centre Daily Times would have asked tougher questions!

 

You think a softball article like this could get Jenkins fired?

 

Sure, just like all of the other reporters around the country who are too soft.

 

OK, now I know you're faking it.

 

No, I'm not. The WP is a destination job, and if so many qualified journalists could have done a far better job than Jenkins, why not let her go?

 

I swear, we used to get a much higher caliber of troll around here.

 

Two things surprised me here:
1. According to the Q&A, Jenkins only got about 40-45 minutes with Paterno. Someone on the board said earlier that she must have transcribed hours of interview. And by the looks of her story, it seemed like she talked to him for hours. Whether she was soft or not, she got a lot of good content in a short matter of time.

2. She didn't seem too confident in herself in the Q&A. I'm glad I've never had to do a Q&A where readers get to grill me about my work. It's not an easy thing to do, I'm sure. But I think I would at least defend my work and sell it as the best work I could have done and not "let the readers decide whether I succeeded or failed."

 

My point was that she didn't write the column to get the interview. She wrote the column because she felt that way about the issue. We disagree on the validity of that stance, which is another matter entirely. But I have a pretty big issue with the idea that Jenkins was setting herself up for the interview, as you half-assedly accused her of doing:

 

You really, really need to just stop and think before you ask questions like this one. Did you consider checking out Jenkins' credentials on the Google machine? She's a former Associated Press Sports Editors' Columnist of the Year with three (and likely soon to be four, should her Pat Summitt feature be selected) appearances in the Best American Sports Writing series and numerous best-selling books. She's a former senior writer for Sports Illustrated. She's worked for The Washington Post for, over two stints, nearly 20 years. She's the daughter of arguably the greatest sports writer ever, Dan Jenkins.

That list of facts doesn't even do her ability justice. She's remarkably connected and a dazzling feature writer. She's also one of the best at taking a hard stance when she feels it's appropriate (which she obviously did not in this case, which is another topic altogether). She really is one of the finest working sports columnists, something I think at least a few of those ripping her Joe Paterno interview in this thread would be willing to admit.

And without Sally Jenkins on staff, the Post never gets this story and never gets the likely hundreds of thousands of hits generated by this story.

And besides all that, you don't fire a senior columnist, regardless of credentials, for one story that fell short of your expectations.