Te’o & an epic fail of journalism, culture

Maybe you believe star Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o had nothing to do with the hoax that allegedly broke his heart.

Maybe you buy that an online relationship could serve as the foundation for a hero-triumphs-over-heartache story.

Maybe you swallow what Notre Dame AD Jack Swarbrick is serving up with online hoaxes, social media ills, ” a lot of tragedy,” and real tears.

I do not know Manti Te’o and I hope — for everyone’s sake — that it is all true.

This bizarre story of a made-up girlfriend, uncovered today by Deadspin (and Ohio University Scripps School alum Timothy Burke), is an indictment of many things, Te’o included, to be sure.

AWSM@OhioU takes off

I’m excited to announce a new student organization at Ohio University I launched last month: AWSM@OhioU. It is a provisional student chapter of a national group to which I’ve belonged for years: The Association for Women in Sports Media.

The student chapter is open to both young women and men who are interested in careers in sports media — everything from writing and editing to producing and broadcasting to public/media relations.

With the help of some of the classiest women in the profession, our weekly gatherings will mostly consist of Skype sessions.

CBS 2′s morning sports anchor, Lisa Kerney, kicked things off for us this week. The former Lisa Gangel, with whom I became friends while she worked at KING5 in Seattle, is now making it happen in the Big Apple. She discussed her career path, which began in Butte, Montana, and some of the challenges and successes along the way. After her talk, AWSM@OhioU member Taylor Petra tweeted, “Makes me so excited for the future!” and Olivia Arbogast added, “Going to AWSM meetings always inspires me to go and apply for jobs or internships.”

A Penn State problem?: Not by a long shot

A trail of university administrators may be following Jerry Sandusky to prison, and Joe Paterno’s legacy is drowning in a scum-covered pond.

The Joe Paterno statue outside of Beaver Stadium.

The rest of us sit in our Ivory Towers and pretend Sandusky’s systematic rape and abuse of young boys was an isolated incident, something that will never happen again, a terrible tragedy confined to the halls of the Lasch Building.

Some of my favorite journalists have weighed in with categorical judgments of administrators and coaches. Sally Jenkins explained the weight and specificity of Paterno’s lie. Rick Reilly implicated himself in helping to launch Paterno from coach to deity.

It’s all good reading, but – like the rest of the overall reaction to this tragedy — the focus is entirely too narrow.

Notebook: A Pulitzer Prize winner, Chicago & comps

What a wild month it has been.

All of us Scrippsies with the Scottie Pippen bust at the United Center. That's Chuck Swirsky on the left (and me over his left shoulder.)

Last weekend, I helped lead a group of Ohio University students on a Scripps alumni-sports journalism trip to Chicago. Cubs game, Bulls game, dinner with Jim Litke. Yeah, it was awesome.

However, it took me about five minutes at the Associated Press offices for that old painful feeling to pang at my heart. One news meeting in and I heard that internal voice say, “You miss this life.” 

Live stream of my interview with Sara Ganim

Ganim

At 6 p.m. ET, Friday, April 13, I will be interviewing Sara Ganim, the Patriot-News reporter who broke the Penn State/Jerry Sandusky scandal. Read here for more on Ganim and the story on which she has led the way since March 2011.

If you can’t make it to Ohio University’s Baker Theater, you can watch the interview through live streaming video at the following link:  (UPDATE: CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE INTERVIEW.)

Thank you for your support.

Reporter who broke the Sandusky scandal to visit OU

• E.W. Scripps School of Journalism Presents…
• A CONVERSATION WITH SARA GANIM
• 6 p.m., Friday, April 13 at Baker Theater

My students have a challenge to face: They have to explain to their parents why they want to major in journalism.

With newspapers closing, staffers consistently being laid off, and a steady buzz of media bashing hanging in the air, this challenge is real.

Why in the heck, parents may legitimately ask, do you want to be journalists when jobs and respect are hard to come by?

The Patriot-News crime reporter Sara Ganim visits Ohio University. Come see me interview Ganim on stage at Baker Theater at 6 p.m., Friday, April 13.

I have two words for these students searching for answers: SARA GANIM.

On November 8, 2011, the sports scene in the United States changed forever. A Pennsylvania grand jury report was released and led to the arrest of Jerry Sandusky. Charged with several counts relating to the sexual assault of eight boys, Sandusky was a former linebackers coach at Penn State and was once in line to succeed Joe Paterno.

A media circus descended upon Central Pennsylvania as the Penn State athletic director and a former vice president were also arrested on charges of obstruction of justice, and questions of who knew what and when led to the firing of legendary coach Joe Paterno.

While the national media jumped through the hoops of this circus, Sara Ganim served as the master of ceremonies. Ganim first reported on the convening of the grand jury in March — eight months before the findings were released.

Ganim jockeyed for the inside track and got it. She’d been investigating the story since 2009, when she was 22-years old. She asked questions, pried, made calls. She was stonewalled, had phones clicked off in her ear, doors closed in her face.

She persisted.

And, when the national media was catching up, she was interviewing the mothers of two of Sandusky’s alleged victims. While the national media was sorting through the details, Ganim was already publishing them.

The awards are now flowing in for Ganim as she prepares to cover Sandusky’s trial in June. In February 2012, she became the youngest journalist to win the Sidney Award for socially-conscious journalism. That same month, Long Island University named her a winner of the George K. Polk Award for investigative reporting. This week, she was at the ASNE national convention to accept her award for local accountability reporting.  In March, Newsweek named her one of its “150 Women Who Shake the World.”

Ganim is reaping awards and fame because she wanted to be a journalist. She wanted to pursue truth. She wanted to pull back the layers of a story and let facts speak for themselves. She wanted to earn the public’s trust.

And she is doing it all, all while giving fledgling journalists all the ammunition they need in the fight to explain why they want to do what they want to do.

I invite Ohio University students of all disciplines, professors, instructors, staff and community members to join me as I interview Sara Ganim at 6 p.m., Friday, April 13 at Baker Theater on the second floor of the Baker University Center.

This is going to be a great event.

* Special thanks to E.W. Scripps School of Journalism director Dr. Robert Stewart, as well as Sharon Case and Debbie DePeel. Further thanks goes to co-sponsors WOUB, the Office of the Dean Students, OU Women’s & Gender Studies, The Post, Deeder & Joe Yanity and Dr. B. David Ridpath of OU Sports Administration. 

A dead boy, a racial controversy & a basketball team

This isn’t the first time, you know. No, this isn’t the first time a young Black boy lay dead on the street with his blood on the hands of someone who simply saw him as a “Black boy.”

No, there is a list a mile long of names that represent this tragic scenario.

Some of the names we have heard, like Emmett Till, the 14-year-old whose body was found in a river with a cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire just few days after he had the gall to speak to a white woman in the summer of 1955. The alleged murderers were acquitted.

Most of the names, though, we have never heard as they are buried in the annals of our nation’s racist history, a history many of us whitewash with the assumed generosity of the Civil Rights Act or some other good-intentioned but largely impotent document.

This isn’t the first time, you know. No, this isn’t the first time Black athletes took a stand.