NEW YORK TIMES

Maureen Dowd in her column “Paterno Sacked Off His Pedestal” states:

“But Freeh learned the sulfurous truth: that it was Paterno who persuaded Graham Spanier, who was the university president, Gary Schultz, a vice president, and Tim Curley, the athletic director, not to report Sandusky to state authorities. Eager to protect the brand and their cash cow, they decided to rationalize. Euphemistically, they said they wanted to do the ‘humane’ thing; so they warned Sandusky to stop bringing children onto campus. As far as the noble coach was concerned, Sandusky could simply switch the venue of his child rapes.”

WATCHDOG:

Are we missing something?  Here is an exerpt from NewsLanc’s article “Sunday News editorial’s rush to judgment on Joe Paterno” of July 9^th:  

“’After giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday, I am uncomfortable with what we agered were the next steps.’ Curley allegedly wrote to Spanier. ‘I am having trouble with going to everyone, but the person involved.’ “

“Joe Paterno did not write the e-mail. Nor does Curley say that he and Paterno had shared the same view. If he were speaking for Paterno, why didn’t Curley say ‘we’ instead of ‘I’?

“NewsLanc’s editor was perplexed by an article following the CNN report in the Sporting News that made a quantum leap in treating the excerpt as though it were a smoking gun. Rather than reporting on the Sporting News article which he considered little more than speculation, our editor rejected it and wrote the following to reporter Bill Keisling:

“ ‘I don’t know what the author is talking about. As I recall, the author is misrepresenting the CNN story. Also, the example given did go to the authorities.’

“Keisling, who has written extensively and responsibly on the scandal, responded:

“ ‘At the moment, this entire email flap seems spurious. One mention of Paterno in a thid party’s email is not exactly unimpeachable evidence…’”

Unless Dowd has information that we do not, her failure is to go back to the original source – Curley’s actual testimony – rather than accept what the Sporting News  inaccurately  reported and subsequently was repeated many other places and has come to be accepted as fact.