The Lions' Pride

My god appoo you act like Joe did nothing wrong.

Calling out Joe and trying to "destroy the program" are two different things though. There's a solid argument that they were the reason Joe was fired, in fact I would agree for the most part with that. But saying ESPN is trying to destroy the program for money is coutnerproductive, we are worth more to them alive than dead. Yes they reported on us to an extreme for about 4-8 weeks. They should have, it was a BFD. Yes the skewered those in administration who are being charged, no probably not enough. But if this problem was handled early on ESPN had little to nothing. It is PSU's fault, that's why they are here.

As for killing off the program, whatever. Some people were calling for a death penalty, some idiot on grantland was saying this was because of a lack of unionization in coaching ranks and corporate greed, so the idiots were out in full force. The death penalty and shutting the program down were not on the table (no matter what the NCAA is trying to say barring new allegations trending towards player amateurism and game-day eligibilty and competitive advantage). ESPN doesn't want us gone. If they did, they wouldn't have positive articles ever on us.

Yeah that was BS. Bunch of pot calling kettle black there. Someone from SI (I think) did an article about that, I enjoyed it.

couple things you can count on for the Lions247 board....
1. new-era/spulv to troll and spew misguided idiocy (see Webb/Drennon situation)
2. appoo to fight until he's blue in the face defending Joe Paterno from any wrongdoing
3. DB rants from rmj

these 3 things above are pretty much an exact science to happen at least once a week.

I was going to mention something with Mtayl and OL but couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. Kick step might have been the right call.

Also some crazy poster going nuts over anything regarding to Fitz2...

I was only comparing styles. Not content.

Sorry, but Fine's wife on audio talking to a person about Fine molesting him as a teen, who it turns out she also had a sexual relationship with, is not my idea of innocent.

I remember Cossack saying that too. And then you never heard from him again and instead you heard from that crock of shit Mark Schwarz blasting Joe and everyone at Penn State and judging everyone as guilty.
It was one of the most satisfying moments of my life to hear that P.O.S backpedal faster than Justin King in his heyday once it was found that ESPN had the Bernie Fine tapes and he tried to explain ESPN's failure to go to the police with the quote "well for one thing, we didn't witness anything ousrelves..."

Anyone else also remember the day the GJ report was released, that when ESPN would give the updates in between commercial breaks in game broadcasts, they kept saying "It is important to note that Joe Paterno reported the incident to the proper authorities in Tim Curley and Gary Schultz once he was told of the incident..."?
And then 24 hours later they decided to stop that kind of stance and instead just go along with the most inflammatory coverage possible to spearhead the witch hunt and gain viewers.

No, they pushed a specific agenda and story line they wanted to get out.

This is the idea I think apoo is talking about more than the destroy the program stuff. ESPN didn't go out of it's way to destroy Penn St but it and every media outlet did hammer home the point that there is very little journalism now in the main stream media. It was a huge story and they didnt kill Penn St but put 95% of the blame on Paterno for the next week because that is what callers, readers and viewers reacted to the most. So the audience dictated the way the story was covered. I dont think you will find that chapter in media ethics books.

Now you could argue the program was never really down but for a coaching change, which every program goes through. So why all the redemption and comeback talk? Because once again that makes the best story. ESPN and most of the media is about telling the best selling story not the true story or the fair story. And yes that is the business now but if the Joe Paterno scandal is enough for people to not want to partake in their business so be it. There are tons of people that have turned their backs on ESPN the last decade that dont care about Penn St.

Misunderstood what you were getting at, and I fully believe ESPN wanted to be known as the media outlet that took down Joe Paterno and the Penn State football program. That is an opinion, not a statement of fact, and there's obviously no way I can prove it. However, I continue to believe that ESPN views itself as the story, rather than view themselves as an honest broker of sports related news. IMO, their actions prove that, if only you look at the way they stuck their noses into the Conference re-alignment stuff.