Indictment of Jerry Sandusky

It is must reading for everyone. It is horrific – yes. Paterno should have been fired. So should his bosses. The University made the right move in firing the president. I think they should cancel the football season. Why?

Because word of Jerry Sandusky’s abuse of at least eight children was known by adults as far back as 1998. There are at least five times since 1998 when adults could have done something.

The hero in all this is Sara Ganim, the local crime reporter for the Patriot-News in Harrisburg. She broke the story. She has stayed on the story day after day. She has not been cowed by the Penn State Good ole Boys and the football apologists for Joe Paterno. She has a timeline, a special report, the indictment – everything you need. Here:

http://www.pennlive.com/jerry-sandusky/

Subscribe to her paper. She won’t be there long. Any smart editor will hire her away as fast as possible. If journalism is to survive, it is because of reporters like Sara Ganim.

She is so great not only because she got the facts and put them in the paper – but she is going a step beyond. She is connecting the dots and asking questions even if she can’t get answers. She is putting her finger on the key issue here. Scandals like this happen when institutions believe their press clippings. They become insular and slow moving. The Catholic Church, Penn State and dozens of other places failed in their missions because their desire to protect the institution overrode their need to do the right thing.

The assistant football coach who saw the rape in the shower should have gone to the cops. Instead he went to his father.

Then he waited to tell Paterno until the next day – he should have done it that night.

Paterno told his athletic director – he should have gone to the cops.

The athletic director told his boss – he should have gone to the cops.

The president of Penn State knew of the behavior – he should have gone to the cops.

We are going to find soon that each of these people failed to do the right thing because they had lost sight of the right thing. The Penn State football program, like the Catholic Church, had grown so large, so financially successful and so protected by the community – that it could not do the right thing.

One more thing about Paterno. His firing and behavior highlight another aspect of the scandal and this is a lesson for anyone in public life. I suspect Paterno did not go to the cops not because he a malicious guy – but because he is clueles. The world had grown past Paterno. He lives in a bubble, cut off from the changes in our culture. Gay marriage, Occupy Wall Street, the Tea Party, Obama, Twitter, the Iphone…all of these are examples of a culture that is changing for better or worse. I guarantee you that Paterno is the kind of guy who does not use email. He got old. And he couldn’t understand, probably still can’t – what he did wrong.

There is a gap between our understanding of child sexual abuse and what adults are supposed to do about it. The Penn State folks were living in a 1950s, Mad Men world on this issue. Its 2011. You have to go to the cops right away.

The boot camp is an antidote to the dozens of times I have sat in very dull panel discussions about this subject as experts pontificate with war stories from 20 years ago. This is a chance for anyone to get their questions answered, try out an idea for a campaign or a PR message and bounce it off some really smart, experienced people.

We have something for everyone – a review of the Marriage Equality campaign in Vermont and how that victory was accomplished; a blue print session on the “perfect campaign, case studies on controversial issues where attendees can consider both sides and “technical assistance” where experts answer questions about the trade.

This is for everyone, activists and experienced hands alike No question is dumb and no experience is necessary. Just bring your mind and sense of humor.

Here is a link to the event.

Boston Globe sportswriter Bob Hohler brings us a great 2,500 word piece about the inner workings of the Red Sox and gives great insight into why they swooned in September and missed the playoffs. NOW YOU TELL US.

My biggest beef with modern sports journalism – and journalism in general – is that readers don’t really know what’s going on because reporters don’t tell you. It’s the same with reporters covering the White House or a senator. If you write the truth about Senator Jones, he won’t speak to you any more and then you have nothing to put in the paper. Heard it a million times.

Here is a how sports journalism works.

A reporter or two spend an entire season with the Red Sox, or the Patriots or the Bruins – from training camp through the end of the season. They get to know the players, coaches and staff REALLY well. They see lots of stuff that players would rather they not see – girlfriends, dirty or racist jokes, bad habits – in short – very human beings.

My issue with sportswriters is that they don’t write what they know. Same with the White House press corps. They know a lot. The job is to put it in the paper or up on the web. Instead, too many times, they keep what they know to themselves, content to know it and talk about it at parties, but not share it with readers.

If you are Boston sports fan, you have no idea what’s going on in the New England Patriot locker room. I think it’s because they are scared of Bill Belichick. (I’m a huge Belichick fan) They are scared that the famed coach will shut them out and never speak to them. Well – he doesn’t speak to them anyway! What do you have to lose? When you watch a Belichick press conference, you can hear a pin drop there is so much fear in the room.

Readers need to know what’s going on in the locker room because it bears on why the team is winning or losing. If Terry Francona gets angry and throws a chair at a player, readers need to know that. If Josh Beckett is overweight and drinking beer in the clubhouse during game, readers need to know that when the reporter knows it, not when the reporter chooses to write it.

Instead, we get treated like readers back in the Babe Ruth days, when sportswriters traveled and partied with the players and kept their secrets. Yes – things have changed with multi-million dollar contracts. Players are now off limits to the press for the most part. But reporters still see and know lots of interesting stuff that they could report – but don’t.

Bob Hohler’s excellent Red Sox piece should have been written Sept. 1, not after the season.

If journalism is going to survive and prosper in the digital era, reporters need to write and broadcast what they know and stop self-censoring.

“If you know it, write it.” If you do that, readers will flock.

So everyone says newspapers are dead and that great journalism isn’t far behind.

Papers in Seattle, Denver and elsewhere closed their doors. Everyone from the Burlington Free Press to the New York Times has laid off reporters and editors.

Newspaper junkies (me) love nothing more than opening up a broadsheet newspaper and digging in. Reading a newspaper gives you the pulse of a community. Junkies remember bylines, learn the backgrounds of reporters, and begin to understand the DNA of a paper – their attitude toward the Red Sox, Obama, the Tea Party, fashion, travel etc.

I used to decry the loss of newspapers. No longer. Why? The New York Times.

The New York Times is a GREAT newspaper.

The Sunday Times is a GREAT experience. It is so packed with great stuff that it ruins your Sunday. It used to be that I would race through The Times Sunday morning to get it out of the way and get on with the day. I was…informed!… and ready for the week ahead.

Now – you have to take the Sunday Times in shifts throughout the day.

Maureen Dowd, the best, toughest columnist on Obama (and Bush).

David Brooks – a thinking Republican.

Paul Krugman – angry, uncompromising.

The Sunday Magazine – newly designed, ground breaking, experimenting, complete with a column by editor Bill Keller that is blunt about Sarah Pailin and poetry.

The White House correspondents – the best.

John Burns in Iraq or London.

National Security – they always break the secrets the White House and CIA try to hide. (That’s their job).

Business Section – great stuff on the inside story about the Google purchase of Motorola Mobile.

The best reporters and columnists in the business – David Carr on the Media, Joe Nocera on business, Jackie Calmes on politics.

Sports – Used to be really boring…now it’s younger, and just better.

The icing on the cake? The Times is now transparent. Arthur Brisbane is the ombudsman who actually does reporting on the paper’s actions. It’s one thing for the Tea Party and Sean Hannity to dump on The Times. But it’s the real deal when their own employee does it. Editor Bill Keller submits to interviews and really talks about what went into a story.

“Page One – Inside the New York Times,” is the best documentary film of the year (after “Buck”).
That Keller and The Times would submit to being featured in the film reveals that the paper is doing what all journalism must do – willing to submit to public scrutiny while works on getting good.

Their handling of the the WikiLeaks information served the national interest.

They have realized that it is the quality of their product that will ensure their survival. They have decided that in everything they do, they will be the best – their paper, their website, their journalism.

Too many newspapers lost sight of their job – doing good journalism. They worried about huge profits and what they thought the public wanted – local sports and stupid stories about stuff that doesn’t matter.

Yes, we may lose physical newspapers because the generation under 40 only reads online. But if journalists produce compelling journalism – in whatever form – people will read it. That may be in a newspaper, on a website, via a non-profit model funded by foundations or blogs. If it’s good, it will have readers. If it’s bad, it will fail.

That’s as it should be.

In a post shortly after the primary and before the Democratic nominee for governor had been decided, we promised readers we’d use this blog to predict the outcome of the election for governor. Here we offer our prognostication. Like the polls the KSE partners are divided. Thus we offer two views: Kevin Ellis, Bob Sherman, and Chuck Storrow believe Peter Shumlin will win and Scott Mackey and Jackie Hughes make the case for a Brian Dubie victory.

To recap: Bob Sherman wrote a lengthy posting last spring suggesting that Republican Brian Dubie would win in this bluest of blue states. He opined that the five-way Democratic primary was good for democracy and bad for Democrats because it meant that Dubie would be unopposed all summer. In September, after the primary but before the recount had been completed, Kevin and Bob wrote that the race had tightened, primarily because the election had been civil and the heavily-contested race had attracted new primary voters to the polls.

With one week to go, we offer these observations and make these predictions. We flipped a coin and Scott and Jackie get to go second!

Kevin Ellis, Bob Sherman, and Chuck Storrow

Peter Shumlin will win by four percent. This bucks the national trend. The nation is swinging hard to the right and the pundits say the GOP will win the U.S. House, make gains in the U.S. Senate, sweep governor’s races in the Midwest and pick up seats in every legislature in America. They argue Republicans have the momentum and the energy everywhere in this mid term election. Vermont is the exception.

First, all politics are local. Vermont is different. We have no Tea Party. Our partner Scott has argued in the past we do not have any real conservatives here. He notes the Vermont GOP is a moderate party by national standards. We agree. Brian Dubie, however is not a moderate by Vermont standards. He is socially conservative (pro-life) and would support using state resources to finance religious schools. He has supported keeping Vermont Yankee open. These issues are far to the right of most Vermonters who vote. These issues have dogged him through the campaign this fall and will hurt him next Tuesday with the independent voters who will decide this race.

Second, Shumlin and Dubie care about the same things: balanced budgets, jobs, education, health care, the environment and how much all the above costs.  They offer different policy solutions. Both are equally vague. Dubie portrays Shumlin as a tax and spend career politician who will pick your pocket to solve problems. Shumlin chides Dubie for saying he will balance the budget and refusing to say what programs he would cut. Neither candidate has provided a level of detail that policy wonks, let alone voters, can objectively analyze. Thus neither will win the election on policy alone.

Third, both have “gone negative.” This means their debate demeanor and their paid advertising has all been about how bad the other guy is. The hand wringers are appalled: they say it’s dirty politics and that Vermont politics should be “clean!” We agree the campaign rhetoric has been rough. But it has not been dirty.  Dubie has argued Shumlin is slick. Dubie’s corrections/pornographer advertising was especially harsh.  Shumlin has argued Dubie is slow, uninformed and dishonest. His Pinocchio advertising was equally tough. We think both camps scored with their negative ads. Neither has won the day either so we call this a draw.

Fourth, to win Shumlin needs to carry Addison, Chittenden, Washington Counties and all of Vermont south of Route 4. Dubie needs a large turnout everywhere else and a big win in Rutland and Franklin counties. Shumlin has already won one close election this year. He will get out the vote again.

Finally, progressives will vote for Shumlin. In an election that is close, this is an important factor. The left will back Shumlin and US Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, is promoting Shumlin heavily this week. It will make a difference.

One more thing – Shumlin has an irrepressible personality that is beginning to show through. The campaign appears to have taken a toll on Dubie’s own sunny personality. In an interview with Bob Kinzel on VPR this week, Dubie was prickly in the face of tough questions about education taxes and the negative ads. Nothing gets Shumlin down. He reminds us of Bill Clinton in New Hampshire in 1992 as the Comeback Kid.

Scott Mackey and Jackie Hughes

We agree with our partners that any pro-life Republican faces an uphill battle winning statewide office in liberal Vermont.  Brian Dubie also has to overcome a mainstream Vermont media that is clearly rooting for Peter Shumlin and doing what it can to help him win, both with endorsements and with selection and placement of stories in the weeks before the election.  For example, the media hounds Dubie to get specific on how he will close a $100 million budget gap while accepting “we’ll get a waiver” as an answer for how Shumlin will pay for a new multi-billion dollar, taxpayer-funded “single payer” health care program.

However, despite these formidable obstacles, we think Dubie still wins by about 2 points.  Here’s why:

Enthusiasm gap. Democrats were very fired up in 2008 when Obama won big, both nationally and in Vermont.  This time, it’s the Republicans that are fired up.  This enthusiasm gap will help Dubie, even in Vermont where the effect will not be nearly as large as in other states where Republicans are going to win big.

Independents. Vermont independents went big for Obama in 2008 because they were mad at George Bush over many issues.  However, independents that vote on fiscal and pocketbook issues are now upset with Obama and the democrats.  These independents are also more likely to be concerned about the possibility of one-party domination in Montpelier and what it may mean for taxes and spending.  Look for Dubie to do well with independents.

Older voters. Older voters are nervous about their future.  Shumlin’s proposals to add state-funded preschool, allow schools to spend more even as enrollment declines, and create a single payer health system are popular with younger families, but not so much with older Vermonters.  These folks do not have kids in school and are already covered by Medicare.  Also, they are not enthusiastic about putting more prisoners – even non-violent prisoners – on the streets.  Look for Dubie to do fairly well with older voters, who tend to vote in disproportionately higher numbers.

Phil Scott. It seems like every small contractor and other home-based small business person with ties to the trades has a Scott sign.  Phil Scott will win big, and he will bring these “sometimes voters” to the polls this year.  They will support Dubie.

For these reasons, we believe that Brian Dubie will survive Peter Shumlin’s momentum surge and will be elected the next governor of Vermont.

Examples: Republican Brian Dubie calls Democrat Peter Shumlin unethical. Shumlin says the biggest misconception about him is that he is “slick.” Where is the story about this alleged quality in Shumlin. Political insiders talk about it all the time via email and on the street. Yet the media can’t seem to write that story. One journalist told me that they have written it and that people won’t talk on the record about it. I don’t buy that. Oh – and I heard the other day that Shumlin’s wife Deb is out on the campaign trail. That is a story. Shumlin told us months ago the two are separated – and now she is campaigning for him. Deb Shumlin is a talented dynamo of a person, a huge asset to a campaign. Is that not a story – that the estranged wife of an allegedly “slick” candidate has put aside personal issues to work for him because she believes him to be such a good candidate.

Example 2: Brian Dubie refers to “housewives” balancing budgets, calls the China-born Harvard Medical School professor hired to redesign our health care system a “doctor from Taiwan.” And he says abortion is not an issue in this campaign. Free Editorial Page Editor Aki Soga comes inches from saying that Dubie made a racist statement. Yet we get no follow-up in newspapers. In my day, we would have run over to Shumlin’s campaign and asked him about the statement. Doesn’t this reflect something about Brian Dubie – that he is a from a military culture dominated by males that still talk about housewives, doesn’t really care about abortion and plays fast and loose with people’s ethnicity (Taiwan vs. China).

The answer to both of these examples is “I don’t know.” That’s why we should get to read about it in a newspaper!!! By the way, given Dubie’s “housewives” comment, has anyone asked him how many women he has advising him at a senior level.

I know Dubie and Shumlin. They are both excellent people. But this is a campaign for governor. Mark Johnson over at WDEV wants them to take a clean campaign pledge and not attack each other. WHY? A journalistic friend of mine told me this week that she doesn’t want to cover the “circus.” WHY?! It is a circus! It is a great circus. These are two smart guys who talk a lot. This race is a reporter’s dream. Yet the media is acting like they don’t want to offend anybody.

Another journalist said to me this week that they didn’t think Dubie’s comments amounted to racism and therefore didn’t merit a story. That’s fine. But that discussion should be done in the newspaper. It is not the reporter’s job to be the arbiter of what is a story and what is not. Their job is simple – get the news in the paper or on the air. Let the people decide.

Another issue – I think the press is timid, afraid of being called biased by one side or the other. Get over yourselves. This is a great campaign between two talented politicians backed by passionate supporters at a critical time in Vermont history. There are a lot of talented journalists in Vermont and they look like they are holding back. I guess I sort of get that when it comes to the Associated Press. But we now have blogs and video, Facebook and Twitter. The media need to stop hiding behind that old canard of objectivity and cover this race. Any more objectivity out there and we won’t know who to vote for.

Please, the next time Dubie calls Shumlin unethical, it ought to be a front page headline.

I hope the media gets aggressive before it too late. This great campaign will be over all too soon.

If you said zero, you are on to either campaign stupidity or a new dramatic trend in politics.

I was shocked when Seven Days co-founder Paula Routley told me of the no advertising development. Routley and I worked together years ago at the Burlington Free Press. Since then she co-founded and now runs with partner Pamela Polston a really good newspaper. Week in and week out, they produce darn good journalism in the arts, politics and culture. A lot of it is the stuff you can’t get in the daily newspaper. (Story for another day)

And Seven Days has pioneered local journalism on the web, pouring resources into blogs and vlogs.

The paper is jammed packed with ads every week. That means a lot of people read it, for whatever reason – movie times, arts coverage, Shay Totten’s political column etc. Circulation is 34,000. But we all know that weeklies sit around on the kitchen table for a few days unlike the dailies. Seven Days is passed around from friend to friend.

So with Democratic candidates desperate to win votes in Chittenden County, why did no one buy an ad in Seven Days?

I think it has something to do with the allure of TV. Peter Shumlin stunned Vermont with his upset victory in the primary – in part owing to his early and authentic TV ads. Doug Racine relied on his ground game with mail and field operation. But there is something about TV advertising that confirms for a candidate that s/he is real; that they have arrived. And of course, their out-of-state media consultants in D.C., not understanding the influence of a powerful newsweekly, always tells candidates that it’s TV or bust.

I get the early TV strategy and believe it worked for Shumlin. But why would candidates’ needing Chittenden County votes ignore one of the most powerful delivery vehicles for their message, especially in Vermont where people still rely on print for their information.

Keep your eyes on Seven Days in the general election to see if this trend continues.

Coming soon: Brian Dubie’’s web strategy.

We assumed for the moment that Kagan was gay. If true, I thought we had the opportunity to move civil rights ahead 25 years with the first gay member of the Supreme Court.

But strangely, no one was talking about it. There were blog rumors. But the New York Times, always trying to be perfect, called her “unmarried.” No one else was writing about it even though the Washington buzz machine was, well, buzzing about her sexual orientation.

Couple of days later, the bomb explodes. The Wall Street Journal runs a page 1 photo of Kagan playing softball. Huffington Post and Politico run stories quoting Kagan friends saying she is NOT gay; that they used to set her up on dates.

Then we learn the White House has been telling reporters on background that Kagan is straight.

And lastly we learn that Kagan herself told the White House she is straight.

What a mess. Even after Vermont approves a same-sex marriage equality law (a proud moment for this firm) and we are just beginning to talk about the absurdity of the gays in the military policy, we still can’t talk about this issue honestly.

I really hope Kagan and the White House are telling the truth about her sexual orientation. If they are lying and she is gay, it means they were afraid of telling the truth, that they were ashamed of her sexual orientation; that they placed a successful nomination over the truth. That sets back civil rights in this area for along time.

Worse, is the way the media let the story come to them. Instead of confronting the issue and leading the conversation, they followed internet rumors and White House leaks on a really important issue.

What will REALLY be fun to watch is Republicans struggling to attack Kagan if she is gay. Will they really say she can’t be on the court because of who she likes to date? How will Democrats and the president handle that one?

I have lots of liberal friends who say this is the death of Democracy and the Democratic party. Why? Because the Republicans and their corporate friends have all the money! Put aside the usual (and also boring) Republican retort that the liberal labor unions do the same thing. Are we really going to make judicial decisions based on what we think might happen?

There is either a First Amendment prohibition against the abridgement of free speech or there isn’t. Even if my friends are right, isn’t that an outcome-based reason? Are we going to chip away at the first amendment protections because we think it will create an outcome we want? I’m not so sure.

And is this court decision going to make things worse than they already are? There seems to be some notion that our system today works. Take it from someone who sees it every day. Politicians at every level spend a majority of their time raising money. They figure out how to get around the spending laws by creating PACS and other groups. They hate the system and would rather spend their time governing.

One of the reasons Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut is in political trouble and is retiring is because the public perceived him as in the pocket of the banks and bankers, many of whom are headquartered in his state. True or not, I guarantee you Chris Dodd spends A LOT of time with the financial services industry as the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. And I guarantee you he calls them A LOT, asking for money – under the current system.

And the people in my business of communications and politics don’t like going to fundraisers or getting the solicitation calls. We’d rather work. Vermont actually has a really good law than bans its politicians from asking a registered lobbyist for money during the states legislative session. That cleans things up fairly well. But don’t be fooled. It doesn’t stop them from forming a PAC and soliciting money anyway.

Take a look at Glenn Greenwald’s piece in Slate about this. And Eliot Spitzer’s comments are good too. Can this ruling really make the system worse than it is? I don’t see how it can get worse.

I am really skeptical about adjusting the first amendment because of the outcome we want. The society surprises you. Corporations are already voicing their displeasure – under the first amendment of course – with the ruling, saying they want out of the game. IBM has always said it doesn’t contribute to candidates.

You might see a wholesale rejection of the system as a result of this ruling. You might see a vigorous debate about it. TV commercials, radio talk shows, web ads, Facebook chat.

Will some Democratic lawmaker lose their seat because of negative ads paid for by some corporate raider? Sure. (That happens in every election already). Will some corporate lobbyist threaten a member of Congress with a bag of campaign money if he doesn’t vote the way that lobbyist’s corporate client wants? Yes. And that happens today. But remember that former Congressmen William Jefferson (cash in the freezer) and Randall Duke Cunningham, were caught and convicted.

Predicting the outcome of Supreme Court cases under the First Amendment is risky business, especially when you are trying to control people’s speech. It may be the outcome you want today. But tomorrow, it might be something you hate.

More than 100 people have died in U.S. custody in the jails since 2003. And the Times reports that U.S. immigration officials covered up information about the mistreatment and deaths. In one shocking instance, former Vermont reporter and gubernatorial aide Michael Gilhooly, now a spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, rebuffed a reporter asking about a detainee with a fractured skull. Gilhooly told the reporter he could not answer her questions. But the Times reports that he had already told superiors about the inquiry and shared information of the detainee, a Guinean tailor named Boubacar Bah. The Times reports that Bah had been left in an isolation cell for 13 hours before an ambulance was called.

The Times reports that agency officials in Washington and Newark, N.J. conferred by telephone and email about avoiding the cost of Bah’s care and also the bad publicity.

Bah died.

What a mess from top to bottom. You can bet there are lots of meetings happening right now in the Obama administration about how this was handled from a communications standpoint.

What should they do? Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano should immediately order an investigation and an overhaul of the immigration detainment policy and bring in an independent, respected authority to oversee the changes. Then once she has discovered what happened and why, she should repeat over and over again the changes and progress made.