A Few Thoughts About Syracuse Fine Case - No Outrage for ESPN?

Those in the know on the audiotape at ESPN, rather than trying to determine the importance of the tape themselves, should have taken it to the police in 2002. Of course, absolutely no thought was given to the fact the Fine could continue to prey on other young boys. Hell, Fine's wife says on the tape she thinks there are other victims.

Are journalists somehow not ethically responsible for reporting potential sexual abuse of kids to the authorities?

ESPN has executives and lawyers who care more about ESPN than they do about victims, other potential kids who may sufer, child molesters, etc. They don't risk offending anyone, unless their lawyers give them the nod.

Couple of thoughts:

1, ESPN wasn't the only journalistic entity the victim was talking to in 2002 or that heard the tape at that time.

"The tape that everybody is hearing now from Fine’s wife, the 47-minute tape during which Laurie Fine says she knew 'everything that went on,' Michael first heard that tape nine years ago. Why? Because he and McAndrew[reporters for Syracuse newspaper] were the ones who told Bobby Davis they needed more proof than just his version.

Meaning somebody who would back Davis’ version of things, the way a stepbrother of Davis’ named Mike Lang suddenly decides to back that version now, after all these years. The paper felt it needed more than Laurie Fine’s voice on that tape, because while she says plenty about her husband, she sure doesn’t call him a child molester."

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/college/bernie-fine-sex-abuse-scandal-signs-syracuse-jerry-sandusky-penn-state-article-1.983272

2. In 2002, the Syracuse victim was an adult, not 10 years old as in the Penn State incident. Neither ESPN nor the Syracuse newspaper did anything to prevent the adult victim from going to the police with his tape, if he so desired. The victim, not they, knew to a certainty that the tape was authentic. If the journalistic judgment was that the story was not sufficiently verified, even with a listening to the tape, then it would have made no sense for ESPN or the paper to go to the police. Once turned over, the information would be at very high risk of being leaked with the same potential undesirable consequences as if the unverified story had been reported by the journalists themselves.

As a follow-up comment, and as further set forth in the link above, the Syracuse newspaper reporters themselves wrote up a lengthy story on the scandal and wanted to go with it, but were vetoed by their bosses. The reporters may well have been right and the higher-ups may have been unduly concerned about offending a prominent institution in the community. And ESPN may be accused of being subject to a similar dynamic, given its relationship to promoting college basketball.

My main point is that the failure to publish is not in the same context as the failure to report in the Penn State cas, because a 10 year-old effectively has no voice or independent ability to go to the police, which, as of 2002, was not true of the (by then) adult Syracuse victim.

ESPN is not exactly known for journalistic excellence.

Rojo, if the head basketball coach, the Athletic director and the President of Syracuse university all knew about it and covered it up, then letting Coach Fine bring dozens of more victims into the basketball lockerrooms for years afterwards, I can guarantee there would be the same outrage as the Penn State scandal.

You do see the difference in the two stories, don't you?

ESPN had indirect knowledge of child molestation, and told no one. Paterno had indirect knowledge of child molestation, and told his bosses.

True people with direct knowledge (McQuery,Davis, Mrs. Fine, others) should have went to the cops, but with Penn St, ESPN definitely took a holier than though approach. As someone said before, ESPN is not known for its journalist integrity, but it is a well run business.

stfu you white fool or we'll pepper spray you !

malmo wrote:

Rojo, if the head basketball coach, the Athletic director and the President of Syracuse university all knew about it and covered it up, then letting Coach Fine bring dozens of more victims into the basketball lockerrooms for years afterwards, I can guarantee there would be the same outrage as the Penn State scandal.

You do see the difference in the two stories, don't you?

Yes, and your version of the PSU events is a good story that may or may not bear any resemblance to the truth. But I agree, story time is fun!

rojo wrote:

So their excuse (in part) for not publishing the tape a decade ago or even last week is because they had no independent video of the wife to confirm it was her voice.

Really?

They are journalists with tv cameras at their disposal. A moron could have walked up to Mrs. Fife at a game and asked her a question to get her voice/picture on a video camera and yet ESPN offers this excuse.

In reality, they probably didn't publish it as they feared a lawsuit.

Your thoughts?

And on this point, I didn't realize that the reporters and executives at ESPN were experts in voice recognition or determining the veracity of this tape. Funny, I would have thought that the police might be better equipped to handle something like that. I wonder if ESPN ever handed over the tape to the authorities so that they could look into it. That's what was so damning to Joe Paterno, right? But I guess in his case he didn't turn over evidence that he didn't have in the first place.

The accuser at Syracuse was saying he was abused until the age of 27!! If you are 27 and complain about being abused ththat is your own fault

ESPN pulled a Paterno.

They knew and didn't do anything.

LP!! wrote:

ESPN pulled a Paterno.

They knew and didn't do anything.

Accept for the fact that Paterno did exactly what he was supposed to do. People don't realize you can't go to the cops with hearsay. If he didn't witness the assault, the cops would have just told him to send in someone who did.

less ons wrote:

LP!! wrote:

ESPN pulled a Paterno.

They knew and didn't do anything.

Accept for the fact that Paterno did exactly what he was supposed to do. People don't realize you can't go to the cops with hearsay. If he didn't witness the assault, the cops would have just told him to send in someone who did.

Mmmmm, no. Hearsay is a technical rule of admissible evidence applied in a courtroom. Police are certainly free to act on hearsay as an aid in their investigations (and, in particular, as a starting point for investigation) and do so all the time. If you walk into a police station with hearsay information on a murder, the police will not send you away and say they can't do anything until you yourself find someone whose testimony will be admissible in a courtroom.

As a by the way, unlike the Penn State cops, the Syracuse cops have now admitted that they knew of the allegations in 2002 and chose not to open an investigation.

52 minutes ago - by Thomas Casale - Former police chief knew of allegations

Syracuse Police Chief Frank Fowler said former chief Dennis DuVal knew about sexual abuse allegations against Bernie Fine back in 2002. “The Syracuse Police chief at that time, Dennis DuVal, was made aware of the allegations against Bernie Fine. Due to the fact that no investigation was started, detectives didn’t prepare any formal reports.”

I don't quite understand what seems to be a theme here: "Everyone should be more pissed at so and so." I think most of us can get worked up about stuff in the news on our own without being prodded. I mean it's hard to summon outrage when there's no emotion behind it.

I have been ranting on here for the last few years against espn and what they have turned into.

Along with sports illustrated, at least half of what they printed about Ohio State was inaccurate. Besides filing LAWSUITS against the same universities they are making millions off of to try and dig up dirt, they routinely find disgruntled people willing to tell any story they can come up with to make a name for themselves and try to hurt other people.

What they do with incidents like Penn State is sickening. They are every bit the propagandist machine that the Ministry of Public Enlightenment was for Hitler and Nazi Germany. Espn had enticed every hate group in america to start buying plane tickets to happy valley for the lynching.

This isn't even taking into account their business model of outbidding the local stations and networks for the best teams and then holding those games hostage as they extort money from the cable and satellite companies who have to cave to fan pressure but always pass those costs on even to those who have no interest in sports. It really is a tax imposed on everyone with the benefit solely to espn.

You can't even watch a game just for enjoyment without the constant news ticker across the bottom about every scandal they can create, every coach that has been fired or every athlete that has been arrested or broken some idiotic rule the NCAA came up with to add to their collection of 153,000 pages. Even if you can block that out with some tape across the bottom of the screen, you still have to wade through the ridiculous amount of commercials they air to make even more profit.

I keep telling people if they continue to suppport this, they are going to end up with pay-per-view just to watch your local game. In their quest for as much immediate profit as they can make, espn is too stupid to see they will make these sports unavailable to the avg fan and ruin them like what happened to BOXING over the last 25 years.

I finally had enough and got rid of cable. I watch a little of the games at the fitness center when I am working out as long as I can stomach the issues above but I have to have about 3 different programs to watch at once so I don't spend my whole time watching commercials.

How would a local station come up with the money to show most sporting events? You also need to learn what a tax is unless you are reading the Trib in which case you need a new paper.

I like the crawl, allows me to keep up with scores of other games. Apparently few dislike it since it is on every news channel as well.

Those ridiculous commercials pay for the broadcast you moron. TV is not about entertainment or sports, it is about advertising.

The word is except. And No it is clear that Paterno did not do what he was supposed to do, if he did no wrong, he'd still be coaching. Hearsay is only a rule of evidence and it doesn't apply to either establishing probable cause or a grand jury indictment. If his wife testified against him at trial he'd be done. Then you wouldn't need the recording. Also don't bring up the spousal privilege because she can waive it.ESPN and the Cuse cops are in the same spot as Paterno, they knew and didn't do nearly enough.Where is the outrage?The liberal lamestream media won't attack its fellow members, but they go after icons of tradition and order.

less ons wrote:

LP!! wrote:

ESPN pulled a Paterno.

They knew and didn't do anything.

Accept for the fact that Paterno did exactly what he was supposed to do. People don't realize you can't go to the cops with hearsay. If he didn't witness the assault, the cops would have just told him to send in someone who did.

rmbr scholastic sports america wrote:

They are every bit the propagandist machine that the Ministry of Public Enlightenment was for Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Oh-oh! Godwin's Law is already in play!

"Godwin's law is a humorous observation made by Mike Godwin in 1990 that has become an Internet adage. It states: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." In other words, Godwin observed that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis."