Purported emails, Paterno and another black eye for the news media.

The CNN headline read: "purported emails suggest Paterno may have altered decision not to report abuse".

 This is of course from the news organization whose political polling division did a poll asking " Do you think Osama Bin Laden is in hell"? when the only thing that has really gone to hell is CNN as a news source.

 The CNN report which could only appeal to the terminally flat lining brain, was picked up only by one or two other media outlets ( it seems this nonsense was even too much for most other media outlets who so far have ignored it) .

It should also be noted that CNN has changed its headline since yesterday when it read, " Purported emails suggest Paterno may have influenced.." and today its "altered".

 This is what happens when a news organization reports on the contents of an email they cant even verify exists because they haven't seen it and so are reduced to calling it a "purported" email. Which is why CNN is only a purported news organization reporting on purported things, because they not only cant verify one single thing they are reporting on which naturally doesn't stop them from reporting it anyway, they can't even see how preposterous and illogical their "may have's" are.

 They have also referred to these as "alleged" emails, and "alleged contents" because the contents have been leaked by someone in the attorney general's office who obviously wanted to leak them to the media possibly to influence public opinion before jury selection at Curly's trial. The attorney general is now refusing to return phone calls asking about the leaks.

 For those not familiar, the purported email which no journalist has ever seen or held in their hands, and are being headlined based on something being read to them over the phone by an anonymous source, and then drawing a clearly brain dead conclusion is this:

 According to CNN, the email from Curley purportedly allegedly says:

 "After giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps".

 Aside from the fact that only the brain dead, which most journalists seem to be, could draw from that email the possibility that Paterno somehow influenced Curley's damning decision not to report the abuse, it needs to be pointed out that ESPN, in also quoting from the same purported alleged email reported a slightly different quote:

 According the ESPN, Curley's email to then Penn State president Spanier said

 "After talking with Joe and giving it more thought I am uncomfortable with going ahead with what we all agreed upon and reporting it to everyone". The "everyone" included Child protective services.

 The "Boy Eats Foot" level of journalism and assumption and insinuation CNN was trying to sell for the sake of a headline  is that "after talking with Joe" means that Joe talked poor Curley into not reporting the abuse, even though every one of Paterno's public statements and his grand jury testimony is to the contrary and would not only mean Paterno lied, somethng not even remotely in his character, it also would have opened Paterno up to perjury and obstruction of justice charges and child endangerment along with the same failure to report abuse Curly and Schultz are facing. Is that what CNN wants everyone to consider is a possibility? That Paterno would lie over something like that and do it at a time when neither Paterno nor anyone else had any idea the Sandusky matter would become the biggest story in the country for more than a month? Is that supposed to make sense?

 When considering that Paterno's honesty and integrity has been beyond question his entire life, this shows the depths that CNN is willing to sink in it's desperate groveling attempts at commercialism.

The obvious conclusion to draw from those emails is that after Paterno met with Curley ( as he testified he did) and told Curley what McQueary had told him, and after everyone including Paterno agreed that it would be reported to who Curley describes as "everyone"  which included Child Protective Services, Curley on his own, "after thinking about it", changed his mind and told that to Spanier in an email, and Spanier supported the decision even mentioning the possibility that it could make them vulnerable for not reporting it.

 Paterno's public statement at the time, supported by his grand jury testimony was that he reported the allegation to his superiors, Curley and Schultz, and according to Paterno's statement, "..that was the last time the matter was brought to my attention until this investigation and I assumed that the men I referred it to ( Curley and Schultz) handled the matter appropriately".

If CNN's new smear attempt of Paterno was the truth, it would have meant Paterno hung Curley, Schultz and Spanier out to dry. And given the charges they were facing they would just let that happen? Is this CNN's idea of crack journalism?

 And while I have no desire or intention of defending Curley on anything ( the email, if it was followed through on, clearly makes him and Spanier culpable for not reporting it and he reversed his decison without bothering to inform Paterno he changed his mind ), it is more than possible that, given the sanitized and vague version of events Paterno passed on from what he was told by McQueary which ranged from "something sexual in nature" without getting specific,  to "horsing around", Curley wasn't comfortable with reporting Sandusky for sexual abuse ( the real problem was nothing was done about the 1998 accusations).

 And if that stirs up the zombies of the brain dead, keep in mind that McQueary's actual trial testimony was so vague and inconclusive, that while Sandusky was convicted of 45 of the 48 counts of abuse against him, one of the three counts of which he was acquitted was the charge of the rape of Victim 2 in the Penn State shower based on McQueary's eye witness testimony.If the jury didn't think what McQueary testified to under oath in court was credible or conclusive enough to convict Sandusky in a court room, one can only imagine the way he presented what he admitted was a sanitized version of what he saw to Paterno, Schultz and Curley.

 But  why this report by CNN is truly gutter journalism, is that without a doubt, if Paterno had in any way influenced or been involved in Curley's reversal of the decision to report it, Curley would said so. And the best case Curley could have made to Spanier to support his decision not to report the abuse, would have been to say that "Joe" agrees, or "Joe suggested". But he didnt.

 Nothing in CNN's report based on "purported emails", "alleged contents", ":maybe's" : "could have's" "suggests", and "may have"s without one shred of actual evidence or testimony or common sense to back it up, would have been allowed to be called news 20 years ago. And is probably why most other news organizations aren't even picking up the story. It is nothing more than incompetent gutter, "Boy Eats Foot" supermarket tabloid journalism to attract attention without a shred of intelligence or journalistic integrity behind it. And is probably why recent Neilsen ratings show CNN at an all time low.

The only real characterization of what CNN has tried to call news isnt that the emails "suggest" anything. Its CNN using them to make, not news, but insinuation. And making it for the sake of attention and commercialism.

After three days of this story appearing on the CNN site, there has not been a single report that anyone at CNN either called or tried to call Curley himself to ask him if Paterno did or suggested anything that caused him to reverse the decision to report the abuse to "everyone" as they had "all agreed on". They didn't call to ask if Paterno had anything to do with his decision to change his mind and not report it. They didnt call to ask if Paterno even knew about it. They could have called and asked about  all of this before they ran the story. But they didnt. Because that would have spoiled all the fun.

NOTE: Subsequet to this being written as of 5pm Eastern on July 3rd it has been noted that CNN has removed the Paterno "may have" emails story from its front page.

ADDENDUM: On July 7, Don Vanatta, a writer for ESPN Magazine, writing on the leaked emails wrote:

'A source who has reveiwed all the early 2001 emails said that the few that have been leaked 'are definitely out of context' " 

Vanatta went on to say that his source who has seen all the emails suggested that the one email used by CNN to make insinuations about Paterno was selectively leaked to put everyone in the worst possible light.