By
Ray Blehar
On June 18, 2012, the mother of Victim 9 took the stand to testify about her son's abuse. During the testimony, she was asked if she had ever reported Sandusky's behaviors to anyone. She answered that she had reported it to two persons - a school official, Mrs. Short and her son's counselor, Mr. Spickler.
The mother had told Spickler that her son was uncomfortable with Sandusky because he was "touchy feely." Spickler told the mother not to report her concerns because of Sandusky's stature in the community. See transcripts below.
P-N reporter Charles
Thompson's coverage of the mother's complaint managed to repeat the information about Sandusky being "touchy feely," but as usual, there was no mention that Sandusky's behavior had been reported to the boy's counselor (who is a mandated reporter under the child abuse reporting statute).
At first, when Victim 9 made complaints about
Jerry being “touchy,
feely,” his mother didn’t pick up the hints of a
humiliated child.
Once again,
the omission was quite breath taking considering that the only time the words “touchy
feely” were used to describe Sandusky’s behavior was during that particular sequence of testimony.
This omission would quite remarkable if it was not for the fact that it was the P-N’s practice of excusing
everyone (CMHS, DPW, CYS, and The Second Mile) except Penn State officials for their failures to act on Sandusky's inappropriate conduct.
I have
little doubt that if the name” Spanier” or “Curley” or “Schultz” had been
substituted for “Spickler,” Thompson’s column would have spent a lot of "copy" writing about to whom the
mother complained and their failure to act.
The bias in the P-N's reporting couldn't be more obvious.
Next: Chapter 5: The DPW Cover Up
No comments:
Post a Comment