Panel discusses handling of Syracuse and Penn State scandals.
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Ellen Blalock / The Post-StandardESPN reporter Mark Schwarz reporting on the Bernie Fine investigation Nov. 30 outside the Carmelo K. Anthony Basketball Center at Syracuse University.Media executives from news outlets that broke the Penn State and Syracuse child sex abuse investigations strongly defended their coverage of the scandals this morning during a symposium at Syracuse University.
But editors from The Post-Standard and ESPN acknowledged more attention should be paid to the alleged victims in high-profile cases.
The media panel began the daylong discussion, “When Games Turn Grim: Can Media Cover Sports Scandals Responsibly?” sponsored by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. It included Mike Feeley, assistant managing editor of The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa.; Jeff D’Alessio, special assistant to the CEO, Sporting News; and Pete Thamel, college sports reporter for The New York Times.
Michael Connor, executive editor of The Post-Standard, noted that competition compelled the newspaper to publish a story about sex abuse allegations against SU assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine. ESPN broke the news.
The paper had investigated the allegations in 2002 but had decided there wasn’t enough evidence — and no police investigation — to substantiate accusations made by former ballboy Bobby Davis, Connor said.
“We were not going to run story,” Connor told the crowd of about 100 people. “Once ESPN breaks a story, it’s a national story. At that point, it’s out there. It’s our program. It’s our community. We owe it to our readers to make sense of it.”
Connor and senior ESPN vice president Vince Doria painted a picture of journalism ethics that can be at odds with what the public wants.
“Hindsight is always 20/20 in these things,” said Doria, who is also director of news for the network. “We’ve always been very, very cautious to a fault in reporting these types of stories.”
Later, he added: “We operate with a set of standards and principles that, if we just abandoned them for short-term gain, we might as well go into business with the police or any other ...”
Those journalistic ethics focus on finding sufficient corroboration to print a story, but may not address the needs of the alleged victim, Connor said.
After Post-Standard reporters quizzed Davis at length about his allegations of sex abuse leveled at Fine — including an 11-hour interview in Utah with Thursday panelist Mike McAndrew — Davis may have felt there was no other recourse after the paper decided not to print a story, Connor said.
We may have “raised expectation in him that something was going to happen” in 2003, Connor said. “We did not give him recourse. It was if we had slammed the door in his face.”
In the future, Connor said the newspaper might point an alleged victim to other outlets — including sexual abuse counselors — to address their issues if the newspaper does not feel it can print a story.
But Connor — like the other media executives — defended the media’s handling of the case in the context of journalism ethics.
He pointed to two opinion pieces he wrote in The Post-Standard describing the newspaper’s decision-making in the Fine case and said it would have been a breach of ethics to give police or SU information that reporters had from their investigation in 2002.
Connor defended the paper’s decision not to turn over a recording of a compromising telephone call between Davis and Laurie Fine, the assistant coach’s wife, which suggests — but does not explicitly state — that there were transgressions by her husband.
“It‘s sensational, it suggesting a perverse marital arrangement. We didn’t see evidence of a crime,” Connor said.
When the recording was made nearly a decade ago, Connor said, the specific purpose was to see if Laurie Fine would admit to witnessing her husband sexually abusing Davis. That didn’t happen, Connor said.
The paper had no obligation to turn that tape over to police or SU, just as the police or the university have no obligation to share information with the newspaper, Connor said.
“We’re independent, we’re separate, and society is freer and healthier because of it,” the executive editor said,
Thamel, a Syracuse University alumnus and sports reporter for The New York Times, said there was a big difference between the SU and Penn State scandals.
At Penn State, there was an official investigation, with a grand jury report vetted for years by investigators, Thamel said of the scandal involving assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
With Bernie Fine, “it was two guys on ESPN” making accusations, Thamel said.
Doria said he can’t say how much Penn State’s scandal influenced ESPN’s decision to run the Fine story. But he said the network found Davis credible enough to air given a second accuser, Mike Lang, came forward.
The nature of competitive news also influenced ESPN’s decision, Doria said. The network knew The Post-Standard had information about the story and that police were opening an investigation. Officers came looking for Davis and Lang at ESPN’s studios, wanting to question them, Doria said.
“Rightly or wrongly at that point, it gave the story immediacy in our mind,” he said.
But that motivation to break the news also led to the story coming out piecemeal. The tape between Davis and Laurie Fine, for example, didn’t come out for many days. Doria said that was because ESPN wanted to try and interview Laurie Fine and send it to voice recognition experts before using it.
That delay led many people to believe the network was prolonging the coverage on purpose, he said. Syracuse men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim is being sued for slander for making critical comments about Davis and Lang after the initial stories, before the tape came out.
SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor wrote in USA Today that she would have fired Fine earlier had she known the tape existed.
But The Post-Standard and ESPN each defended their handling of the tape, noting there was very little proof from it. Doria called it background information that was one piece of evidence used in determining the alleged victims’ credibility.
“Without video proof, at some point you’re making a decision that I believe a source is trustworthy,” Doria said. “The risk is high — it’s not like trading a baseball player.”
The second panel, "The Advocates," at 1 p.m., includes Robert Hoatson, executive director of Road to Recovery; Katherine Redmond, founder of the National Coalition Against Violent Athletes; Julie Cecile, executive director of McMahon/Ryan Child Advocacy Center in Syracuse; and Allison Young, director of sexual abuse services with Elmcrest Children's Center in Syracuse.
The third panel, "The PR Professionals," at 2:30 p.m., includes Leland Bassett, chairman and CEO of Bassett and Bassett Incorporated, Communications Managers and Counselors; Keith Burton, president of Insidedge; Gary Grates, principal of WCG Worldwide; and Kelly Rossman-McKinney, CEO and principal, Truscott Rossman.
The fourth panel, "The Ethicists," at 3:50 p.m., includes David Rubin, professor and dean emeritus of Newhouse School; Tom Rosenstiel, director and founder of the Project for Excellence in Journalism; and Robert Steele, professor and director of the Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University.
Each panel will conclude with a question-and-answer session.
The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available in SU pay lots. For more information about the event, see sportsandscandal.syr.edu.
