Joe Paterno gave a quick, off-the-cuff speech during this week’s presser where he demonstrated a broad understanding of today’s confusing mass media market.
Joe Paterno Has (1950s) Sportswriting’s Back
↵↵It’s like I don’t even turn on the television set anymore, because one television station is anti-Obama. The other one — you like to have somebody have an impartial view of some things because they studied it and they know about it. And they’re not being influenced by the guy that owns the paper or the guy that owns the radio station so it’s a different world and it’s not the kind of world that I’m comfortable with.
↵↵Well-said, Joe. That part gets an A plus for its quick, thumbnail sketch of how media-as-business leads to outrageously skewed and sensational perspective. Your legendary perspicacity stands intact, sir.
↵Your references, however, could use some new downloads.
↵↵…I think some of the great guys I’ve known and who wrote well who set a standard for writing, people don’t realize guys, they were all sports writers. They were all sports writers first. Grant Rice and those guys, and I don’t know it’s a different world.
↵↵Grant Rice was Grantland Rice, the legendary sportswriter who, sadly, died recently. I mean in 1954. Joe Paterno taught him how to ride a horse, scold a child, and be a man before he died in a tragic jalopy accident. Even at the age of 348, the memory still stings.
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