Language in Journalism
MAY 2018
Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse story was initially broken in the news on March 31, 2011 by Sara Ganim, who at the time reported for the Patriot News. The paper operates out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania making it local to the scandal, however, due to the smaller local circulation size of 113,000 media outlets such as the Poynter Review criticized that it should have been broken by ESPN or a larger media outlet (Myers). Ganim attended Penn State University for her Bachelors in Journalism and has won several Pennsylvania state awards for multimedia reporting and storytelling (CNN). In 2011, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her story on Jerry Sandusky and the George Polk Award in journalism and the Sidney Award for socially conscious journalism (CNN). Although she now resides in Washington as a correspondent for CNN, her familiarity with Penn State and the community made her an interesting author to break the story. Her education could have brought a bias due to a loyalty she may hold to her almamater, yet also this link could have made her more familiar with the interworking backchannels of the school. Yet, it seems the ability for her to override a possible bias and see an injustice made her an ideal reporter with the locality and resources to question the institution and situation despite her newspaper being smaller than who the average reader might have expected to break the scandal.
In all stories there are holes or questions that should have been addressed. Human error cannot be avoided in reporters to some degree. Ganim and early news stories on the Jerry Sandusky scandal received criticism in mainly three areas: the terminology used within the news, the lack of voices of the survivors, and the lack of prevention information. Pamela Mejia and other researchers conducted a report of the first nine days of news coverage released on the story for the Berkeley Media Studies Group which aligns to Ganim’s reporting. Ganim’s article is entitled “Sandusky faces grand jury probe.” This title is unassuming and does not draw the reader to any accusation, the subtitle also mention Coach Paterno who is not discussed in depth within the article. Additionally, Ganim’s first paragraph states that the “football legend Jerry Sandusky” had “allegations that he indecently assaulted a teenage boy” (1). This terminology Mejia coins in the study as provoking favorable characteristics around Sandusky and in the report it shows 73% of articles tended to do this within the first nine days. Ganim also continues in the article to state Sandusky has “…an earlier allegation of inappropriate contact against Sandusky by another boy” (3). This statement once again lessens the negative associations with the terminology sexual assault or rape, but also contradicts the opening of one teenage boy by entering another case into the story (Ganim, 3). This detracts away from villainizing Sandusky and giving him these “favorable characteristics” over nonfavorable, slightly conditioning the audience.
The story also misses direct quotes from victims which was a main critique. This large absence of a first hand source is difficult due to the sensitivity of abused individuals, but effects fair and balanced coverage. The Berkley Report found survivors were quoted directly in only 2% of all articles reported by general and sports news outlets. In Ganim’s article she quotes authorities such as the superintendent of a boy’s high schools who knew about assaults and uses statements such as “According to sources, the boy told Children and Youth Services…” and “According to several sources, that boy, who was 12 at the time, alleged he and Sandusky were showering…” (3). These do not directly link to the victims and also left room for more institutional quotes such as the superintendent John DinNunzio who was quoted three times almost detaching himself to the allegations and claiming to be able to speak for a victim. This being said, The Columbia Journalism Review revealed the lack of availability to accessing documents that could have been crucial to her reporting due to Penn State’s closed record policy (Sheffield). This possibly made her rely on solely asking the right questions hoping to receive valid answers and not be able to report as in depth on the actions of Sandusky, the victims, or others involved.
A final critiquing of coverage was how it was shown as a simple local and not global problem. For example, Ganim does not discuss sexual assault or comment on sexual assault victims. The Berkley study shows 4% of prevention advocates being quoted in news articles on the case, and Ganim story aligns with this focusing on being informative on Sandusky and less on the issue of rape and repercussions. She discusses his autobiography and his charity involving children, writing “While the grand jury has been hearing testimony, Sandusky has been devoting time to fundraising for The Second Mile.” Additionally, she finished the article with a closing line from his autobiography that is ironic if the allegation would be true at the time she wrote it, “Any time you deal with young people, there will be extreme highs and lows. There have been moments of frustration, despair and heartache” (4). These two statements draw back to Sandusky, but do not explicitly bring to like a larger picture of abuse or institutional blame. As the Columbia Review showed the Freeh Report did put limitations on her abilities in some sense (Sheffield).
In my opinion, Gamin being the initial reporter to break the story was a good catalyst for other reporters to build upon. Being a reporter writing about her almamater she did well to writer objectively and remove herself from the story. There are times where Ganim does fall into the trap of using unconscious positive categorizing terminology for Sandusky. This could be a fault of her loyalty to the school, but also could be due to the earliness of when the article was coming out to not overstep allegation or accusatory without the evidence. These reasons are also why Ganim may have not coined the words rape or sexual assault, although I believe they needed to be included in the article. She was open about what she could not obtain stating “When approached recently, Schrefer said he couldn’t comment and asked a reporter, “How did you see that re- port?” and what she could obtain, A Second Mile Board member, who asked not to be named, said Sandusky informed the board of the allegations against him and the investigation” (Ganim, 3). This clarity shown by Ganim allows for her to appear more credible and not misleading to her readers.
The two-main issue I see with the piece are the issue of the voices of the victims and the lack of contact Ganim seems to have with those she writes about. The boys are all placed in the dialogue through “sources” and not spoken to directly. It makes them seem less credible and in a serious case as this there should have been direct quotes not third party quotes about the victims stories for her to include them. She uses the superintendents of the boy’s school to show institutional lack of clarity, yet I believe it allows for those voices to speak on behalf of the victims instead of themselves such as the first superintendent being her source for a victim stating, “It was strictly a touching type of situation” (Ganim, 2). This style of quote can place an initial image that the situation was less grave or build support the denial of the audience if they were fans or had loyalty to Sandusky. However, even though Ganim and early reporting was critiqued for not speaking about rape prevention and making it a broader discussion, Ganim made a wise decision to keep her reporting narrowed in and not crusade to a larger picture.
Despite these few critiques, Ganim did win a deserved Pulitzer Prize because she uncovered a story and did so from an unexpected outlet by asking the right questions. She clearly made efforts to reach the right people even if they would reject or give her lack of evidence to work with. She also did this reporting while being in a community that has strong ties to not only Penn State’s football program, but the large charity that Jerry Sandusky was running. Therefore, this story even with its few flaws was difficult to release on a community whose confirmation bias could easily override it. She also faced many obstacles of denial that made truth reporting difficult. Graham Spanier denied speaking to her and claims of knowing anything about an investigation, but as the Freeh report showed her knew in 2002 of allegations against Sandusky (Ganim). Information such as a true response from this type of source could have made her story more gripping, credible, and even believed by a loyal to Penn State audience but it was not available. Thus, she worked with the knowledge and credible sources she had to present people a starting point which transformed into a larger truth. I believe with the limitations she had she was fair in her judgements and accusations, held her objectivity, and placed herself in an uncomfortable position of pinning a “legendary man” (Ganim, 1). Although I wish there was more evidence on victims, there was room to for fabrication she did not take advantage of and is the reason her story succeeded and has gained her credibility to grow in the field of journalism.
Works Cited
CNN. “CNN Profiles - Sara Ganim - Correspondent.” CNN, Cable News Network, 22 Dec.
2014, www.cnn.com/profiles/sara-ganim-profile#about.
Ganim, Sara. “Sandusky Faces Grand Jury Probe.” The Patriot News, www.pulitzer.org/files/2012/local_reporting/local01.pdf.
Ganim, Sara. “A Patriot-News Special Report: Who Knew What about Jerry Sandusky?There Were Many Missed Chances to Investigate as Early as 1995.” PennLive.com, PA Media Group, 11 Nov. 2011, www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/11/ who_knew_what_ about_jerry_sand.html.
Mejia, Pamela, et al. “Breaking News on Child Sexual Abuse: Early Coverage of Penn State.” Breaking News on Child Sexual Abuse: Early Coverage of Penn State | Berkeley Media Studies Group, Berkley Studies Group, Jan. 2012,
www.bmsg.org/resources/publications/breaking-news-on-child-sexual-abuse.
Myers, Steve. “Poynter Review: ESPN's Early Coverage of Penn State Sexual Abuse Scandal
Slow, 'Tone-Deaf'.” Poynter, Poynter Institute , 2 Mar. 2017, www.poynter.org/news/poynter- review-espns-early-coverage-penn-state-sexual-abuse-scandal-slow-tone-deaf.
Sheffield , Hazel. “Media Reactions to the Freeh Report.” Columbia Journalism Review, July
2012, archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/media_reactions_to_the_freeh_r.php.