With all the media coverage on the latest Penn State scandal, it’s been made into a nationwide event and to be honest, I’m not sure if it’s for better or for worse. When the news had initially leaked out I thought that all the media coverage would be a huge step forward for the victims; that it would be a way for other victims to see that they were not alone and to come forward and report the sexual abuse. Then coverage began to shift; you started to hear more about the enraged students and their angry protesting against the firing of the legendary Joe Paterno. It’s not the victims fault that he was fired (I don’t believe they were even consulted before university officials fired him), but that’s sure going to put a heavy weight on the victims’ shoulders and probably deter other victims from coming forward. As Harrisburg attorney Ben Andreozzi said, “These sexual assault victims are now watching people parade and riot around the streets,” … “Now you have a football institution crumbling, and to think that is not in some way going to impact these victims is naive.”
Not only is the social media negatively affecting these poor victims lives, its content is probably not very truthful either. What gets reported in the news is rarely ever fact; it is bits and pieces of information that have been assembled to represent the views and opinions of a few people in power. People then proceed to listen this news and take everything they hear to be God’s honest truth, and possibly form their own thoughts and opinions based off of this. Their lovely thoughts then get “tweeted” or posted on some other social network so the rest of us can be updated. This “news” begins to spread like wildfire…but none of it is really true, it is just opinions based off of other opinions. This can lead to lash outs of people that have actually been misinformed. After seeing what a few big names in college football could hide for 15 years, who is to think that what’s being released into and covered by the media and social networks is actually laying out all the facts and details of the case? It’s sickening to me how much of an influence power can have on our media, and how often it lets people of power get away with things that any other average Joe would never be able to. The Penn State scandal has been a recent example of this power imbalance, and I can only hope that the victims can come out of it with the support they deserve.
Katie Sexton
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