UMgradMSUdad

August 28th, 2012 at 10:12 PM ^

Wow. It's all about the conspiracy to "frame"Joe Paterno, but let's not call it a conspiracy because, even though it's dishonest, that will make us sound even crazier than we already are.

I love the poll, too. Now,if they could  show us even a single media outlet that claimed or even implied that JoePa molested children, they might be on to something. 

Needs

August 29th, 2012 at 4:52 PM ^

DFW wrote the definitive article on John Ziegler, the "Paterno was framed" conspiracist, in the Atlantic in 2004.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/04/host/303812/

A telling excerpt...

 

 

The fact of the matter is that it is not John Ziegler's job to be responsible, or nuanced, or to think about whether his on-air comments are productive or dangerous, or cogent, or even defensible. That is not to say that the host would not defend his "we're better"--strenuously--or that he does not believe it's true. It is to say that he has exactly one on-air job, and that is to be stimulating. An obvious point, but it's one that's often overlooked by people who complain about propaganda, misinformation, and irresponsibility in commercial talk radio. Whatever else they are, the above-type objections to "We're better than the Arab world" are calls to accountability. They are the sort of criticisms one might make of, say, a journalist, someone whose job description includes being responsible about what he says in public. And KFI's John Ziegler is not a journalist--he is an entertainer. Or maybe it's better to say that he is part of a peculiar, modern, and very popular type of news industry, one that manages to enjoy the authority and influence of journalism without the stodgy constraints of fairness, objectivity, and responsibility that make trying to tell the truth such a drag for everyone involved. It is a frightening industry, though not for any of the simple reasons most critics give.