Poynter Review: ESPN’s early coverage of Penn State sexual abuse scandal slow, ‘tone-deaf’

ESPN
Kelly McBride and Jason Fry, writing for the Poynter Review, criticize ESPN for being slow to cover the Penn State sexual abuse story with the gravity it deserved. “ESPN should have been leading the charge to ask tough questions and shed light on this scandal. Instead, it was the tiny Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. out in front of the journalism pack,” they write. “It wasn’t until mid-afternoon Tuesday that ESPN finally seemed consistently to ask the right questions and find the appropriate moral outrage. That’s 72 hours after the story first broke.” Particularly galling: A post, published Monday, about how the scandal would affect recruiting. || Who are you calling tiny? The Patriot-News has a Sunday circulation of 113,000, says Daniel Victor: “Hardly tiny.” || 10 questions: Some of the questions journalists should ask Paterno (MarketWatch) || Related: Charles Apple critiques front pages reporting Joe Paterno’s firing, complimenting the The Times-Tribune in Scranton “for resisting the temptation to go with a nice, reflective file shot and instead focus on news pictures, shot on deadline last night.” | Crowd tips over news van during riot (Mediaite) || Time to start over: Joe Posnanski should scrap the “simple, unambiguous” biography he is writing about Paterno (Deadspin) || Earlier: Sports Illustrated writer haunted by favorable profile of Jerry Sandusky (Poynter)