Bethel's "Unverified" is a must see

Bradley Bethel's "Unverified" documents  another case of media sensationalism leading to innocent people being scapegoated -- while UNC puts political correctness and expediency above common decency.

By
Ray Blehar

The media soundbites and headlines said....."fraudulent paper classes"...."no show classes"...."no show classes for athletes"....."an iconic program gone bad"....and the "longest running cheating scandal in NCAA history"

What went on at the University of North Carolina (UNC)- Chapel Hill -- in terms of media sensationalism -- was on par with the inappropriately labeled, Penn State sex scandal.

And that is why Unverified is a must see for all Penn Staters.

Bradley Bethel, a former academic counselor at UNC, adeptly lays out how the media sensationalized a false story, resulting in a so-called independent investigation with a pre-determined outcome. In the end, innocent people were scapegoated so that the school could put the scandal behind them.

Sound familiar?  

At UNC, the administration came down hard on lowly academic counselors, firing those who were actually helping the athletes with their studies.  It also fired two other administrators, but certainly put no blame on those who created the problem.


No Show Classes
"No show classes," CBS's Scott Pelley sternly stated as he stared into the camera.

Yes, no show classes, Scott.  Welcome to the world of on-line education.  


On-line courses, while not requiring attendance at a "brick and mortar" building, do require considerable work.  PSU has a World Campus full of "no show classes" offering a variety of degrees.  Some of the classes are quite difficult.  There are Universities, such as the University of Phoenix, who specialize in "no show" classes (a.k.a, on-line learning).  


Most of the UNC athletes enrolled in the "no show" classes did required reading, took on-line quizzes, and wrote papers.  The UNC athletic counselors helped students, but didn't do work for them. 

However,  the media covering wasn't interested in finding out the facts...  

Ganim's reporting on the UNC and PSU cases were based on unreliable, biased sources.

...they had a source named Mary Willingham.  And as we saw in the Penn State case, it was a source whose story was too good to check.

UNVERIFIED  

A January 2014 CNN report by Ganim relied extensively on Mary Willingham's  "research" which allegedly found 183 athletes reading between the 4th and 8th grade level.   Willingham, adding fuel to the fire, claimed she turned a blind eye to cheating and NCAA violations.

But, Willingham's study was not peer reviewed.  

Her allegations of cheating and NCAA violations were unchecked.

In a word, Willingham's work was UNVERIFIED.

Ganim and the rest of the media didn't let facts stand in the way of a good story.

McDonald's and Swahili

The stories -- and that's what they mostly were -- of student athletes abusing the system were sensationalized.

As one UNC professor put it, "it was not a time for compassion."

ESPN painted Deaunte Williams as a "fast food worker" who was exploited by North Carolina's paper class curriculum when the real story was he took out a loan and built his own restaurant and employs people.  

He is, to quote, "a job giver" and "not a poor black kid who works at McDonald's."

Amazingly, just one year earlier, ESPN did a feature on Williams, that showed he was a successful entrepreneur, homeowner, and volunteer football coach.

Joe Nocera of the New York Times wrote, Football and Swahili, in which he took shots at the idea that football players were taking Swahili.  In the article, he misquoted Williams, alleging that the former football player said 100% of freshman football players took Swahili.

Williams actually took Portuguese -- and flat out said he was misquoted.  

Nocera wouldn't entertain a discussion the misquote. 

Similary, Bernard Goldberg, looked down his nose at a former UNC athlete who took Swahili, asking him how often he used it.  The athlete responded never, to which Goldberg reacted with disgust.

Of course, no one cared about "the other side" of the story.

When the African American (AFAM) curriculum was developed the proponents of it believed native African languages should be used rather than other foreign languages, like Spanish or French. It made sense then and it makes sense now.  That was the reason why football players enrolled in AFAM were taking Swahili.

But it's too much to expect the media to figure it out.  

And that's another reason why Bradley Bethel's Unverified is a must see.

Political Correctness Run Amok

Imagine the blow back from the politically correct  if UNC eliminated Swahili because it's not particularly useful to know.

That gets us to the bottom of the so-called UNC Cheating Scandal.

Former Governor Jim Martin investigated the UNC paper classes back in 2012 and correctly found that the problem was a lack of oversight of the AFAM department by the academic side of the school.  Many of the classes were "aberrant" or "irregularly taught" from 2007 to 2011.

"The athletic department, coaches and players did not create this," Martin told the board of trustees. "It was not in their jurisdiction, it was the academic side."

Chancellor James Moeser said that UNC felt that they were helping minority students who were not quite as adept academically to get through their studies and graduate.

When the media began fanning the flames about a cheating scandal in 2013,  the administrators claimed no knowledge of what was happening in AFAM and pulled out the "corporate crisis playbook."

Wainstein Report

UNC hired a high profile lawyer, Kenneth Wainstein, to perform an independent investigation.

Wainstein Report's had a pre-determined outcome that would begin the public cleansing.

Much like the Freeh Report, Wainstein's Report would form the basis for the public cleansing.  There would be a few sacrificial lambs -- academic counselors Beth Bridger and Jaimie Lee, among others --  but those who caused the problem were not be held accountable.

It was a big time athletics problem. Everyone knew it. 

The media didn't need to read the Wainstein Report -- they wrote it.

Fired coach Butch Davis quite aptly summed up the Wainstein Report:  "tie it up and put a bow on it, blame him, kick football to the curb and move on."    

Sound familiar?

A Voice of Reason

Once again, ESPN's Jay Bilas was a voice of reason.  He properly assessed the problem was academics, not athletics.   He pointed out  that no coach can establish a class and a coach assumes if a class is offered, it's legitimate.  

If this went on for 20 years -- and the majority taking classes were not athletes --  then where were the checks and balances on the academic side?

Should athletics role to be to question the academics of an institution?  

Cue Joe Paterno, circa 1983!

Truth, Healing, and Hope

Bethel finally got a chance to interview one of the high ranking adminstrators, Chancellor James Moeser.

Moeser admitted that a "case can be made" that media pressure caused the University not to exercise "appropriate due process" and "rush to judgment."

Individuals were "harshly judged without all the evidence, without due process."

Those admissions of truth that can bring about the healing needed when a false narrative rips away at the fabric of an institution.


John Blanchard, UNC's senior associate athletic director, fired in the scandal's wake provides an uplifting -- and somewhat familiar message -- near the end of Bethel's film. 

"Don't drop out of the story and be bitter and resentful.  Keep going.  Enjoy life.  Remember the best days are ahead when we will be able to help others."  

But it was Blanchard's other message that resonated most with me.

"Have faith in the end of the story, even if you don't know what that story is going to be."

The film is a must see...and Bethel hopes to bring Unverified to State College.

The PA Corruption Network's Playbook

The similarities between the prosecution of Kathleen Kane and of the PSU 3 reveal the "playbook" of Pennsylvania's corruption network

By

Ray Blehar

The cases of current Pennsylvania Attorney General (AG) Kathleen Kane and that of former Penn State University (PSU) officials (i.e., the PSU 3) are connected by a common thread.

A group of the Commonwealth's attorneys, judges, political operatives, and their media accomplices -- hereafter referred to as the "network" -- used trumped up charges, purposely misinterpreted laws, and oversold highly dubious evidence to convict these individuals in the court of public opinion.

After examining the timelines and evidence of these cases, it appears that the network has a well defined playbook for taking out its targets and it works like this:

1.  Individuals within the network fear their own heinous acts may be exposed and publicly accuse their opponents of crimes as a means of  deflecting attention away from themselves. 

2.  The network next co-opts individuals close to the target(s) --insiders -- to assist in setting up the target(s) to be charged with perjury and other crimes.

3.  After the insiders have sufficiently undermined the targets (using various means of deception), the network's attorneys and/or judges leak damaging information about the targets to the media. 

4.  The media arm of the network uses the information in an attempt to compromise the targets or to promote guilt by association in the press.

5.  At the conclusion of this "framing," that was mislabeled as a criminal investigation, attorneys go public with charging documents that allege crimes based on misinterpretations of the laws and that are chocked full of questionable testimony from unreliable witnesses, completely illogical scenarios, and dubious evidence.  Perjury charges are standard in order to publicly smear the defendants as being dishonest individuals while attempting to pump up the veracity of the Commonwealth's lousy witnesses (who would be eviscerated at an actual trial).

6.  The media accomplices ignore the illegal application of relevant laws, that the charging documents are illogical, the lousy witnesses, and the highly questionable evidence in order to continue treating the allegations as facts and even go as far as to allege the target committed crimes for which he or she has not been charged.

7.  The public falls for the deception and believes the targets are guilty of everything and are corrupt individuals -- whether they have been charged with a crime or not. Citizen activists, public officials, and other groups and individuals -- who are beneficiaries of the corrupt network -- jump on the media bandwagon to publicly condemn the targets.

8.  Witting and/or unwitting employers recommend the targets be relieved of their duties or actually do so through employment actions -- before anything is proven and without conducting a legitimate legal review.  

9.  When legal proceedings in the cases reveal the false and questionable testimony put forth in the charging documents and the dubious evidence used in the case, the network's media arm ignores the information and continues to slant the reports so the public continues to assume the targets are guilty.

10.  The legal issues from the misapplications of the laws result in appeals to the network's  judges, who refused to rule on simple matters and keep the trials on permanent hold.  If the cases make it to trial, the targets will be convicted of lesser crimes -- that the media will treat like crimes of the century.

The network's playbook achieves the goal of protecting its corrupt dealings and/or heinous crimes by never legally proving, but publicly scapegoating the targets in a media firestorm that is high in supposition and light on facts.

To wit:  the grand jury and Montgomery County DA Risa Ferman did not find the evidence to charge AG Kane with directly leaking grand grand jury information in the Mondesire case, but you wouldn't know that if you just read the news headlines. 

Instead, they charged her with perjury (part of the playbook), lesser crimes, and for orchestrating the leaks, the latter of which Ferman and others know can't be proven.

Then again, the network's playbook doesn't necessarily include actually prosecuting the case -- because the media has already done it. 

In the following weeks, the dubious evidence used in Kane's case will be exposed, as will the details showing how the network of attorney, judges, and media worked together in an attempt to prevent AG Kathleen Kane from breaking PA's chain of corruption.

Feudale Confirms Sham Case vs. PSU 3

Feudale appears to confirm OAG wasn't going to prosecute the case against Spanier, Curley, and Schultz and that he is part of the Conspiracy of Silence that endangers children.

By

Ray Blehar

A July 14, 2013 email from Barry Feudale to the Inky's "corruption defenders" - Angela Couloumbis and Craig McCoy - appears to confirm that the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General (OAG) prosecutors had no intention of trying former Penn State University (PSU) officials.

During the Sandusky trial, prosecutor Joseph McGettigan told Judge Cleland that "we're not going to try that case."  Feudale's emails shows he also got word that the prosecution of the PSU 3 was unlikely.

As I wrote here, Rod Erickson's notebook confirmed that it was Fina's intention to use the trumped up charges against Timothy Curley and Gary Schultz to get one or both to flip on former PSU President Graham Spanier.

Media Chose to Ignore Failures At The Second Mile

Violations of the CPSL and other failures to protect children by The Second Mile were ignored by the media -- in order to sell newspapers.

By
Ray Blehar

Had Jerry Sandusky been a Boy Scout leader, there likely would not have been a "sex scandal" at Penn State University (PSU).

Imagine the following scenario...


Upon receiving a report that local Scoutmaster Jerry Sandusky had been observed showering with a boy, late at night in a seemingly abandoned PSU locker room, University officials reported the incident to the Board of Sandusky's Boy Scout troop.  

After being informed of the incident, a discussion ensued among a small group of the troop's  Board members.  One very prominent member stood up and defended Sandusky's actions,  stating he didn't think it was a big deal that a scoutmaster had showered with one of the scouts.  He added that men and children shower every day at the YMCA and the issue seemed to be a "non-starter."  He told the other Board members not to take it to the full Board for a decision.  The report was stopped dead in its tracks.

Ten years later, Sandusky was charged with the abuse of 8 boy scouts.  The investigative report revealed that PSU officials had alerted the Boy Scout troop about Sandusky and that its Board took no action.  As a result, more scouts were subjected to abuse.

What would the media have done with this information?

Would it have blamed PSU for not fulfilling its "moral obligation" to protect the boy scouts? 

Or would it have put the blame where it belonged -- on the scout troop's board?

The answer is obvious, given that there were cover ups of prior sex abuse cases in the Boy Scouts.  It would have become a story of national interest

But The Second Mile (TSM) wasn't the Boy Scouts. 

 As one PSU graduate in journalism recently tweeted....

Selling newspapers and getting clicks trumps the truth every time.

Note the next tweet by Amy Z. Quinn's employer....

There are numerous ways that so-called journalists could reference Jerry Sandusky, such as "convicted child molester" or "serial child molester," however, as the latter tweet confirmed, the media didn't believe that Sandusky's name was nearly as important (to garnering readers) as his association with PSU.

Sadly, that has been the case from the alleged leak of the Sandusky charges and subsequent press release by the Office of Attorney General (OAG).  The press ran with the OAG's story apparently without the least bit of fact checking.

Had they done any research at all, they would have learned that the unknown charity called The Second Mile (TSM) was located in a county with a history of covering up serial child sex abuse cases.  A former TSM board member, Judge Bradley Lunsford, was involved in one of the decisions that kept the lid on a prior abuse case. 

So much for investigative journalism.

The media pack pushed on, ignored TSM, made Sandusky a secondary player in the scandal, put Penn State at the forefront, and totally whiffed on the lessons learned and improvements for protecting children that should have emanated from the scandal.

Part 3: The Media’s Conspiracy of Silence

The media became willing accomplices of Tom Corbett and  the “Old Guard” BOT by not reporting exculpatory facts in the case of the PSU Three

By

Ray Blehar

The story so far:  In February 2014, I wrote Part 1 of this series, highlighting how the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General (PA OAG) suppressed and manipulated evidence in order to charge former Penn State University (PSU) officials Curley and Schultz with crimes related to the Sandusky scandal.  Two weeks later, in Part 2, I revealed how the PSU Board of Trustees (PSU BOT) engaged with Louis Freeh and various public relations firms to perpetuate a false narrative that former PSU President Graham Spanier and deceased coaching legend, Joe Paterno had concealed Sandusky’s crimes from the public.  

After the release of the Freeh Report, Governor Tom Corbett piled on, condemning the actions of “the prior administration” and “prior people who were in control.”

Corbett stated:  “I’m very disappointed in the lack of forthcoming evidence to the subpoena that was given to them by the Attorney General’s office.” 

The statement was a continuation of a theme of misattribution – or assigning blame or responsibility where it didn’t belong.  It is a fact that Cynthia Baldwin received a letter from the Attorney General in December 2011 that admonished her for failure to comply with grand jury subpoenas.  The letter referenced information that was subpoenaed before Curley, Schultz, and Spanier had any knowledge of the investigation.  Moreover, Schultz was retired at the time of the subpoena, thus had no role in answering that particular request.  Corbett’s July 2012 statement was part of the Commonwealth’s strategy of trying the case in the court of public opinion.  Their allies in the media had the easiest job of all -- do nothing.  Let the public continue to believe that the AG's and Freeh's narratives on the case were not disputed by any of the legal proceedings.  As you will see, they carried out their part magnificently.  

 

Part 3: Keeping the PSU Three Convicted In the Court of Public Opinion

After the release of the Freeh Report, the PA government,  the “old guard” PSU Board of Trustees, and especially the local media did everything in their power to ensure that the PSU Three (Spanier, Curley, and Schultz) remained convicted in the court of public opinion.    

About three months after the release of the Freeh Report and Corbett’s presser accusing the “prior administration” of wrong-doing, the OAG made the Freeh Report "official" by issuing the Conspiracy of Silence presentment (or the Freeh Report-Lite).  The conspiracy and obstruction charges in the presentment were mostly based on the testimony of former PSU Counsel Cynthia Baldwin, who claimed that the PSU Three were uncooperative in responding to the grand jury subpoenas.