Friday, November 2, 2012

Paterno and the Predator: How to Cover a High Profile Scandal


Can you imagine covering a story and being pepper-sprayed by the police?
That’s exactly what happened to Anna Orso a reporter at the Penn State Collegian while covering a riot that broke out during the breaking of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
The staff of the Penn State Collegian have been honored nationally for their coverage of the scandal from beginning to end. With a the staff of 175 people, they were able to play a sheer numbers game and have reporters and photographers staked out throughout the campus and locations around State College, Penn. Because of this they were able to cover every aspect of the story.
Now imagine having an entire issue laid out and sent to the presses when you find out that your cover story about Joe Paterno retiring is actually not the case, instead he has been fired. The staff at the Collegian literally had to stop the presses and recreate almost an entire issue. Finally, they submitted to print around 3:30 a.m. on Nov. 10, 2011.  With 10,000 papers in print, none were left on newsstands by noon the same day.
One thing I found very interesting at this session was that editors writing at the Collegian were a rare sight when the Jerry Sandusky scandal broke, while at The CHIMES it is done on a daily basis.
Courtney Cook, ’13 Managing Editor

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