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After A Long Career In TV And Radio Reports, He Moved To State Varsity To Rejoin The Penn State Community, Where He Earned His Journalism Degree In 1959.

Lou Prato's been around big news stories all of his life and he's around one now the Jerry Sandusky sex-abuse scandal at Penn State.

After a long career in television and radio reports, he moved to State Varsity to rejoin the Penn State community, where he earned his journalism degree in 1959. After authoring The Penn State football Encyclopedia, he became the 1st director of the Penn State All-sports Museum. Now retired from the university, he writes about Penn State sports.

Prato's media career includes working and leading television and radio newsrooms in Pittsburgh, Detroit, chicago and Dayton, Ohio, as well as work with the Associated Press. His educational references include twelve years as head of Northwestern University's broadcast graduate programme in Washington. For a while he was a hack and contributing writer for the American Journalism Review.

Many news directors know him for his more than 35-year stint on the board of the Radio-Television Reports Directors Organisation (now the Radio TV Digital Reports Organisation), including twenty-two years as its treasurer.

He's shaken by the scandal, but he also believes that the press has unfairly blackened the entire establishment with their "rush to judgment, the conjecture, the innuendo, the outrageous commentary based basically on a grand jury report that still has to be proved in the court of law."

Never one to mince his words, he spoke about his feelings with Contributing Editor P.J. Bednarski in a chain of mails, excerpted below.

I know the horrid things are purported to have occurred with those children sicken you. But I'm sure that on a journalistic level, you are appalled by some of the coverage.

Concern about the coverage is nothing compared to the obvious concern all Penn Staters have for the victims of kid abuse and their kids, and I mean that sincerely.

But the way the majority of the media continues to portray Penn State, the people who work and live here, the scholars and faculty, the university's soccer team and even our alumni base, one might get the idea this complete area is inhabited by a horde of evil, heartless kid sex abusers. One cable TV talk show host called the Second Mile "a molestation farm." Come on!

Now the numerous sanctimonious, self-serving, second-guessing critics in the media and the easily fooled, blood-thirsty public they stir up and influence have made Penn State symbological of all that's bad in the North American culture that's until the media moves on to another shark fest, leaving in its wake a whole life taint of Penn Say will never go regardless of what the ultimate truth might be.

I am worn out arguing, discussing and pondering everything which has happened to Penn State, to me, my family and plenty of my friends in the last few weeks, and it's difficult to accept everything reported so far by the grand jury. Furthermore, it is even more hard to believe Joe Paterno was so morally deficient as his millions of baying detractors in the media and outside it announce. It's so out of keeping with character of the person.

As for [Athletic Director] Tim Curley, I have met many liars in my life particularly in academia and I cannot believe Tim is a liar and morally deficient. OK, I understand. I and hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of others were fooled by Sandusky. Therefore as to Joe and Tim, we shall see, will not we?

Therefore after all these years, this has taught you something new about the media?

I'll never watch, listen to, and read the news or watch or listen to talk shows as I had before.

You know what hurts me the most, besides what may have occurred to those boys? I was once a part of the media, a journalism graduate who was taught not only to be fair, balanced and objective, but to be sensitive of others, to get every side of the story, never to assume, and to not interject my personal or political beliefs into any story.

I was also shown how to be careful of the private agendas of sources as well as my own, to be cautious of whom to trust, to be skeptical but realistic, to resist the enticement to be first without first assuring you have it right, and to never report a rumor just because you'll believe it to be true . My, how idealistic and old-fashioned.

Maybe you don't see it being so up close and personal to this story, but this is what lots of folk would say media do with stories like these all the time.

Look, there were times in my career I didn't meet my private high standards. That bothers me to this day. But I didn't expect journalism to fall to this level of irresponsibility and shameful, evil depth that it has in the last 20 years. I'm absolutely certain there are countless thousands still working in the newsrooms of this country who share my view.

There's been good reporting on the national level, but I'm abashed, embarrassed and I'm annoyed at how a giant group of the media has reported and analyzed this story with such a pile-on mindset. The push to judgment, the supposition, the innuendo, the unbelievable commentary based basically on a grand jury report that is yet to be proved in the court of law. It has ruined the position of many folks as well as Penn State school and the entire State School area community.

It's abhorrent to me that a large share of the media and the general public has made up its mind without waiting for all of the facts to come out through the court process that Joe Paterno is the ultimate villain here for what he probably did or did not don't Jerry Sandusky and that Penn State and anyone even tangentially connected with Penn State is answerable for what happened. The criticism is vicious and most of all, so self-righteous. Not only the scurrilous websites, where you'd expect it, but supposed "legitimate media" web sites as well . If you would like more examples, read and see them on the Web yourself.

Well, you worked for the athletic program. Did you not hear anything?

For the record, the 1st I heard about Sandusky's alleged and I continue utilizing that word as I was first trained to do in journalism school kid abuse was in mid-June of 2009 when I was volunteering for the once a year fundraising Second Mile golfing contest. I didn't know Jerry well, but I had been around him at golfing competitions and I had interviewed him 2 times.

I was more mystified than shocked. I recollect. I said, "Jerry??? You have to be kidding!" I knew nothing of what was then the two reported events in 1998 and 2002, and like others I was shocked by the 23-page report to the grand jury. It's sickening and tough to read but I did.

I know you think some local journalists did some good solid reporting on this. But why failed to this story come out sooner?

There are three journalists who were on it. Sara Ganim, once the crime journalist for the Centre Daily Times, who broke the first public reports of the enquiry after she had continued on to the Harrisburg Patriot-News ; Gary Sinderson, a vet "one man band" reporter-photographer for WJAC in Johnstown, who knows the Pennsylvania court system and this community inside out ; and Pat Boland, the reporter-newsman for the local dual-ownership State College radio stations WRSC and ESPNRadio1450. He helped Ganim in her first job fresh out of Penn Nation's journalism programme in May 2008. You don't hear much about Pat because he died of brain cancer at the age of 42 in early July but he was deep into the tale.

Ganim looks like a throwback to the journalism of my youth, and based primarily on what I have noted, she seems to have more judgment and street smarts than lots of her older, more experienced media peers in Pennsylvania and nationally. She's just 24 and must be slightly overpowered with a story like this. I just hope that she doesn't slip into the sloppiness that often infects other young reporters who are overtaken by their ego when they end up on top of a big national story.

On this Sandusky story, I call Ganim, Sinderson and Boland "The 3 Musketeers." They didn't share all their information, but like many writers some place else they frequently collaborated on their research. It's unsurprising that Ganim has been the leader in informing the general public of this story. Paper reporters and many Television correspondents, especially in the major markets, can do that. Sinderson and Boland were hemmed in by the medium they were in, the myriad of obligations dictated by their categorical jobs combined with the need to get people to chat publicly on air, disguising their faces or voices if required. That restrictions lots of things.

Sinderson is my sort of old-time correspondent, and he isn't your average cameraman or videographer. It was Sinderson who first discovered the grand jury's report was posted online that fateful Fri., November. 4 placed there one day prematurely , by mistake and then he posted it on his station's website, and then he surprised Ganim with the news .

But these reporters must have known a lot was going on long before Nov.

Outsiders have was critical of the local media and regional media for not revealing more of Sandusky's claimed grave misdemeanours ; of not informing the general public sooner than this past spring of the investigation ; and, most egregious of all, of not reporting the unproven rumors that were swirling around the community.

Yet, look it up. Ganim's first Patriot-News story of the investigation was on March 31. It hardly made a ripple even in Harrisburg and State School. Check out Ganim's initial story that will still be found on the Web. There were just 6 comments from internet readers at the time two of them doubtful. Now, folk have gone back to read it and there are more comments now. But Ganim has expounded publicly she was shocked by all that lack of interest,writes tagza.com.

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