I Didn't "Pull a Paterno"

In case you've been away from all media for the past couple weeks, Joe Paterno was the legendary Penn State football coach who failed to report a friend and former assistant coach's child molestation to police. I have been outraged about this entire incident, especially with a former collegue who claims he's been a good journalist by "seeing both sides of the story" by defending Paterno.

UGH! I could go on and on about this.
1) The man has not worked as a journalist for more than three decades.
2) His supposed objectivity seems more to me like upholding the status quo and the position of safety, of fitting in. In this case he thinks he's seeing both sides, but when it comes to controversial ideas like 9/11 or the real reasons for our wars in the Middle East, he refuses to even entertain the evidence and the troubling questions. Finally, after years of pestering him about 9/11, he finally admitted that the USG could have planned it all, but that's "nothing new, government's are doing that all the time." But my God, that doesn't make it right! If that's not something a journalist should take a stand about, what is?
3) Like the greatest American journalist of all time, Edward R. Murrow, knew, there are times when a journalist must take a stand, as he did against Sen. Joe McCarthy and his anti-democratic, unconstitutional Committee on un-American Activities, which saw Communists everywhere. If journalists had taken a stand against all the illegal, immoral things the US government has done in the last decade or so, the country and the entire world would be a lot better off. (Think: torture, illegal wars, the murder of foreign civilians, the recent murder of three American citizens without trial, the so-called Patriot Act, illegal wiretapping and other surveillance, the police state tactics of the Dept. of Homeland Security and most visibly the TSA, on and on and on...).

Not just journalists but citizens in general need to take a stand, especially when children are involved. This ex-colleague of mine said that he could see why Paterno would not want to make a fuss about the molestation. He wanted to protect his reputation, his job, the football program's prestige, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I said, Sure I can see all that, but none of that makes what he did or didn't do a moral decision. If every time someone doing the upright and moral thing knew he was going to be rewarded and honored, everyone would do the right thing. A moral decision is when you know there might be negative repercussions for yourself and yet you do what is right, not necessarily for yourself, but for another. This ex-collegue seemed not to understand what I was talking about.

There have been plenty of times I put my safety in danger to help a child or a battered woman, calling the police or social services on negligent parents who let their diapered girl roam barefoot down and across the street, on a mother who yelled mercilessly at her toddler, on a former husband who was ripping down the door of his ex-wife's apt. while screaming he was going to kill her and her boyfriend, and on a neighborhood jerk who was in the process of killing his wife. The last guy drove his car full speed ahead at me when I was crossing the street. I yelled at him, "Good one, you asshole. Run me down in the middle of the street in broad daylight with a bunch of witnesses." He never bothered me again. I also called the father of four brothers who ran to my apt. when their mother was being beaten by her boyfriend. I also stood up to a nextdoor neighbor who let his kids play in my yard and bang their ball against my windows on a daily basis. He took a swing at me. I dodged it. These and other incidents didn't get me any rewards or kudos. On the contrary, they put me in danger. But I never thought not to take action.

That's why, when driving down a narrow, congested street on Saturday, I took action to save a young child. A girl not more than one was standing in the road. Other drivers were carefully going around her as if she were a stray dog. I immediately parked my car where it was, as there were no close parking spots. I stopped traffic and took the girl by the hand, leading her to the sidewalk. I motioned to a man pulling out of his driveway, and he motioned to the house next door. The gate to the yard was wide open. There were a few steps to the front door, so I lifted the girl and carried her. She was so calm with me, so willing to have me take her anywhere I wanted to go. In short, the kind of kid you could walk off with and you'd never see her again. I had to bang on the door to get someone's attention. Finally, a teenager came to the door. "Your daughter was out in traffic," I said. He said his brother was supposed to be watching her. "Well, he wasn't, and the gate was wide open." That poor, little girl. She's probably ignored all the time.

So the next time you see a child in danger or being abused, don't pull a Paterno and do nothing. I wish that everyone would just act instinctually when they see a child who needs help. Act without thinking. Act solely to protect the child.